Starlisha Poe Robinson
In recent years, I’ve been directly involved or participated in many raffles. These raffles have taken place at church fairs, fundraisers for local youth sports teams, and school fundraisers. I even won 100 dollars from one of the raffles I participated in! There have been raffle fundraisers that I’ve been involved in that did not accomplish their goals and there have been some that exceeded their goals. What I have taken from both experiences is it depends on how much effort is put into the fundraisers. There are great benefits to running a raffle fundraiser when plans have been put into place to help maximize the sales of raffle tickets through prizes and volunteer encouragement.
Non-profit organizations often use raffle fundraisers in an attempt to offset operation costs. Therefore, careful planning needs to take place for a fundraiser to be successful. To accomplish this, there must be a certain number of tickets sold at a reasonable price. An organization can ask individuals how much they are willing to pay for a raffle ticket. It is important not to set the price of the raffle tickets too high. If a person thinks the price of a raffle ticket is too high, they will not purchase one even if they see items they want. Once a reasonable price has been accomplished much thought needs to be put into the prizes.
From personal experience, I’ve noticed people buying more of reasonably priced raffle tickets when there is a good selection of prizes. Obtaining prizes can get expensive; however non-profit organizations can ask individuals or other organizations to donate products that can be placed in the raffle. The donations can be applied as a tax write off when the charitable organization is established as a non-profit. When picking what items, the organization should determine who they are targeting and what type of product these individuals are interested in. For example, if the organization is a church and the majority of their members are young families, they may select prizes that children will like or items the mom or dad may find useful. They could also have vacation packages for a family of any variation. These types of raffle prizes will need to be planned well in advance.
Motivating volunteers can also be a challenge. However, incentives such as prizes and money can boost their eagerness to sale. For example, there can be several small prize incentives for volunteers who have sold 50 tickets or more, but a larger prize such as a tablet or IPod for the individual that sales the most tickets overall. These types of incentives have worked in the past and it also is a motivating factor which allows for some good old fashion competition.
There are great benefits to having a raffle fundraiser. However, there has to be a bit of thought put into raffle fundraisers to meet sales goals. Pricing the raffle tickets at an obtainable price is one way a non-profit organization can sale many tickets. Also, getting a head start and seeking out donations for suitable prizes can help them achieve their fundraising goals. There must also be an incentive that will encourage volunteers to sale as many raffle tickets as possible. These incentives must be intriguing enough for the volunteer to willingly to put their time and energy into selling tickets.