Recall, of course, that you do not require government oversight for a small prize draw held in a confined location amongst a particular group of people: those who patronise a particular shop or pub on a certain day, or employees of a small business. You can sell Raffle Tickets to your particular group, at a particular time, in a particular venue, without going through the Gaming Commission. Do be sure to read up on the rules and ascertain whether your prize draw falls into the proper categories before you decide to forgo a visit to the Commission.

As you know, it is illegal to sell alcohol without a licence. It is not, however, illegal to offer alcohol as a prize in a contest! Therefore, you can earn money at a charity event by selling Raffle Tickets and offering drinks as prizes.

Some offer a single drink as a prize, which means you can offer many prizes and draw out the suspense. Or, you could help everyone get their drinks more quickly by using bottles as prizes. In theory, the winner would pour out draughts for each of their friends and the evening’s festivities can get underway with greater haste.

Consider your guests. Would they prefer an evening of drinking to another kind of entertainment? Whether they genuinely want to help your cause, or simply show up for a beer, selling alcohol Raffle Tickets can help turn your dry and dusty event into a rousing success!

Prizes

The easiest way to show your supporters that you care is to offer them prizes that offer a solution. Perhaps you can find a company willing to donate some solar panels in exchange for a great deal of publicity if you’re holding a large raffle and expect to attract many donors. Or, for smaller prize draws, perhaps a simple compost bin, or a homemade solar oven. Ask a contractor to offer his or her services evaluating a home for energy efficiency.

Printing

Choose Raffle Tickets printed on recycled paper, or ensure that used Raffle Tickets will be recycled later. Find a printing company that uses environmentally sustainable processes such as recycling used printer cartridges, depending on alternative energy sources, and relying on environmentally friendly shipping companies.

Publicity

The Internet is quite green; it takes very little energy, especially if you’re using a newer computer. While you may not want to forgo traditional print publicity entirely, use all your online resources for the best coverage and promotion. Send email newsletter, post links to forums, and spread the word with social networking. Be sure to scan all your posters and upload the images. Put your website to work!

Selling Raffle Tickets helps children learn important skills: presenting themselves in front of adults, the power of persuasion, accounting for money, and more. Encourage each child to reach an appropriate sales goal. Prepare them in advance with scripts explaining who they are, what their school stands for, and what programs the money will support.

You may choose to have two levels of Raffle Tickets: a larger prize with more expensive ticket for adults, and a lower level that most children will be able to purchase with pocket money. For instance, for twenty-five or fifty pence, you could raffle off lunch with a favourite teacher or administrator, or some other coveted prize. Do your students like to make announcements over the PA? Eat pizza and ice cream at lunch? Leave class for some undirected computer time? Offer the prize that will motivate the children.

Offer prizes for those children who sell the most Raffle Tickets to grown-ups. Turn your prize draw into a math lesson: let them keep track of earnings, perhaps with a large graph shaped like a thermometer. Announce the winners in a public assembly and let their peers cheer on their accomplishment.

Arrange the type of holiday your supporters are most likely to prefer.

• For outdoors types, a camping trip
• For singles, a resort holiday
• For young couples, a romantic spa
• For families, a theme park
• For elders, a group tour

Use your imagination. Who is likely to buy your Raffle Tickets? Where are they likely to want to go?

If your donors are generous, an all-expenses paid trip to an exotic country across the sea might help you earn more money, but even a few nights in a hotel in London will appeal to those who feel stuck in their village and simply need to get away from it all for a little while. Wherever you can send them, they’ll be happy to go.

The more you can include, the better. Remember, a true holiday will require:

• Airfare (or bus fare, or money for petrol)
• Hotel or other lodgings
• Three meals a day
• Some form of entertainment

If you have a choice of locations, think of the extra you can include, such as lift passes for a skiing holiday, theatre tickets in the city, or hour-long massages at an expensive spa.

Then book the trip and start selling more Raffle Tickets.

Some of them were free raffles, and others cost a pound or so to enter. I could be winning extra borrowing privileges at the Uni library, a 50 pound gift certificate to the Uni book store, a year’s subscription to a newspaper, a Curious George doll, a few different books by unknown authors, or a tiny torch that clips on to your book so you can read in bed without keeping your partner awake with excessive light.

As you may have guessed, I attended a large book festival this week!

While I often write about printing your own Raffle Tickets online to help you raise more money, free raffles have their place in the world. Rather than selling Raffle Tickets for fund raising purposes, completely free raffles help your organisation in another way: they help you to build your mailing list and create free publicity for your group. While potential supporters are filling out the information on your Raffle Ticket, you have an opportunity to pass out literature, discuss your mission, and generally create goodwill around your name.

Once you’ve mined the data from these Raffle Tickets, you can add the names and details to your database. Spreading the word about upcoming events and promotions is easier than ever. Remember, with free raffles, you need not obtain expensive prizes. Small, coveted items work just as well. What do people like? As you can see, an item like a book can draw certain customers to you. Perhaps a tray of meats from a local butcher, or an attractive scarf. If it’s attractive and perhaps a bit frivolous, you will quickly collect plenty of names while drawing in new supporters!

raising money is often the process of persuading others. When you sell Raffle Tickets or Event Tickets for your fundraisers, you are selling yourself as much as you are selling your charity. It’s not enough to represent a worthwhile cause: your event must be appealing, and your organisation must appear worthy.

Consider how your group appears to others. When you approach a potential donor, are you well-dressed and well-groomed? Can you discuss your philosophy with accessibility and intelligence? In short, do you appear to be a good investment?

Of course, there are those who will buy Raffle Tickets simple for the sake of buying Raffle Tickets: because they covet the prizes, or because they are used to supporting your organisation. But you want to take advantage of all potential markets.

When you’ve gone to the bother of printing your own Raffle Tickets, be sure your sales crew looks as good as your print job. Create an aura of professionalism so that potential supporters who are unfamiliar with your work can easily believe in you and your cause. Remember: individuals donate to people as much as they donate to causes. Sell yourself as your sell your Raffle Tickets and you’ll reach a wider audience, leave a better impression, and come away with more money for your work.

Your upcoming fundraising drive is imminent, and you don’t want any dodgy schemes fouling up your big plans for financial security. Everything needs to come together to ensure that your organisation continue achieving the mission for another year. You have big plans for the world, but you don’t need a maths expert to tell you you’ll need money to carry through on those plans.

That’s why you’ve considering adding a raffle to your other activities. You can kick off the fundraising drive weeks earlier than planned, and start minding the pounds well in advance. But times are tight, and some of your top donors may not be able to offer such large donations as they have in the past.

Some organisers report new success in offering two levels of Raffle Tickets, which requires only minimal extra work, but can result in additional funding from a new source: those who are interested in your cause but have very little money. Surely, your group is in need of pounds and pounds, but when the economy is restricted, the pence can add up as well.

Divide your prizes into two categories. In the top category, you place the new cars, the exotic holidays, and other big-ticket items. These are your two-pound Raffle Tickets. When you start selling these tickets, word-of-mouth will generate new customers excited to purchase a chance at this expensive prizes. In the second category, you offer the gift certificates, the small novelty items, and other inexpensive prizes. You can sell these Raffle Tickets for twenty-five or fifty p. It may not sound like much, but imagine selling a thousand of these tickets. Your supporters pocket change can make a big difference.

When you’ve divvied up your prizes, print your own Raffle Tickets, two sets. You’ll have twice the earning power, and the ability to reach a new audience and spread your message even further.

Your raffle will be unique. If you have held a similar prize draw in the past, you make have some basis of comparison, but your organisation and supporters change from year to year, and you will have to change your expectations as well. While your Raffle Tickets will print and ship in about twenty-four hours from the time you place your order, the length of your own event may vary.

Perhaps your raffle aims to earn a small amount of money to support an immediate cause. If you will be selling Raffle Tickets only to co-workers, or to customers in a particular pub, you may want to make an announcement in advance. A small sign may inform people that you will be selling tickets only during lunch hour, or between six and eight p.m., on a certain day. For small raffles, or raffles held along with a small event, it may be best to create a finite block of time for sales, and stick to it. Then you can hold the draw at the end of that time and announce the winners while all contestants are still there.

Larger raffles may require more time. You will still want to make an announcement regarding when tickets will be available. If you believe you can meet your sales goals in two weeks, that is a reasonable length of time. Some organisations may be more comfortable stretching the process out. You can sell tickets for a whole month, or an entire season. Just be certain to publicise and honor your own schedule.

Keep in touch with your sales team. They should have a better idea of how much excitement there is in the draw, how many tickets they think they can sell, and how long your audience will remain interested in the process. For large items such as houses and cars, your supporters will be willing to wait months to learn if they’ve won. If you are offering small prizes such as DVDs or books, you mostly likely will want to close the draw after a few hours and distribute prizes right away.

Keep your eye on the clock–or the calender–and you should be able to determine the best length of time for you!

You may wonder about the advantages of printing ones own raffle tickets online. What is it about custom raffle tickets that make them superior to other forms of fundraising? The first idea to keep in mind is that a raffle can be held in conjunction with any other event. It can literally multiply your fundraising efforts. In fact, UK Raffle and Lottery laws actually make holding a raffle at the same time as another event easier than holding one on its own.

Raffles are a wonderful way to engage the community in your organisation’s efforts. Since the law of the land makes donations the most effective way of obtaining prizes, your raffle forces you to engage with many businesses and individuals. You will achieve greater exposure and create new networks when you hold a raffle.

Of course, selling raffle tickets requires that you engage one on one with your benefactors. This helps to engender good feelings and publicity for your cause. People will remember your smiling sales team, and when you print your own raffle tickets, they will remember your custom logo, too!

Exposure and brand recognition while you earn money? How spectacular is that?

Finally, (for the post–of course I could go on all day about the benefits of printing your own raffle tickets), raffles help you generate excitement. Hopeful expectation is the cherry on top of charity gift-giving. Donating money feels wonderful, and winning prizes feels even better. And that moment between the two–the knowledge that one has done the proper thing, coupled with the hope or reward–that is a special result! Your raffle is a catalyst for wonderful emotions.

So consider how many people you can help with your raffle: your organisation, the people who benefit from your charity, those who partner with you in your efforts, and those who achieve that wonderful sensation resulting from the purchase of a raffle ticket.