As the Christmas fundraising season hastens, we continue to advise you regarding the best ways to maximize your earning power and raise more money for charity than you’ve ever raised in the past. Foremost amongst the top tips for Raffle Ticket sales suggested by our professional correspondents is to have ones tickets stapled into booklets of 5 tickets each. If you print your own Raffle Tickets online, this should be a standard option, and adds very little to the cost of your order.

To what advantage? Stapled ticket booklets help make your prize draw a financial success by encouraging donors to purchase multiple tickets, rather than a single Raffle Ticket: one step toward multiplying your profits by 5! It’s simply a matter of convenience for you and for your supporters. Stapled booklets are simple to sell. You can encourage multiple sales by pricing tickets appropriately, and ensuring that the price of 5 tickets is an even number. Sell 1 ticket for 2 pounds and 5 for 10 and watch your profits soar!

Keep checking this blog as the winter progresses for more expert advice from fundraisers who have traveled this road before and know the best route to take.

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Has your organization begun planning your big Christmas prize draw? We’ve asked the experts for their top tips in aid of selling more Raffle Tickets this year, and might find yourself surprised to hear some of the best fundraising advice the Internet has to offer.

For instance, do you depend on a paid sales crew, or a group of dedicated volunteers? Have you not considered asking others to help? According to our most successful contacts, you’ll sell far more Raffle Tickets if you send stapled booklets to all members of your organisation. Consider the size of your mailing list. If each member receives 5 tickets to sell, how many additional sales would that create?

Include a letter asking each member to purchase the tickets themselves, or to sell those 5 tickets to friends, family, neighbors, or colleagues. It’s a small number, but it will truly add up. Just be sure that you provide a method for the home office to track these sales, so you can be assured that tickets entered in the prize draw have been bought.

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Back in March, I reported on the human egg raffle, wherein one lucky UK couple won a human egg, along with IVF services, to be provided in the US (as UK law prohibited such a prize draw). Controversial or not, apparently, the Bridge Center were not the only organisation to realize how profitable such a raffle might be.

From the States, a similar circumstance, without the donated human genetic material. Dr. Mark Trolice, an infertility specialist, started the charity Fertile Dreams to help those who, like his own wife, have difficulty conceiving. Every year, they sell raffle tickets to raise funds for the organisation, with the grand prize being a full round of in vitro fertilization treatment. The group also encourages infertile couples to consider adoption, as Dr. Trolice and his wife have, completing their family with 5 children!

Last year’s raffle winners, Niki and Fred Trusty, won big. They had already decided, after many years of failing to conceive, to give IVF a try, and attended Fertile Dreams’ annual conference, Paths to Parenthood. Hearing of the prize draw, Fred calculated the odds and the couple decided to take a chance—20 chances, actually. The purchased 20 Raffle Tickets, spending $500 (about £320) and won the treatment. Doctors harvested 18 of Niki’s eggs, one of which eventually became her son, Harrison, now 6 months old. She calls him her miracle baby.

Planning your own prize draw? No, you can’t raffle off your own children, but you can think about what your group has to offer, and what your supporters likely desire. Like the Trusty’s investment, the price of your Raffle Ticket may seem small compared to the value of winning that top prize!

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Here’s a novel suggestion for leveraging the power of Gift Certificate, Raffle Tickets, and charity events, which benefits both the not-for-profit charity and the for-profit sponsor! It’s a variation on the scaled prize draw, which I had discussed at length in the past.

This version can truly benefit both organisations:

• Increases brand awareness for both groups
• Garners good will for both groups
• Provides attendees with a value-added bonus
• Boosts traffic at the sponsor’s shop

It works best at a charity event sponsored by a brick-and-mortar shop. Here’s how you do it.

Inside the venue, set up a small display of prizes: merchandise from the sponsor’s shop. A volunteer should monitor these prizes and sell Raffle Tickets, perhaps for a pound each. Other volunteers can certainly move about the venue selling more Raffle Tickets, if you wish to push sales.

At the gate, all entrant receive a Gift Certificate, good for a free Raffle Ticket for, say £50 of merchandise at the sponsor’s shop. Here’s the key: the Gift Certificate can only be redeemed for a Raffle Ticket at the sponsor’s shop. Donors who attend the event must stop by the shop to benefit from the prize draw. If the display inside the venue is done properly, customers will be eager to visit the brick-and-mortar location to see more goods.

In the meantime, the first prize draw adds an extra element of festivities to the evening. Guests can examine the merchandise, purchase tickets, and await the draw. You can increase excitement by awarding prizes throughout the evening, continually reminding people that there is still time to buy more Raffle Tickets (save the most valuable prizes for last) and that they can visit the sponsor’s shop after the event to arrange for another Raffle Ticket!

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Did you ever stop to consider the people who purchase your Raffle Tickets, enter your prize draw, and support your organisation? I’ve identified eight types of customers:

Diehard fans support your organisation, no matter what. They’re always willing to help, and, provided you haven’t hit them up too many times in the last few months, they’ll buy some Raffle Tickets, just to help your cause.

Sometimes fans support your organisation in theory, and they’ll support you financially, if they like your prizes, and if your tickets don’t cost too much, and if they haven’t just bought a 3-D TV they need to pay off.

Obligated buyers may not care about your mission or your prizes. They’re buying Raffle Tickets because they know your sales team personally. The bigger and more gregarious your sales team, the more of these supporters you’ll have.

Gamblers like to take a chance. They’re not interested in the prize or even the odds so much as they care about taking a chance. They love possibilities, so remind them about the thrill of winning.

Prize lovers don’t want to hear about your goals. They just want to know whether you’re offering the gadget they desire (but can’t afford). They love MP3 players, new phones, and trucks. They’ll pay a little extra for a Raffle Ticket as long as you offer a great prize.

New supporters are future diehard fans. They love your charity; they’ve just never heard of it. Your sales team can bring them into the fold, turning them into loyal supporters, as they sell them Raffle Tickets.

Big spenders love buying things while others are watching. Catch a guy with a fat wallet and a pretty date and he’ll buy some Raffle Tickets just to prove that he can.

Miscellaneous buyers are those occasional, extra sales. They didn’t plan to buy a ticket, they didn’t really need a prize. You just caught them at the right time, in the right mood. They took a chance. And that’s why you sales team need to take more chances, too. The more people you approach, the more tickets you’ll sell.

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How will you help your supporters get away while you sell more Raffle Tickets??

The most popular types of prize draws are those awarding holidays and vehicles. Are you ready to capitalise on this information? Indeed, these are big-ticket items, but with proper preparation, you can organise and manage a big-ticket prize draw. It takes only some advance planning, some networking, and some hard work and you’ll be well on your way to selling more Raffle Tickets.

Some organisations have the funds or the connections to pull this sort of promotion together effortlessly, but most of us will need to think about it. Who do we know in a position to donate our large prizes? Travel agents? Collectors? Do you know the owners of a car dealership, a bed and breakfast, or a company that offers day trip adventures? Begin by making up lists. Don’t think merely of the people you know. Consider their friends as well. If someone in your organisation has a rich, philanthropist uncle or an old university chum who collects antique vehicles, put them on your list, too.

Now, create your pitch. In many cases, it’s helpful to write your script down first. Remember to include:

• You name
• The name of your organisation
• Your group’s mission statement
• The specific intention for the fund you will raise
• A specific donation request

Do your research. Find phone numbers and contact information for everyone you wish to reach. When you do reach them, speak politely but confidently. Don’t feel any shame in asking for a donation: you are working for a really worthy cause, and people will be happy to help you out! Consider how happy you’ll be when you’ve secured your large donations and can get down to the happy business of printing your own Raffle Tickets online. It will be easy to choose a design that reflects the nature of the prizes you offer, and those prizes will be spectacular.

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When you purchase customised Raffle Tickets, you expect high-resolution printing.

At home, you might spend fifty pounds on a toner cartridge so your child can print out full-colour images of his favourite cartoon character or holiday snaps of the friends she made over the summer. Perhaps you remember the daisy wheels and dot matrices of the past, but today’s printers need to be fast and sharp or they end up in the rubbish, just another jumble of plastic and electronics that’s outlived its usefulness. And if that’s why you expect from your home printer, how much more ought to be accomplished by a professional quality machine?

Your Raffle Tickets, professionally printed, should look even better than anything you can print at home, providing your prize draw with that air of perfection you want to bring to all your endeavors. Sharp lines, bright colours, glossy finish. These tickets are the emissaries of your organisation. No matter what you’re raffling off, or what text and images you’ve employed, the printing on your Raffle Tickets should be all business.

And under the printing, the paper on which your tickets are printed ought to be all business, too. Never thought much of paper? We measure papers grams per square meter, or gsm. Your standard paper, the paper stocked in your office, used in most office applications is between 75 gsm and 120 gsm, whereas your durable business cards are most likely 175 gsm. When you print your Raffle Tickets, you should expect coloured card stock to weight in at 175 gsm, with 165 gsm for white card stock.

Smooth matte finish or semi-gloss? It’s your choice. Either way, when you choose professionally printed Raffle Tickets, they should look as if they’ve been printed by professionals. Read your printer’s website and find out what you’re about to receive.

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You can turn your prize draw into a complicated and multi-layered affair, or you can keep it simple. If you fancy an easy, breezy fundraiser that fills your coffers without filling your time, it’s time to get back to the basics. What do you need to hold a successful prize draw? Interesting prizes, effective Raffle Tickets, supporters to buy them, and a distribution method to sell them.

• Prizes: You know your supporters best. They may be willing to take a 50 p chance on a small prize: a new football, for instance, or a skein of yarn, or a gift certificate to a popular independent book shop. Perhaps they will pay money to gamble on the possibility of a free lunch with someone in your organisation, or a lesson on something your administration may teach.
• Raffle Tickets: So easy to print online! You choose the perfect design, enter your event details into a ticket template, and click on a few buttons. Your Raffle Tickets are professionally printed, with perforated stubs, lines to collect customer information, individual numbering, and other security features.
• Supporters: Get the word out, in your print or email newsletter, on websites and web forums, at local meetings and other brick-and-mortar events, through local media, and with printed Posters or Fliers. Don’t forget phone trees, word of mouth, and door to door sales.
• Distribution: Take advantage of one of many online sites that sell Raffle Tickets for you. If you already have a sales team, offer them extra prizes and let them do their job. Or, incentivise small children with appropriate rewards and let them sell. Sell Raffle Tickets on your own website, at meetings, or at summer festivals. Wherever people are, that’s where you should be selling Raffle Tickets.

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If low ticket sales have gotten you down, don’t give up! You can always sell more Raffle Tickets. You simply need to cast a wider net and reach a larger audience. How are you making the public aware of your organisation and the fabulous prizes you have to offer? Have you kept the news within a narrow circle, alerting only those who belong to the group, along, perhaps, with some family, friends, and neighbors?

Why not reach your entire community with some properly places print ads?

In many cases, you can inexpensively print Posters and Flyers with the same design as your favourite Raffle Ticket, and in many cases, these advertisements allow you to upload your own images. You can provide your sponsors with additional exposure, or add photographs of the prizes, or even honour men and women in your organisation by uploading .JPGs or other visual files right from your computer’s hard drive.

Sophisticated, lovely, or playful, there is a proper Poster for all of your prize draws. It’s simple to choose a matching design when you print your Raffle Tickets. You can print your Posters at the same time. You can also choose a different design, which may be brighter, more colourful, or more eye-catching than your Raffle Tickets.

Use your Poster or Flyer to include all the relevant information about your prize draw. You’ll have ample space to describe the organisation, the specific cause toward which the money will go, the prizes to be won, along with the date, time, and location of the draw. Of course, you will want to highlight where and how potential customers can purchase Raffle Tickets. Then hang your Posters where they are likely to see them: in shops, near bus benches, and anywhere else it is allowed.

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Here’s a brilliant resource for charitable organisations interested in earning more money through a prize draw, yet lacking the time, energy, manpower, or will to seek out donors, collect prizes, and print, market, and sell Raffle Tickets: Raffle.it Here’s a website that does all the work for you. You throw your lot in with other charities, the prizes are provided by the website, and all sales are online. You receive 80% of the price of each ticket sold, and your entire commitment consists of providing links to the site.

This site allows you to set up your own prize draws as well, provided you have prizes to offer. You can manage everything from a unique domain assigned to you. Prizes are high-interest items such as a new iPhone, iPad, iPod, or MacBook, a variety of digital cameras and shopping sprees, and other items that quicken the buyer’s pulse, such as a signed England Football shirt!

All you have to do is provide supporters with the proper web address. The site will build your widget, so you can add a snippet of code to your website and start selling immediately. Only a limited number of tickets are sold for each raffle, and prizes are awarded regardless of how many tickets sell.

Raffle.it adds a certain extra dimension of amusement, with an unusual method of choosing prizes. Rather than selling sequentially numbered Raffle Tickets, this site asks buyers to choose their own ticket number. The winner is the one who has chosen the lowest unique number. In other words, if 6 people choose the number 1, and 4 people choose the number 2, but only 1 person has chosen the number 3, number 3 is the winning ticket.

It may be the lazy man’s raffle, but if your charity need to earn more money and lack the resources to mount their own fundraising drive, this is an interesting option!

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