When your organization is trying to raise funds there are many options to consider using. In my opinion the best and easiest option is a raffle. There is limited risk in running a raffle and, if run well, a huge potential payoff. A raffle can generate a lot of excitement if the prizes are good and the tickets are reasonably priced. You should be able to attract a lot of people who wouldn’t normally give to your organization. So a raffle also serves to expand your donor database, as long as you have a good system for recording everyone’s contact information.
There are many other potential benefits of running a raffle. For example if you are having trouble reaching your fundraising goal you can always push off the raffle and extend the campaign for another few weeks. With a different kind of fundraiser such as a dinner or a golf outing it is much harder to reschedule everything whereas with a raffle all you need to do is announce that the drawing date has been pushed off and nobody needs to reschedule anything. Also those types of events are not drawing the crowds they used to so your ceiling is much higher with a raffle.
Buying a raffle ticket is a lot easier than going to a banquet or another charity event. If your raffle is set up online (and it definitely should be) then all that donors need to do is go to your website and click on the “Buy tickets” button or however you have it set up. Your organization can send an email to your entire contact list with a link to the raffle and there is almost no effort involved on either the part of your organization or the donors. If your website isn’t set up for this than you should use one of the online fundraising sites like Raffle Ready or Razoo and they should be able to set up a raffle page for your organization.
Running A Raffle 