3 Fundraising Hacks for Small Teams to Make a Big Impact with Their Online Raffle
Mom, Dad, teacher, student, volunteer… you don’t need a massive email list and huge budget to raise significant dollars with an online raffle.
You might be surprised that thousands in the budget and a huge marketing team are NOT requirements for running a successful online raffle and raising significant funds for your team, school or community group.
How?
Read on to see how you have all the tools you need right now to make a dent in your fundraising targets and do it with ease!
Hack # 1 – Be short-sighted.
Let us explain.
Tons of people choose to run 50/50 draws because of the ease of having the raffle prize built right in. The winner gets half the pot, the other half are proceeds for your organization. This hack is extremely important for cash raffles, but will help float the boat for ANY raffle you run!
One of the biggest challenges with a newly launched 50/50 draw is the big fat $0 that your early buyers see when they go to buy a ticket. Picture someone staring at their screen thinking “Hmmmm I guess I have a chance to win half my money back… I can’t wait to buy a ticket.”
If you have chosen not to seed or guarantee a pot amount, both of which would show money in the pot to early buyers (learn more here), how do you ramp up the cash prize knowing that most people are motivated to buy, by what they see in the pot?
Look around you. Likely you will find at the core of your cause to raise money, a small, but committed group of people that are motivated by your cause, more than the prize. We call them – your stakeholders.
They can be your board members, your team’s parents, PAC members or volunteers. When you launch a cash prize raffle, mobilize anyone that is around you that is motivated to support your cause because they love it. Simply communicate your desire to get the raffle off to a great start and ask them to buy in to help… BUT… not before you institute this next hack.
Hack #2 – Get their eyes on the prize… GOAL!
This early launch to your best supporters and stakeholders needs to be enhanced by introducing a goal!
Using $20 as an average spend we see across raffle purchases, calculate a quick, aspirational (that means at the optimistic side of what is realistic) but attainable goal for your group.
Everyone likes to rise to a challenge, and telling the folks closest to you that you are looking to get $250 or $500 bucks in the pot before asking the world to buy a ticket helps motivate their action. They recognize, their money is going back to the cause they love AND they have a chance to win.
An easy way to communicate this to your team the first time you run a raffle online is to ask them to buy a ticket (no obligation here! Just a request), state the goal but communicate the reason is so that they can see how easy it is and understand the process for when they share the raffle with others. Feeling confident over the process and knowing it’s easy will help lead them into hack #3!
HACK #3 – SHARE to those that care.
When you’ve reached your goal and engaged those closest to you the next step is simple.
The pot has a few hundred bucks in it, your team is excited and know how the online raffle works. Now it’s time for them to SHARE the raffle link by text or email with 5 others who “care”.
What do we mean by “care”? They are people connected to those connected to your cause that you already rallied to purchase a ticket. Now… you are asking them to SHARE the raffle by text (best), email (good) to a few friends and family members ensuring they’ve included the raffle link to facilitate an easy purchase.
Because of people’s desire to support the people they love and because the pot should be a decent enough to tickle their desire to win, reaching out to this next wave of folks is where the exponential potential of an online raffle is at centre stage.
Imagine: One person plans the raffle for their hockey team. They share the raffle with parents, (let’s say 20 of them), asking them “get involved and try it out” by buying a ticket in the hopes of jacking up the jackpot to at least $300 (goal)!
And… 15 parents buy $20 of tickets each. Your 50/50 is now $300!
Then those parents share the link with 5 friends or family members asking them to do the same. (Tip: YES… grandparents older aunts and uncles DO buy over their phone or computer, we’ve seen it time and time again!)
Now, 20 parents asking 5 others = 100 people who have a chance to buy. If half of them buy-in for $20 bucks, you just added $1000 and your pot cranked up to $1400!
NOW you are ready to post it on social media, share it to co-workers and find other creative ways to get in front of other people, where the cash pot can get their heart pumping and make them itchy to buy-in!
See… easy!
Online raffles make your fundraising a snap, even if you are a small group or organization. Some deliberate communication inspiring your stakeholders to get involved can go a long way to raising money quickly and easy with your online raffle!