How do you organise and plan a raffle?

Start by working out your budget, sourcing your prizes, registering with your local council if required, and ordering your tickets. Getting these four things sorted early makes everything else straightforward.

We have been producing raffle tickets now for over 25 years and have first hand experience of selling as part of our team helps out with the local PTA. So if you are feeling overwhelmed then give us a call and we can take the pressure off.

Register your society with your local council (£40 initial, £20/year), appoint a named promoter, set a draw date, source your prizes and order your tickets. That is the core of it.

Here is the order most of our customers follow:

1. Register with your local council as a small society lottery.


2. Set your draw date — give yourself at least 2–3 months.


3. Decide on prizes and approach local businesses for donations.


4. Order your raffle tickets — make sure the ticket includes your society name, promoter's name and address, ticket price, draw date and the council you are registered with.


5. Promote and sell tickets in person, at events and through your community networks.


6. Hold the draw, publish the results and submit your return report to the council.

For a more detailed breakdown, see our guide to running a raffle legally.

If you are finding it difficult raising money for a cash prize then why not try your local community? After all, it's usually in their best interest as they will get some free promotion. For example, the local restaurant or pub can offer a gift voucher or free dinner, local salons can offer a free hair appointment. Any type of voucher from a local business is a win-win — it is a prize for you and a potential new customer for them.

You can reach out to people via social networks to offer prizes in return for special mentions on your next newsletter or even mention on the ticket itself. People are often more generous than you expect so don't be afraid to ask. After all, it's for a good cause!

The best raffle prizes are things people want but would not normally buy for themselves. Gift vouchers from local restaurants, experience days, hampers, electronics and cash are consistently the most popular prizes among our customers.

Donated prizes work best because they cost your society nothing. Local businesses are usually happy to contribute a voucher or product in exchange for being mentioned on the ticket and promotional material — it is free advertising for them and a prize for you.

Most raffles have between 3 and 30 prizes, but there is no set rule. In our experience the two approaches that sell the most tickets are:

One big headline prize that is almost too good to miss — a large cash prize, a TV, or a holiday voucher. A mega prize creates the fear of missing out because the risk-to-reward ratio is so high.

However most raffles are not this huge and so our favourite approach is to offer 1 cash prize and then as many small prizes as you can. More prizes means more ticket sales because the probability of winning something becomes greater, which makes it an easier sale for you. For example, if you have 20–30 small prizes from local businesses on top of a couple of larger top prizes and are selling 1,000 tickets in books of 5, the buyer has a pretty good chance of winning something.

You can order custom raffle tickets from a specialist printer like Stubbs Tickets. We take you through the whole production process from start to finish — you choose your design, we send a proof before you pay, and your tickets arrive within 5–7 working days. Prices start from around £24 for 1,000 tickets.

Yes you can, however the process is quite fiddly on a desktop printer and will more often than not cause you more pain and cost in the long run with ink and paper costs being so high. If you were only requiring a hundred or so tickets then it might be just bearable, but you will first need to source the perforated paper and hope that your printer can handle it.

In our experience, it's more expensive to try to do it yourself than to use professional raffle ticket printing, plus the end results are much better and give your fundraiser a more professional look which helps you sell more. Take the hassle out of the raffle.

If you have no past experience to go by then a good measure would be to count how many people you think you are going to sell to, (pupils at the school, members of your club, current event tickets sold for the fair etc) and multiply it by your book size. That way you will have enough books to sell to everyone.

For example, a primary school with 200 pupils × 5 tickets = 1,000 tickets. Order a few hundred more in case other family members want to get involved — grandparents always love to chip in. It is more costly to underestimate and reorder than to overdo it and have a few hundred left over.

Most small society raffles charge between £1 and £5 per ticket, with £1 being the most common price. The right price depends on your audience, your prizes and how many tickets you plan to sell.

A good rule of thumb is to make sure total ticket sales (at full sell-out) cover your costs and leave a healthy amount for your cause. For example, if you print 1,000 tickets in books of 5 and charge £1 per ticket, your maximum revenue is £1,000. Subtract the cost of printing and any purchased prizes, and the rest goes to your cause.

Remember that for a small society lottery, all tickets must be the same price — you cannot offer discounts or bulk deals. If you want to offer cheaper tickets, an incidental lottery at an event does allow variable pricing.

Promote your raffle through as many channels as you can — social media, posters, flyers, emails, newsletters and word of mouth. Make sure your promotional material explains why you are raising money and what the funds will be used for. If you ran a raffle before, mention what you achieved with the money raised last time.

It also helps to have a long list of prizes or one big prize that people find irresistible. That said, most raffle ticket buyers are happy just to be supporting a local cause.

The most successful raffles are the ones that are planned well in advance and promoted through every available channel. Give yourself at least 2–3 months and follow these steps:

Planning

1. Set your raffle date. Give yourself at least 2-3 months.


2. If you require a licence then don't hesitate to get it. The number isn't required on the ticket but the authority name you are registered with is.


3. Source your prizes, go to local businesses and get them to commit to some vouchers or even cash.

Promotion

1. Get to the printers, get those raffle tickets, flyers and posters printed. It doesn't matter if you don't have all the details. Just include your best prizes sourced so far and say that there are many more.


2. Set up an online web page (we do a nice one for free) to help promote your raffle much easier to your social media, email lists and newsletters.


3. Hand out those flyers to all the local shops and businesses that donated prizes.

There is plenty more involved, however if you concentrate on these steps the rest should follow.

The raffle must still go ahead and all prizes must still be awarded — you cannot cancel a raffle once tickets have been sold. This is why budgeting before you print is so important.

To reduce the risk, keep your upfront costs low by sourcing donated prizes from local businesses instead of buying them, and only print the number of tickets you are confident you can sell. In our experience, a common mistake is ordering too many tickets for a first-time raffle. Start smaller — you can always order more if sales go well, and that is far cheaper than being left with hundreds of unsold books.