How to Organize a Raffle Fundraiser

As anyone with fundraising experience will tell you, a good raffle is fun for everyone involved.  A raffle has a low buy in for participants, almost no overhead costs for the person who sets it up, and it’s also easy to choose a winner. 

Here are two main types of raffles that are most popular for small fundraising events:

Prize Raffle

The first type of fundraiser raffle is the prize raffle.  In order to set up one of these, ask local businesses, friends and family, and anyone interested in your cause to donate prizes and prize packages.  It’s not hard to find people excited about the free exposure and association with a good cause.  People buy tickets to the raffle upon entry to your event, and it’s easiest if participants write their name and phone number on the back of the ticket.  The raffle fundraiser tickets get mixed together in a covered bucket or bowl, and someone draws the winning ticket out of the mix without looking.  All of the money from ticket sales goes to the fundraiser.

50/50 Cash Raffle

The second type of fundraiser is commonly known as a 50/50 raffle.  A 50/50 raffle makes an excellent fundraiser because you don’t need to go out and drum up other prizes for the raffle.  The only difference is that the money raised by the fundraiser raffle is split between the winner of the raffle and the group throwing the fundraiser.  The benifits of this type of funraiser is that the 50/50 setup encourages entrants to encourage others around them to participate, because the more people participate in the fundraiser, the larger the prize.  So, while half of the money raised does go to the winner, the cash pool that is split with the fundraiser is often larger than a raffle with a physical prize.