Wondering where to start with fundraising for your school or local charity? Here are some pro tips from our PTA raffle organisers!
Before the raffle draw...
A couple of things to think about will help you get clear on your messaging to parents and get the raffle organised:
- What's your raffle being organised around? An event, a cause, or a need for books or resources? Do you have a fundraising target?
- Where will the prizes come from?
TOP TIP: Recruit parents to call local businesses to ask for donations approx at least 6-8 weeks in advance. Keep a note of who's calling who and make sure you get a variety of items. You can also put a call out for parent sponsors in a Classlist announcement.
TOP TIP: Keep prize collection simple: either gather all prizes in one place and get winners to come to the school, or encourage winners and donors to speak to each other.
On Classlist, ambassadors can create a Classlist raffle in 5 minutes by filling in:
- A title e.g. "Fundraising Raffle" or "Festive Fair Raffle" or something more creative! Let us know your ideas on our socials!
- The date and time for the draw.
- Ticket price and bundle options
e.g.
£2 per ticket
1, 5 and 10 ticket bundles giving your community a £2, £10 or £20 option.
- Your association's Stripe account.
- One prize to get the ball rolling. This could be 'Many prizes to come' until you have the details.
Add prizes as they come in. Take a photo with your phone for each one. Mention the collection method in the description e.g. 'e-ticket' or 'collect from school on the day'.
On the day of the draw
TOP TIP: Take photos! Photos of the winners receiving their prizes, the event or of the prizes displayed nicely. These will be useful for a fun follow-up as well as for marketing for your next raffle!
Share in a post on Classlist.
Classlist digital raffle:
- Ticket sales end 15 minutes before the draw. The draw is automated so you don't have to do a thing, - you already have enough to do! However, if you have a live event such as a fair or festival, you can call out the winners and present their prizes.
- The raffle organisers receive an email with the list of winners, and all participants receive an email with their own personal result.
Don't forget the follow-up!
Before you move on to the next project, let people know how it went.
- Publish a thank you note for sponsors, donors, participants and, of course, your parent organisers on Classlist.
- Add photos of the winners or a quote or anecdote, the amount of money raised and, importantly, where the funds are going.
People love to hear the outcome!
Reflect on what you discovered that will help you next time. Perhaps you made some new friends or discovered people with some great skills. What prizes were easy to source and deliver? Which ones were a great crowd-puller? What was the best price point for your community?
The Classlist raffle dashboard will let you know which pricing bundle was most popular. This can help you tweak your pricing on the next raffle event to maximise fundraising for your community.
About Classlist digital raffles
Not only can you reduce your time and effort with digital raffles as well as reducing waste from paper and ticket books but it really is quite easy!
- You'll need a Stripe account - it's the cheapest payment processing platform for schools,
- Classlist platform competitive fees apply to raffles at 7.5%.
- Parents can access the raffle from the app if they are registered Classlist users so no multiple sign-ins required.
- You can also provide a public link if you want to sell tickets beyond your immediate school families so to those not on the app