Raffles are a time-honored way for small nonprofits, churches,
clubs, schools, and other good causes to raise funds at the community
level. Now, Raffle.it offers UK
nonprofits a fun, free, and simple way to raise funds through online raffles. And you don’t even have to find the prizes to raffle off!
How Raffle.it works:
Raffle.it rounds up the prizes and manages the online raffle. Charities sign up - no charge - to take part.
Your organization will get your own Raffle.it page, with your logo
and message on it, and a widget you can put on your own website (or
not, it’s up to you).
Your nonprofit gets 80% of the profit from the ticket sales. The
site takes 20% to cover transaction fees, admin and hosting of the
website.
You can choose to help to sell tickets by directing your supporters
and blog readers to your raffle page, but it’s not strictly necessary.
When people buy tickets from the main Raffle.it site, rather than a
specific charity’s Raffle.it page, they get to choose which
participating charity will benefit from their ticket purchases.
Find out more from Raffle.it’s extensive FAQ page or follow @raffleit on Twitter.
More about Online Charity Raffles:
Rogavi/CharityRaffles.co.uk
is another site that runs online raffles to help UK charities raise
funds, although the model is somewhat different than that of
Raffle.it, while CharityRaffles.com offers online raffles for American nonprofit organizations.
In many jurisdictions, the legal status of online raffles is still a bit of a gray area, by the way — Canada has some pretty
rigid gaming laws, for example, and in the US the rules can be
different from state to state — so if you’re thinking about setting up
your own, independent online raffle, do take legal advice. For a
quick overview of what's involved in an online raffle, however, see Sandra Sims’ Raffle FAQ at Step By Step Fundraising as a starting point.
Do you know of other online charity raffle services, similar to
Raffle.it? — and has your nonprofit tried fundraising through an online
raffle? Leave a comment and let us know about your experience!
