How about making your next raffle event a virtual one, and how can you ensure its success? This guide will offer everything - from fundraising tips to ticketing examples, and more! Read on.
In our increasingly digital world, more and more organizations are looking for new ways to fundraise virtually and inspire their supporters to give. A virtual raffle is a fun way to raise more money by selling raffle tickets for high-value items, all online.
In this article, we’ll look at the ins and outs of virtual raffles and provide some tips on how you can raise even more money with a virtual raffle drawing.
Let’s first look at the basics of virtual raffles.
A virtual raffle is a fundraiser where you provide an item or several items that your supporters can buy tickets to win. In other words, a raffle is like an auction–only instead of one bid at a time, everyone who wants the item buys a ticket at a set price to enter into a kind of lottery to win the item.
A virtual raffle is a great way to raise more money for your organization. Take our previous comparison of an auction vs. a raffle. An auction can be a fantastic fundraising event, but you are limited to what each item brings in at that moment in time. In other words, you have to hope for high bidders to make your night a success.
With a raffle, you don’t have to rely so much on a handful of bidders to meet and even surpass your fundraising goal. Since each raffle ticket is purchased at the same level–and is usually more affordable than outbidding the highest bid–more people can purchase tickets, driving your income up and up. This spreads out your opportunity to fundraise, where your success depends more on tickets sold than bids received.
See how Together for Gambia did it. They used the Donorbox donation form to sell raffle tickets. Under the ticket prices, they even mentioned the bonus benefits. It helped them not only meet their fundraising goal but surpass it as well. Although we’d recommend using Donorbox Events for selling and managing raffle tickets more conveniently, this is very much a simple method to do it as well.
And, if you’re following our guidelines in the section below for how to choose your raffle items, with a low-cost, high-value item, almost all of the proceeds from the raffle ticket sales can go directly to your cause.
Plus, hosting a virtual event saves your organization money on costs like event spaces, entertainment, and food or beverage that in-person events often require.
Often, nonprofits and other fundraisers look for raffle items with the following qualities:
So how do you find items that fit these qualities? You have to get a little creative! Think about your existing community partnerships or any partnerships that you want to strengthen. Reaching out to local businesses for donations is a great way to build a relationship with them. They provide an item for you and in return get free advertising (because you’ll credit them for their generosity, of course!).
Try to think outside the box to find unique items and experiences that will excite your supporters. See what Tri-League Little League is doing with their online raffle. They’ve put up items that are close to what they are as an organization. This draws to them the right people and helps them raise more money.
The most important step is to find the right tools to successfully run your raffle, raise money online, sell tickets, and host the online event efficiently. Let’s have a look at all the aspects.
First and foremost, you need to sell raffle tickets online. Choose an online tool that lets you create a simple event page and event-ticketing form to sell tickets online. You and your team should be able to manage the sold tickets and purchasers’ information at the backend. You know what’s even better – if you could accept donations right from the event page!
Donorbox Events lets you do all that and more. Our event pages are easy to create and the ticketing forms are simple for you as well as purchasers. You can also embed these forms on your website if you wish to not divert people away from it. When people purchase tickets, they receive the tickets as well as a receipt in their email. You can also fully refund ticket costs in case you need to.
Here’s an example of an online raffle created on Donorbox Events. Their basket, which they say is valued at over $1,000, has many great items like a family photo shoot and gift cards to restaurants.
Surely you want to raise donations for your cause during, before, or after the online raffle. After all, this is all for your good cause. To achieve that, you’ll need an online donation page. Even better if it’s a crowdfunding page. The latter gives it more sharability options, makes it easier to add updates, and draws more attention to your raffle.
You need to promote this page online via social media or email marketing or paid advertising on Facebook, Instagram, etc. before the online event. Your host must also talk about this donation page during the raffle or after it to help you collect donations from the attendees.
Do not make the online event all about raising donations (since they’ve already paid for tickets), but it is a good idea to remind people why you’ve held the event in the first place.
You have options like Zoom and Airmeet for hosting your virtual raffle. While Zoom is rather convenient and a popular choice for all, Airmeet lets you do more. You can embed a donation form on Airmeet online events to inspire people to make donations while attending your raffle event. Let’s see how!
In just 5 simple steps, you can embed your Donorbox campaign form on your Airmeet virtual event. You’ll be needing a paid plan on Airmeet for that. However, once you’ve done so, raising donations is even simpler during your raffle. No need for telling people where to go and how to make a donation! The easier you make it for them, the more the chance to raise more money!
Here’s what it looks like when you embed the Donorbox form on an Airmeet event.
You aren’t going to sell a lot of tickets if no one knows about your virtual raffle! Use all of your platforms to be sure your supporters know about your raffle. Send emails, make social media posts, and maybe even send snail mail–with easy-access QR codes to your online raffle pages – to be sure everyone has a chance to enter.
With Donorbox, you get a free QR code for every campaign you create on it. All you need to do is download it and add it to your marketing pieces. Here’s an example of how one of our nonprofit users is using our free QR code on their website to direct donors to the Donorbox campaign on their mobile devices.
Be sure to be very clear about when the drawing will occur in all your communication pieces so your supporters have a fair chance to enter to win.
The most important part is finally here! You’ve done the work of finding the right item(s), building your online raffle event page and donation page, selecting an online event hosting platform and getting the word out that you’re hosting a virtual raffle. Now it’s time to see who’s the lucky winner.
There are plenty of online tools like RandomPicker that you can use to fairly select a winner or winners. Or, if you don’t have too many raffle entries, consider doing it the old-fashioned way and picking them out of a hat. You can even turn this into fun social media content and film someone high up in your organization choosing the lucky winner.
Remember to have a host for your online event; someone who can engage the audience and entertain them well throughout the evening, talk about the cause, your mission, and more. Choose one from your volunteers. You’d also want to add some fun games to the event to help liven up the whole event.
Here’s how to make the most out of your virtual raffle drawing.
Like all fundraising events, the less you spend upfront, the more money you raise for your organization. There aren’t many costs associated with running a virtual raffle – especially if you’re able to get free or deeply discounted raffle items – aside from employee time and fees for your online tools.
Luckily, Donorbox has the lowest fees in the industry, meaning you make the most out of your online raffle in terms of ticket sales and fundraising.
A raffle is an excellent incentive for donors to give more. Like the Tri-League Little League example above, which incentivized donors to give $25 for three raffle entries as opposed to $10 for one, giving your donors a solid reason to give can really boost your money raised.
Here’s another example of a raffle online event created on Donorbox to create 2 types of raffle tickets. One for a single ticket and the second for bundled tickets of five. An easy way to get people to buy more tickets!
If buying your virtual raffle tickets is overly complicated or clunky, you won’t sell as many as you possibly could. Some people may even drop it midway. That’s why it’s important to choose a tool with adaptive features like mobile-responsive page design, easy payments with Apple Pay (in addition to card payments), simple ticketing forms, etc. like you get on Donorbox.
Your goal is to make it as easy for your supporters to buy your virtual raffle tickets as possible. Also, provide them with instant automated tickets and receipts that they receive in their inbox, keeping the process as transparent and smooth as possible.
No matter what you choose to raffle, hosting a virtual raffle is a great way to build momentum and excitement with your donors. Using the right tools can make your experience of organizing a virtual raffle easy and efficient–and can result in even more money for your cause!
Donorbox has you covered. 80,000+ nonprofits are using us to raise money online, sell tickets, and manage their donors. We’ve already helped them raise over $2 billion in donations. You can as well be a part of this success story by using our simple-to-use and powerful features like Crowdfunding, Recurring Donations, Peer-to-Peer, Text-to-Give, QuickDonate, Events, Memberships, and more.
Want to reach your full donation potential with the next virtual raffle? The Donorbox Premium team is here to help with expert fundraising coaching, on-time support, tech experts, and premium tools. We’ll ensure that you meet your fundraising goals, acquire more donors, and get through all fundraising challenges. Pricing is personalized for each nonprofit. Book a demo today!
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Lindsey spent years wearing many hats in the nonprofit world. Whether she was helping arts nonprofits with their messaging and content, planning a fundraising gala, writing an NEA grant proposal, or running a membership program with over 400 members, she learned how to navigate – and appreciate! – the fast-paced world of fundraising. Now, she loves sharing those hard-earned lessons with the Donorbox community.
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Lindsey Baker Bower