‘Moving our raffle online has increased sales and saved time’
A
s anyone who’s run a raffle will know, folding paper tickets takes a lot of time. With paper, you also run
the risk of stubs being lost and you can end up dealing with huge amounts of cash. So when Covid restrictions forced us to rethink how we organised our fundraising at Wren Academy in Finchley, we decided to shift things online. After years of paper raffles, this was a revelation! Our all-through school has almost
1,500 pupils, 420 of them primary. In the past the parents of the primary pupils were the ones most engaged with the PTA, but moving our raffles online meant tickets were more easily available to secondary school families who had less physical contact with the school. Plus the money from online ticket sales goes straight into our bank account – and we can track those sales in real time. We use Charity Hive (charityhive.
co.uk) because it is a complete fundraising platform where we can
sell tickets for events, accept donations and run auctions. A big part of our raffle success
has been down to marketing and communications. My background is in design and marketing, so I create all the graphics and develop a carefully timed comms plan. We usually launch the ticket sales
four to six weeks ahead of the draw – and I upload images of the prizes
‘The money from online
ticket sales goes straight into our bank account – and we can track those sales in real time’
on Charity Hive. There’s a soft launch with a letter from the school, and then I begin pushing the prizes on our Facebook page. We send out comms promoting the raffle once or twice a week on Facebook and on the class rep WhatsApp groups. In total, we do around ten ‘pushes’ and I try to track the sales relating to each one. The final message from the school goes out as a text a few days before the draw. From the tracking, it’s clear that this final alert has a massive impact on last-minute ticket sales. We have an ongoing list of projects
to fundraise for, including a school allotment and various workshops in STEM, wellbeing and literacy. We also provide funds for the school literacy support scheme, books, choir and music-related projects and workshops. Our Christmas raffle raised a fabulous £3,150 after platform costs, while last summer’s raised £2,200 after fees. Around 700 of the summer tickets were bought through posters with a QR code at our summer fair, so we’ll definitely use that method again! With an online platform, you
specify what time you want the raffle sales to end and when you want to do the draw. For Charity Hive, you simply log in and click ‘DRAW’. Then you receive a list of winning ticket numbers and names, alongside what prize they’ve won. Having good prizes certainly helps and it’s important to keep things as
32 SUMMER 2023 FundEd
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