What’s a 50/50 Raffle and How Does it Work?

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What’s a 50/50 Raffle and How Does it Work?


From college fundraisers to upscale galas, internet hosting a raffle is unequivocally an important fundraising instrument for any nonprofit. Whereas conventional raffles could be profitable and enjoyable, they will also be a timesuck in the case of prep. That’s why we need to introduce you to the idea of a 50/50 raffle.

What Is A 50/50 Raffle?

A 50/50 raffle works similar to some other raffle the place individuals buy tickets for an opportunity to win a prize if their identify is drawn. 

The distinction is with a 50/50 raffle, you’ll be able to skip the prize procurement course of. As a substitute, the prize is half of the gross proceeds (aka the quantity raised by means of ticket gross sales). For instance, should you offered 1,000 tickets at $5 every ($5,000 jackpot), your group retains half of the proceeds ($2,500) and the winner takes dwelling the opposite half ($2,500). 

The extra tickets somebody buys, the upper their odds are of profitable. Sounds easy proper?

Advantages Of fifty/50 Raffles

A 50/50 raffle is likely one of the easiest fundraising concepts with a dependable and confirmed ROI. Not like a conventional raffle, there’s little to no upfront value. With a 50/50 raffle, you don’t must plan and buy a bodily prize. The prize is the pool itself. 

50/50 raffles are additionally extraordinarily versatile. They are often held at any time throughout the yr as a standalone occasion or along side a bigger, deliberate occasion. 

Better of all, the associated fee to enter is extraordinarily low. If you happen to host a 50/50 raffle on-line, anybody wherever can take part even when they solely have a couple of {dollars}.

Who Ought to Maintain A 50/50 Fundraising Raffle?

The factor about 50/50 raffles is that they’re an important possibility for any group – nonprofits, church buildings, faculties, hearth departments, youth teams, and many others. – giant or small. For grassroots organizations with a shoestring price range or a one-person fundraising staff, a 50/50 fundraising raffle could also be significantly interesting as a result of low-barrier to entry and the period of time it takes to spin up. 

What Are Some Good Candidates For Raffle Prizes?

Anybody, and we actually imply anybody, generally is a good candidate for a 50/50 raffle. Attain out to your board members, employees, donors, volunteers, and social media followers. For somebody to take part, all you want is their ticket purchases, identify, and a method to attain them in the event that they’re chosen!

Causes To Take Your 50/50 Charity Raffle On-line

With digital occasions rising in reputation, a 50/50 raffle could be contactless and run fully on-line, which signifies that you don’t need to print and handle bodily raffle tickets. Rain or shine, digital charity raffles additionally means you’ll be able to attain extra folks irrespective of the place they’re geographically. 

As well as, you’ll be able to settle for digital fee (digital pockets, PayPal, and many others.), which implies you’re not restricted to money gross sales or having to deal with free change. When it comes time to attract a winner, a digital format offers you the choice of doing it in-person or through dwell stream. You possibly can draw a winner the old style means by selecting one out of a hat or use one of many many on-line instruments on the market similar to WheelSpinner to randomly choose a winner.

How To Worth Raffle Tickets For A 50/50 Drawing

The aim of any 50/50 raffle is to promote as many tickets as potential, at a set charge. You is likely to be questioning then, how a lot ought to every ticket be priced at?

Ticket costs sometimes begin at $1 however can go as much as $5 or $10 relying in your goal participant and your total fundraising aim. If you happen to’re not sure of what to cost your raffle tickets, take into consideration how a lot somebody can be keen to spend. Keep in mind, the decrease the value per ticket, the bigger your potential pool of patrons shall be. Alternatively, the upper your ticket costs, the extra you’ll be able to anticipate to make however your pool is likely to be smaller. There’s definitely a fragile steadiness; it might take some trial and error.

Make sure to account for the amount of raffle tickets you assume you’ll be capable of promote together with any associated bills similar to advertising and marketing, advertisements, and value of software program to host on-line. Oftentimes, nonprofits received’t know the way a lot they’ll elevate by means of a raffle till after the occasion. Even should you offered a ton of tickets, that is problematic because you received’t know should you’ll be capable of attain your fundraising aim.

When doubtful, confer with this fast method that will help you out:

(Raffle ticket worth * Amount of tickets offered) / 2 – Bills  = Gross organizational income

To spice up your total ticket gross sales, think about providing incentives for a number of ticket purchases. For instance, should you’re charging $1 for one raffle ticket, supply 3 tickets for $2 or $5 for 4 tickets. You’re upselling your participant however they’re additionally getting extra bang for his or her buck and rising their probabilities of profitable. It’s a win-win!

Utilizing CauseVox Ticketing For 50/50 Raffles

A profitable on-line raffle hinges on having the precise instruments. With CauseVox Ticketing, we’ll get your 50/50 raffle up and working very quickly. 

Our built-in ticketing system is a mobile-optimized 3-step kind that: 

  • Permits you to set a number of ticketing tiers and portions.
  • Pulls supporters to a single marketing campaign web site to buy tickets with a free-standing ticketing web page.
  • Helps you to set your individual promo codes for any reductions you need to supply for a specific amount of tickets bought or for particular donors.
  • Supplies a straightforward method to embed your ticketing kind in your web site or touchdown web page by merely copy-and-pasting the shape embed code.
  • Provides quite a lot of fee choices similar to bank card or Apple and Google Pay.
  • Offers your donors a pleasing, mobile-optimized buying expertise that will help you maximize your ticket gross sales.

On the backend, our ticketing platform makes customizing kinds, reporting, and information exportation easy. You’ll get computerized e-mail notifications on ticket orders proper after they’re bought and also you’ll be capable of view ticket orders and who purchased them at a look.

(Kansas Advocates for Higher Care’s Raffle Ticketing Type through CauseVox)

Advertising and marketing Your 50/50 Raffle

Because you’re not having to deal with bodily tickets or procure a prize, you’ll be able to allocate this time to advertising and marketing! To generate buzz round your 50/50 raffle, we suggest:

  • Routinely updating your supporters on how a lot has been raised. The upper the overall pool, the extra the winner will get. Embrace a visible ingredient like a fundraising thermometer to ramp up pleasure and urgency. 
  • Selling your raffle in your web site through a devoted touchdown web page.
  • Blasting it out to your e-mail record or in your e-newsletter. Phase and tailor your messaging as wanted. 
  • Scheduling out common social media posts about your raffle. Encourage your supporters to share your posts on social media. As well as, make the most of Fb’s tales and Instagram reels to maintain your raffle prime of thoughts in your followers and on the prime of their information feed. As you get nearer to the date of the drawing, ramp up your submit frequency to advertise a way of urgency. 
  • Investing in paid Fb or Instagram advertisements to get the phrase out to an entire new viewers (in case your price range permits). 
  • Letting folks know the way funds raised shall be used and the way this may make a distinction. If half of the prize pool is earmarked for a selected mission or initiative, promote it as such.
  • Creating a web-based occasion web page the place folks should purchase tickets. Ensure that this web page displays precisely how a lot is within the whole pool.

On common, it takes 7 touches for a person to make a sale on-line. To make your 50/50 raffle as profitable as potential, implement a multi-channel advertising and marketing strategy. If your viewers’s communication preferences, focus the majority of your advertising and marketing efforts on these. 

Know The Guidelines – Authorized Issues For 50/50 Raffles

Within the eyes of the Inside Income Service (IRS), raffles are thought of “legalized video games of probability”, in any other case often called a type of lottery. As such, it’s vital to know the foundations and laws so that you just’re protected against any unintended penalties. You don’t need to jeopardize your nonprofit standing or have the IRS knocking in your door. 

To begin, if the raffle prize quantity exceeds $600 or at the very least 300 instances the quantity of the raffle ticket worth, you’re obligated to report back to the IRS. If the winnings exceed $5,000, you’re required to withhold 24% (as of the 2022 tax yr) of the winnings or pay a withholding tax. Since 50/50 raffles pay out in money, this quantity could be withheld instantly from the winnings. Utilizing Type W-2G, nonprofits should report winnings, any federal revenue tax withheld on these winnings, together with the raffle winner’s identify and phone info (Be aware: Please verify with a gaming lawyer, a CPA, or the IRS for any extra paperwork required).

Furthermore, state and native legal guidelines could apply. To make sure compliance, we extremely suggest checking together with your native and state playing legal guidelines to verify raffles are permitted. Sure states have banned raffles outright whereas others require making use of for a allow beforehand. On-line raffle tickets gross sales might also be prohibited in various states resulting from considerations for out-of-state ticket gross sales. 

Options & Additions To 50/50 Raffles

If you wish to put a twist in your 50/50 raffle think about having multiple winner. As an example, if the overall pot was $10,000, a grand prize winner may win $2,500, a second place winner may get $1,500, and a 3rd winner would choose up the remaining $500. Through the use of a multi-winner mannequin, you’ll be able to incentivize donors to present extra since they’ve extra alternatives to win. Alternatively, whereas a 50/50 break up is the most typical configuration, it’s also possible to check out completely different ratios like a 60/40 or 80/20 break up. It actually depends upon what you assume will work finest in your functions.

CauseVox Ticketing isn’t restricted to 50/50 raffles. Our software program could be utilized to different forms of raffles or a silent public sale. When most of these actions are tied into a bigger occasion, we suggest recruiting sponsors.

(Nido All College Merchandise Raffle)

Prepared To Take A Gamble On 50/50 Raffles?

Be taught extra about how CauseVox Ticketing might help your fundraising occasion soar, or drop your e-mail handle beneath to get prime fundraising ideas in your inbox weekly!