So many charities these days are banking on lotteries to make steady money. However, this comes at a cost. An application fee is required before setting up a charity lottery – never mind you equally need to register with the Gambling Commission for a license.
The entire process is long and complicated. But it depends on how small or large your best charity lottery is. For example, the setting up and registering of a small charity lottery is easy and fast – only if it has less than 4,000 players each paying at least £1 week.
Cost of setting up the best charity lottery
You can easily set up a smaller charity lottery online or through your local authority at an application fee of £40 and another renewal £20 fee payable every year. It’ll cost you more if you’re planning to start and set up larger charity lotteries.
Larger lotteries are likely to attract more players, high application fee, and equally high annual renewal fee. So definitely the costs to set up and register one will be greater.
In the event, for instance, a larger lottery draws up more than £19,000 or a combined draw in a single year of approximately £200,000, you have to seek a license from the Gambling Commission. The good news? The licenses are different and some are reasonably priced. So you have a variety of licenses to choose from depending on your lottery needs.
On every first quarter of the fiscal year, your charity has to make known your lottery returns. The process involves making known the number of draws you made and the number of persons involved in the entry of each draw. This process is, however, easy and simple.
You can also complete returns of your best charity lottery with your lottery administration – if you used a company to look after your charity lottery affairs, that is. The company can take care of filing the returns and all necessary information required in a readable format.
How to promote a charity lottery
If you want to achieve success with a lottery, it has to be part of your marketing strategy. That’s the ideal way to market your best charity lottery.
And the marketing process doesn’t have to be challenging: if the first draw date is on June, prepare to launch in March – at least 3 months prior. This gives you ample time for recruiting new members and supporters to ensure you reach your intended target.
Remember, if you don’t hit the set target of new supporters before the launch date, you risk running at a loss on the actual draw date. So you have to ensure your marketing campaigns are formidable and aggressive enough to bring in more new supporters.
Print out leaflets of your upcoming charity lottery and distribute them to both prospective and newly recruited members. It’s a simple yet popular form of marketing, and it works all the time.
Image credit: Charity Lottery via 300 librarians/Shutterstock