Raffles are an effective, fun way to raise funds for your organization. They also have a wide appeal, and are extremely customizable in terms of prizes! Whether you're running a raffle with a single grand prize, or doing multiple prize drawings, you can create tickets for purchase directly on your Givebutter Event campaign.
Every state has unique laws and guidelines around the online sale of raffle tickets. Please check with your state's office of charitable gaming to make sure you are in compliance prior to selling raffle tickets on Givebutter.
Create raffle tickets ➕
Raffle tickets are created the same way as all other tickets on an Event campaign. Please see our guide for creating a new ticket type, and fill out the following information:
Ticket name – ie. "Raffle Ticket"
Description – additional information to be displayed under the ticket name and price, which can include images, or other custom HTML formatting
Adding images of each prize can motivate your donors to purchase more tickets, increasing their chances of winning!
Price – price of each ticket
Total quantity - number of raffle tickets available, or tick the Unlimited checkbox
Click Save when you're done, and raffle tickets will be added to your campaign!
Multiple prizes 🎁
There are two ways you can set up your Event to support multiple raffle prizes, depending on how you would like to configure the campaign.
If you have multiple prizes, you can create separate raffle ticket types for each prize drawing, setting unique prices per ticket and adding images of each prize. If you create separate raffle tickets for each prize, the donor's prize choice will be designated on the Tickets page, and in the export file when you go to pick a winner.
Alternatively, if you have multiple prizes, and raffle tickets are the same price, you can sell generic raffle tickets and collect preferred prize drawing information at checkout as a custom field. We'd recommend making this a dropdown menu or radio button option to avoid input errors.
Please note that responses for custom fields will be shown in a Transaction export, not a Tickets export.
Export raffle ticket sales 📁
Before you export your tickets from your Tickets page, we recommend creating a filter for the specific campaign you wish to draw winners for. (If you do not use a campaign filter for the export, you will receive an export of tickets sold across all of your campaigns.)
When your Tickets page is displaying tickets from the correct campaign, you can export your Tickets page using our guide. For the quick version, you can just click Actions in the upper right corner of the page, then Export!
You will be emailed a spreadsheet (CSV) file containing the details of the tickets sold for this campaign shortly.
Picking a winner 🏆
Every ticket purchased on a Givebutter campaign is assigned a unique four-digit ticket number beginning with "A" (ie. A0001, A0002). You'll see a list of these numbers in your export file, as well as on your Tickets page. If a supporter purchases five raffle tickets, they will be assigned five different ticket numbers.
To pick a winner for your raffle, we recommend using a random number generator (RNG). Simply enter the first and last qualifying ticket numbers, and click Generate – a random ticket number will be chosen.
Notes on raffle winners 📝
If your campaign has multiple ticket types, ie. Raffle Ticket and General Admission, ticket numbers will be assigned (in order) across all ticket types on a campaign. This means that a randomly generated ticket number may not belong to a raffle ticket. You can click Generate again to create another random number.
Example: The Annual Butter Raffle has sold 86 tickets (A0001 - A0086), made up of General Admission and Raffle Ticket sales. This means that not all of the ticket numbers belong to raffle tickets.
To choose a winner, we enter 1 as the first ticket, and 86 as the last ticket. The RNG generates 47, however ticket A0047 is a General Admission ticket. After clicking to generate a new number, we get 68. A0068 is a raffle ticket, so they are the winner!
Likewise, if you have multiple prizes to award, you can click Generate to create new random ticket numbers within the range you've set.
You can also choose a winner by name if you like! You can search online for a random name drawing tool, and use the list of names in your ticket export to create a pool of names to draw from.
Raffle FAQ 🤔
Donors can only buy up to ten raffle tickets at a time. Can we change that?
Yes! Ten is the default, but we can increase it. Please contact our team, and we can edit the maximum number of raffle tickets a donor can purchase at one time.
I want to show off the prizes! How can I add images to my raffle tickets?
Check out our dedicated guide on how to add pictures to raffle tickets!
Can I schedule start or end dates for ticket sales?
No, this isn't currently possible. If you would like ticket sales to start or end at a particular time, you will need to change the status manually (active vs. inactive) Please add a vote to our feature request for this option!
An item has been donated for our raffle. Where can I put the sponsor's name?
We would recommend including the sponsor's name in the raffle item prize description field.
Can I stop selling raffle tickets, but keep accepting donations?
Yes! Under the Event tab and the Ticket menu, click the three dots [...] next to your ticket, then click Edit. Change the status of the Available for purchase toggle. Remember to save!
