--- title: 2020 charity raffle trends & 2021 top tips to make your raffle perform description: At Woods Valldata we have a wealth of knowledge and experience in prize-led fundraising. Laura Illsley, Account Director at Woods Valldata, has been working strategically with our client partners on all things raffle and weekly lottery for over 10 years. Here’s what she has to say about the trends for Christmas 2020 raffle campaigns and what she sees coming into 2021. image: https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/hubfs/LI7.png --- [![logo](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/logo.svg)](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/) - [About](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/about/) - [How we work](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/about/how-we-work/) - [Our people](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/about/our-people/) - [Compliance](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/about/compliance/) - [Careers](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/about/careers/) - [Services](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/) - [Response handling](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/response-handling/) - [Lottery](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/lottery/) - [Affinity](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/affinity-lottery/) - [Aspire](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/lottery/aspire/) - [Advantage](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/lottery/advantage/) - [Raffle](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/raffle/) - [Fulfilment](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/fulfillment/) - [Direct Debit](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/direct-debit/) - [Data strategy](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/data-strategy/) - [Case studies](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/case-studies/) - [Resources](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/resources/) - [Insights](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/resources/?_resource_category=insights) - [Blog](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog?__hstc=147199208.9e5ab3d8a0ca3a3f5a12ec2a1f7616ec.1686240030480.1687955986587.1687958199477.32&__hssc=147199208.7.1687958199477&__hsfp=3372006991) - [Events & webinars](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/resources/?_resource_category=events-webinars) - [Glossary](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/glossary/) - [My account](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/my-account/) - [Get in touch](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/contact/) ![woods valldata](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/hubfs/LI7.png) # 2020 charity raffle trends and 2021 top tips to make your raffle perform Published by [Helen Halahan](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/author/helen-halahan) on Nov 23, 2020, 11:00:00 AM At Woods Valldata we have a wealth of knowledge and experience in prize-led fundraising. Laura Illsley, Account Director at Woods Valldata, has been working strategically with our client partners on all things [raffle](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/raffle/) and [weekly lottery](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/lottery/) for over 10 years. Here’s what she has to say about the trends for Christmas 2020 raffle campaigns and what she sees coming into 2021. ### Charity approach to raffle during the pandemic I think the first trend I’ve noticed in raffle is that charities have divided into two main groups as a result of the pandemic: those more cautious and those more adventurous. It’s been quite a year for charity fundraising. COVID-19 hit part way through or towards the end of Spring raffle campaigns and charities went one of two ways. Some charities were apprehensive about running raffle during the first lockdown. Other charities carried on with Summer raffle campaigns and saw fantastic raffle performance. Raffle, like other cash campaigns (see our Impact of COVID-19 on Individual Giving Report for more information), saw brilliant response and gift over the summer months. Coming into Christmas and all charities had their raffles back in action. Those more apprehensive charities have focused on banker packs. On the other side of the spectrum, charities, buoyed by the successful summer campaigns, have been exploring new creative, incentives, thanking and more. I’d like to pick up on some of the raffle trends I’ve been seeing here. ### Testing We’re seeing a lot of appetite for testing in raffle mainly around creative and incentive draws. **Creative:** We’ve been working with charity partners to make packs even more visually exciting, really playing with the outer envelope window and the address area of the letter. We’ve included more personalisation, used labels in more interesting ways and changed up the pack formats to see which performs better. **Incentives:** Incentives draws are increasingly popular and we’re seeing great raffle performance uplift from these tests. We look to match the incentive and accompanying message to the charity partner objective and data segment so that it’s much more targeted and relevant. Test packs are outperforming the banker packs, highlighting the importance of making the raffle more relevant to the data segment whilst changing things up a bit for the supporter, adding interest, keeping the raffle fresh. ### Acquisition The past few years have been challenging for acquisition across all cash campaigns and raffle has been no different. I’m really excited about charities investing more in acquisition again just recently, and Christmas has been no exception. **Door Drops, Partially Addressed Mail and Cold** data have all increased in popularity for raffle – and we’re seeing really positive results. Check out Royal Mail Market Reach Guides for more information on Door Drops and other useful stuff. **Digital media** continues to grow in importance as an acquisition channel for raffle with Facebook paid media driving online traffic. This is a raffle trend which has really grown in popularity over the last year. ## Top tips for 2021 Raffle is always a strong performer – even when things like Covid hit or we enter recession. But it still needs love and attention. New ideas and approaches keep it fresh and keep it performing. As I’m starting to work with our charity partners on their 2021 program planning, I’d like to share some of the things we’ll be discussing to continually improve their campaigns and increase raffle performance: #### 1. Retention Nothing new here. Keeping players playing is one of the key criteria for a successful raffle. Our challenge for 2021 is to keep players engaged in an increasingly crowded ‘charity gaming’ market-place. It’s more competitive than ever out there. I’ll be looking at keeping creative fresh, incentives interesting and ramping up the personalisation. #### 2. Acquisition With more budget being released for acquisition activity in raffle I’m looking forward to talking channel, ask, message and data strategy for acquisition and journey planning further to that – we need to make sure once we get people playing, we keep them. #### 3. Stewardship Linked to both of the above, stewardship is high on the agenda. Thanking is getting increasingly sophisticated and we can do great things now on a simple thank you letter to help players feel valued and special. For more on stewardship you can check out some of our other blogs: Get to know your supporters’ personas and [The key to effective supporter journeys](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/the-key-to-effective-supporter-journeys). #### 4. Channel With access and willingness to donate online increasing, now is the time to review the digital raffle strategy. With a raffle online there’s lots we can explore from text-to-play through to QR codes. Exciting stuff. #### 5. Testing No matter how good the raffle is, there’s always room for improvement and always something else we can test: from [ask strategy](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/glossary/ask-strategy/) to pack creative. I love working in raffle. My reward comes from seeing the results come in and knowing that the strategy I’ve recommended for my clients’ programmes is working! There’s lots we can do based on current raffle trends and looking to new and innovative things in the future. I’m looking forward to driving our partners’ programmes into further raffle performance successes in 2021. ### Find out more If you’re looking for support on how you can build and develop your raffle programme, save costs or even set up a raffle we’d be happy to speak to you. You can read more about our [Raffle service](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/raffle/), look through a case study or simply drop us a line [charities@woodsvalldata.co.uk](mailto:charities@woodsvalldata.co.uk) for more information. \*\* Look out for our Prize-led Fundraising report and webinar focusing on weekly lottery and raffle trends. It’s happening in the New Year. Drop us an [email](mailto:charities@woodsvalldata.co.uk) now to register your interest \*\* Tags: [Raffle](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/tag/raffle) Please share this blog... - [mailto:?body=https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/2020-charity-raffle-trends-and-2021-top-tips-to-make-your-raffle-perform](mailto:?body=https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/2020-charity-raffle-trends-and-2021-top-tips-to-make-your-raffle-perform) - - [Back to Blog](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog) ### Categories ### Archives - [March 2020 (5)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2020/03) - [May 2022 (4)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2022/05) - [October 2022 (4)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2022/10) - [January 2023 (4)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2023/01) - [June 2023 (4)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2023/06) - [May 2024 (4)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2024/05) - [June 2024 (4)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2024/06) - [January 2026 (4)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2026/01) - [March 2021 (3)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2021/03) - [April 2021 (3)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2021/04) - [July 2023 (3)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2023/07) - [August 2023 (3)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2023/08) - [April 2024 (3)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2024/04) - [July 2024 (3)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2024/07) - [November 2025 (3)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2025/11) - [August 2026 (3)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2026/08) - [June 2020 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2020/06) - [August 2020 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2020/08) - [October 2020 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2020/10) - [November 2020 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2020/11) - [November 2021 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2021/11) - [January 2022 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2022/01) - [February 2022 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2022/02) - [February 2023 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2023/02) - [March 2023 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2023/03) - [September 2023 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2023/09) - [December 2023 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2023/12) - [February 2024 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2024/02) - [March 2024 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2024/03) - [February 2025 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2025/02) - [July 2025 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2025/07) - [December 2025 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2025/12) - [March 2026 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2026/03) - [April 2026 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2026/04) - [May 2026 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2026/05) - [July 2026 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2026/07) - [September 2026 (2)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2026/09) - [June 2015 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2015/06) - [November 2017 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2017/11) - [February 2020 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2020/02) - [April 2020 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2020/04) - [May 2020 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2020/05) - [July 2020 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2020/07) - [September 2020 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2020/09) - [May 2021 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2021/05) - [June 2021 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2021/06) - [August 2021 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2021/08) - [September 2021 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2021/09) - [October 2021 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2021/10) - [December 2021 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2021/12) - [March 2022 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2022/03) - [April 2022 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2022/04) - [June 2022 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2022/06) - [July 2022 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2022/07) - [August 2022 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2022/08) - [September 2022 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2022/09) - [May 2023 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2023/05) - [October 2023 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2023/10) - [November 2023 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2023/11) - [January 2024 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2024/01) - [September 2024 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2024/09) - [January 2025 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2025/01) - [March 2025 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2025/03) - [September 2025 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2025/09) - [October 2025 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2025/10) - [February 2026 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2026/02) - [June 2026 (1)](https://info.woodsvalldata.co.uk/blog/archive/2026/06) see all ## Related Articles ![WV logo](https://woodsvalldata.co.uk/wp-content/webp-express/webp-images/uploads/2023/05/WV_logo_2.png.webp) At Woods Valldata, we’re here for you and there for your supporters. We offer an unparalleled range of outsourced fundraising services giving your supporters the best possible experience and helping you grow your fundraising programmes. We’re your Partners in Possibility #### Contact Info Lansdowne House, Bumpers Way, Chippenham, SN14 6NG [01249 653444](tel:01249653444) [charities@woodsvalldata.co.uk](mailto:charities@woodsvalldata.co.uk) #### Quick links - [Services](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/) - [About](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/about/) - [Contact](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk) - [Careers](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/about/careers/) #### Blog posts ![Group-3](https://woodsvalldata.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Group-3.svg) ![iof-logo](https://woodsvalldata.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/iof-logo.svg) ![Lotteries-Council-Platnum-Member-white](https://woodsvalldata.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Lotteries-Council-Platnum-Member-white.svg) ![gc-logo](https://woodsvalldata.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/gc-logo.svg) ![PCI-logo](https://woodsvalldata.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/PCI-logo.svg) ![27001-Logo](https://woodsvalldata.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/27001-Logo.gif) 2023 Copyright Woods Group Ltd (trading as Woods valldata). Company number 03665861, VAT number GB991231322 - [Privacy](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/privacy-policy/) - [Cookies](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/cookie-policy/) - [Terms of use](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/terms-of-use/) - [Site map](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/site-map/) [![Resolution design logo](https://resolutionlabs.co.uk/cdn/resolution-dot-white-logo.svg)](https://resolutiondesign.co.uk) ## Affinity [Affinity Lottery](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/affinity-lottery/) is the ideal solution for charities looking for the joys to be had in acquiring and building relationships with players without the operational administrative burden.  This option enables your charity to increase player acquisition and boost your fundraising from the very first draw – with a prize fund with a £25,000 top prize at no cost or risk to your organisation. Perfect for: - Testing if lottery is right for your charity - When charity admin and financial resources are limited - Charities and societies of any size **[Book a demo.](https://meetings.hubspot.com/gemma-ward?__hstc=147199208.9e5ab3d8a0ca3a3f5a12ec2a1f7616ec.1686240030480.1687955986587.1687958199477.32&__hssc=147199208.1.1687958199477&__hsfp=3372006991)** Find out if Affinity Lottery is your perfect fit. [Get more info on Affinity Lottery including our ROI calculator](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/affinity-lottery/) ## Aspire Owned by you and managed by us, Aspire Lottery is perfect for charities and not-for-profits looking to increase regular giving income from a different type of supporter.   Your Aspire lottery is unique to you, perfectly matched to your cause and ready to go to deliver increased fundraising income to your charity.  Perfect for: - Quickly and easily setting up your own lottery - Migrating a small to medium sized lottery to a more intuitive platform **[Book a demo.](https://meetings.hubspot.com/julia-seidel?__hstc=147199208.9e5ab3d8a0ca3a3f5a12ec2a1f7616ec.1686240030480.1687955986587.1687958199477.32&__hssc=147199208.1.1687958199477&__hsfp=3372006991)** Find out if Aspire Lottery is your perfect fit. [Get more info on Aspire Lottery](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/lottery/aspire/) ## Advantage Advantage Lottery is the best weekly lottery product to take you and your fundraising efforts to a higher level!   It’s customisable and adaptable to fit with the growth needs of your programme and offers greater freedom in how you run your lottery, whilst giving you everything needed to help it reach its full potential.  Perfect for: - Charities who want to make their lottery unique - Migrating a medium to large sized lottery to benefit from Woods Valldata’s experience and expertise **[Chat to us.](https://meetings.hubspot.com/julia-seidel?__hstc=147199208.9e5ab3d8a0ca3a3f5a12ec2a1f7616ec.1686240030480.1687955986587.1687958199477.32&__hssc=147199208.1.1687958199477&__hsfp=3372006991)** Let’s take your lottery to the next level. [Get more info on Advantage Lottery](https://www.woodsvalldata.co.uk/services/lottery/advantage/)