If you’ve been debating whether to start an online lottery for your charity, the time to do it is most certainly now.
As online lottery providers here at Woods Valldata, we’ve got our finger consistently on the pulse of what’s happening in prize-led fundraising. In fact, our prize-led fundraising benchmarking and trends webinar in 2024 revealed some truly eye opening findings across the board.
In it, online lottery was one of the top items of discussion, where our experts concluded that, if a charity is considering implementing their own online lottery, there’s no better time to kick-start the set-up process than now!
But why is this the case, and how should you go about it if you are one of said charities? Read on to find out...
3 reasons that now is the best time to start a charity lottery:
1. The popularity of online lottery for players is only set to increase
Lottery is already a popular way for supporters to donate to their favourite charities. However, our research as online lottery providers is showing that lottery’s popularity is only going to increase as the years go on!
This is namely due to online lotteries being easy to sign up to (all it takes is a direct debit setup – no need to go out and buy a physical ticket!), being a relatively low monthly expense for supporters, and the chance for them to win a big prize.
They’re also great fun for supporters to play, and they ignite the feel-good factor from contributing towards a worthy cause. You can find out more about why people play the lottery in our player profile report.
2. People are feeling the pinch during the cost of living crisis
This might seem like a strange reason to start an online lottery. After all, if money is tight, surely people are less likely to spend what they have on lottery tickets?
Interestingly, however, the reality is quite the contrary!
If we rewind to 2009 when the UK was in its last recession, many organisations found that lottery ticket sales increased. For example, ticket sales went up by £25 million for the National Lottery in 2008/9, compared to 2007/8.
Research has also found that people are more likely to buy lottery tickets in tougher economic circumstances as a “ticket out of hard times,” in the hopes that they will be able to “get back to where they were financially.”
So, by setting up a charity lottery the chances are you’ll be setting up an income stream suited to ride out this economic wave.
3. There are other charity lotteries out there that you can learn from
Knowing that there are other charities out there running lotteries that your prospective supporters could play might seem daunting at first. Indeed, you might ask yourself “why would supporters want to start playing my new lottery when there are already others out there to play?”
However, by starting your lottery now, you’ll be able to research these many different lotteries in detail to see where they triumph and falter, and use these insights to create a truly winning lottery strategy for your own charity that’ll rise above them all!
This not only includes aspects of the lottery itself, such as the top prize amount and how much it costs to play per week, but everything that surrounds it, such as how it’s marketed and promoted (if at all) to their response handling and more.
What's more, when you work with an online lottery provider, you can also benefit from their specialist knowledge. At Woods Valldata, for example, we support multiple charities with their lotteries and work with them continuously to improve their programmes – so there is no one better placed to help you create a winning lottery!
Ready to set up your online lottery?
As you may have gathered, there’s a lot to think about when it comes to starting an online lottery for your charity. That’s where Woods Valldata comes in!
We’re renowned online lottery providers that have helped several charities achieve online lottery success over the years through our range of lottery solutions, including the likes of RNIB, Independent Age and St. John Ambulance – and we’d love to support you to achieve similar (if not, greater) success.
In addition, if you’re a smaller charity and are concerned that a weekly lottery is out of reach, our Affinity Lottery is the perfect solution for you.
Specifically designed for small charities, sports clubs and societies, the Affinity Lottery enables you to share the lottery love with other charities - so you can enjoy all the benefits of a big prize lottery, but with no ongoing fees or administrative burden.
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help you to set up your online lottery, why not join us for one of our ‘Introduction to Weekly Lottery for Charities’ webinars? Created for charities thinking about setting up a weekly lottery, our regular webinars are the perfect way to find out more about how the process works, what’s out there, and what’s involved.
Or alternatively, you can book a free consultation with our team by following the link below.
