Lottery: Your Unrestricted Regular Giving Income Growth Engine

Weekly Lottery: From "Nice to Have" to Unrestricted Regular Giving Income Growth Engine - How Weekly Lottery Can Build Your Income

Key Take-Outs

• Weekly lotteries are delivering dependable Unrestricted Regular Giving Income for UK charities, even in a tougher giving climate.

• Benchmarking highlights slight pressure on recruitment and cancellations, but overall player numbers remain broadly stable.

• Growth comes from balancing acquisition (face-to-face, warm conversion, digital, DRTV) with strong retention journeys.

• Programme design choices (pooled vs bespoke lotteries) can reduce risk and help you scale compliantly depending on where you are in your journey.

• With the right stewardship, upgrade strategy and reporting, weekly lottery can become a long-term income growth engine.

Weekly lotteries have been one of the strongest performers in individual giving in recent years, delivering much‑needed unrestricted regular giving income for many UK charities — and the 2026 Woods Valldata benchmarking webinar reinforces that story.

While not immune to wider economic pressures, weekly lottery is still delivering steady unrestricted regular giving income for charities that invest in recruitment, retention and supporter experience.

Weekly Lottery Trends Affecting Unrestricted Regular Giving Income

Pulling from Woods Valldata benchmarks and wider sector insight (including Gambling Commission stats: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/statistics-and-research) we can see the following weekly lottery trends:

1. Recruitment is Slightly Down - But Far From Collapsing

Average recruitment volumes dipped modestly (around 6%), reflecting tighter budgets and higher acquisition costs.

2. Cancellations Have Increased Slightly

A small increase in cancellation rates points to cost-of-living pressures, but not a collapse in loyalty.

3. Active Player Bases are Broadly Stable

Marginal gains in active player numbers suggest that where acquisition and retention are managed well, lotteries remain robust.

4. Most Players Take 1-2 Chances

Average chance rates hover around 1.4–1.5, often driven by recruitment scripts and proposition design.

5. Face-to-Face and Warm Conversion are Still Core

Larger charities typically see:

• Face-to-face as the main volume driver
• Warm telephone / DM conversion as high-value, efficient channels
• DR TV + digital supporting scalable acquisition where budgets allow

Smaller charities, and those without big above-the-line budgets, are increasingly using pooled lottery models like Affinity Lottery from Woods Valldata and digital-first recruitment to get started. Smaller charities are seeing good results from:

• Warm email conversion
• Organic and paid social media campaigns
• Lottery presence on all exiting communications from newsletters to websites to t-shirts

Why Start - or Build - a Weekly Lottery to Grow Unrestricted Regular Giving Income?

Weekly Lottery is a powerful way for charity fundraisers to increase income. It not only helps you deliver your mission, it keeps the lights on too. The Gambling Commission statistics show that lottery sales are on the up YOY showing there is still a great public appetite for having the chance to win something whilst supporting a good cause. There are lots of great reasons to start a weekly lottery for your charity. Here are just a few of them:

1.  Flexible Income

Weekly lottery remains one of the few products where:

• Donors are happy to give on a regular basis

• The “prize” mechanic adds value for supporters

• The income can often be used flexibly to support core work

• That flexibility is critical in an era of more restricted and project-funded income.

2. Complements Existing IG Products

It sits naturally in an IG product mix and complements your other IG products. Weekly lottery:

• Attracts a slightly different demographic and motivation set to standard RG

• Works well with cross-sell flows (cash → lottery, lottery → RG or vice versa)

• Provides a “lighter-touch” regular giving route for some supporters including those who are ‘reactivation’ for your charity.

3. You can Build a Lottery to Suit Your Charity Needs

There are more product and platform options than ever. You don’t need to build a lottery from scratch. There are:

Pooled lotteries (like Woods Valldata’s Affinity Lottery) that reduce upfront regulatory risk of starting your own (non-pooled) lottery. Pooled lotteries share prize funds across multiple causes. In the case of Affinity Lottery, each charity in the Affinity Family has their own lottery brand and presence, powered by Affinity Lottery. Request a demo to find out more.

Bespoke, standalone lotteries (like Woods Valldata’s Advantage Lottery) work exceptionally well for larger programmes with scale ambitions. These work where a charity already has a strong base of lottery players to meet the GC 80/20 ratio requirements and stay compliant. As they’re bespoke, they offer more opportunities to adapt and change the way the lottery works including dictating the prize fund and structure and whether there are any additional draws or benefits of playing for supporters.

Growing Unrestricted Regular Giving Income Through Acquisition: Options to Explore

We learnt from the Prize-led Fundraising Benchmarking and Trends webinar and wider sector practice (CIOF resources on fundraising products: https://ciof.org.uk for example) that there are many opportunities to acquire new players into a lottery programme. The most effective channels will depend on the charity and budget available. Below are some examples of effective acquisition channels for weekly lottery which will help build unrestricted individual giving income:

1. Face-to-Face

Still one of the best channels for charities with the budget to do so to scale at speed. Buy face-to-face itself is not a silver bullet. Best practice still needs to prevail. Best results can be found where:

• Scripts are well designed and training is robust

• Compliance and quality are tightly managed

• Long-term value (not just CPA or ROI) is tracked

2. Warm Conversion (Phone and DM)

Used with consideration weekly lottery can help amplify the lifetime value of your existing supporters. As it is such a different way of giving, charities report that weekly lottery does not create cannibalisation when asking existing supporters. Perhaps profile your database to find the best match active, lapsing and lapsed supporters to contact for weekly lottery. Consider:

• Phoning existing donors/supporters

• Using DM/email to invite committed or cash supporters to take out a chance

• Reactivating cancelled players and lapsed RG donors with a lower ask

3. Make Digital Work Harder (Without Abandoning DM)

Digital is a more accessible media channel for many charities, especially those on a smaller budget. But many are finding Meta challenging in getting traction with prize-led campaigns. Current industry best practice is to:

• Lean into the AI-driven strategies provided by Meta

• Include authentic storytelling, video content and strong, clear propositions

• Test and scale – run a dedicated testing campaign and scale winners into a separate campaign

• Boost your Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) by ensuring your UX and forms are optimised

4. Direct Response TV (DRTV)

Charities with the budget to do so find that DRTV can help to drive a broad reach as well as target specific, responsive subgroups of supporters. DRTV can be very effective, but it’s worth bearing in mind when you’re measuring effectiveness:

• DRTV is valuable in driving responses from other channels – it might not be directly measurable

• DRTV can be costly so it’s worth looking at lifetime value-based KPIs rather than immediate ROI when justifying a campaign

This latter point is true across all media. The Woods Valldata benchmarks show that CPAs are quite level across all types of channel. The key is to use break-even and lifetime value modelling, not just cost per acquisition, to guide your channel mix.

Growing Unrestricted Regular Giving Income Through Retention: Don't Leave Value on the Table

A weekly lottery only realises its full potential when players stay and play for longer periods. We see around 40% attrition in the first year – which is often better than many other RG programmes. But there is still more that can be done to keep your players playing:

• Strong welcome journeys – timely, clear, and cause-led

• Early-draw and winner communications – making the “game” feel real

• Upgrade campaigns – framed as appreciation and impact, not just revenue

• Bonus and super draws – to excite and reward loyalty

How Woods Valldata Can Help

Woods Valldata is an established lottery service provider and External Lottery Manager (ELM) and industry leading in helping charities deliver an exceptional supporter experience. Our trained teams and market leading technologies support charities to:

• Start weekly lotteries via pooled (Affinity) or bespoke (Advantage) models

• Compliantly sign players up to the lottery regardless of channel acquisition

• Provide a GC compliant lottery sign up site with the supporter UX at its heart

• Keep abreast of how their lottery is performing via secure online dashboards and reports

• Advise on how to retain and upgrade players via data-driven supporter journeys

• Operate programmes end‑to‑end compliantly

We’ve helped charities large and small launch, build and develop successful prize-led programmes that generate dependable unrestricted regular giving income.

• Read how Retina UK raised £10,000 of unrestricted regular giving income in the first year with Affinity Lottery. James Clarke at Retina UK says: "I would one million percent recommend Affinity Lottery. The opportunities are endless."

• Or how PETA launched their lottery in as little as three weeks and built their base to 1,000 players in just four months using social media, email short, internal magazine inserts and their webinar – 50% were new supporters!

• Or how a partnership approach can boost weekly lottery numbers – with RNIB achieving a 147% increase in just 2 years.

Weekly lottery isn’t just a “nice to have” add-on. With the right strategy, it can become one of the most dependable growth engines for Unrestricted Regular Giving  

FAQ: Unrestricted Regular Giving Income and Charity Weekly Lotteries

What is Unrestricted Regular Giving Income? It’s predictable, repeatable income from supporters that you can use flexibly to fund core costs and mission delivery (rather than being ringfenced to a specific project).

How does a weekly lottery generate Unrestricted Regular Giving Income? Players typically pay by regular direct debit for one or more weekly chances. After prizes and operating costs, the net proceeds support the charity — creating a steady, forecastable income stream.

Is weekly lottery income ‘regular giving’ or something different? It’s a form of committed, repeat giving, but the supporter motivation can be different to standard RG because the prize mechanic adds an extra reason to participate. Many charities use it alongside RG to broaden their committed income mix.

What acquisition channels work best for weekly lottery? For many charities, face-to-face drives volume, while warm conversion (phone, direct mail and email) can be highly efficient. Digital and DRTV can scale where budgets and testing capacity allow — the right mix depends on your audience, proposition and lifetime value.

How can we reduce cancellations and improve retention in weekly lottery? Focus on a strong welcome journey, early winner and draw communications, clear impact messaging, and well-timed upgrade/thank-you moments. Treat the experience as both a game (credible draws, winners) and a cause product (impact, appreciation).

Do we need to run a standalone lottery to benefit? Not necessarily. Many charities start via pooled models (where prize funds are shared across multiple causes) to reduce operational overhead and get to market faster, then review whether a bespoke model is right as their player base grows.

What do we need to consider for UK lottery compliance (in simple terms)? The Gambling Commission sets rules and monetary limits for society and local authority lotteries, including requirements on how proceeds are split between the charitable purpose, prizes and expenses. If you’re unsure, get specialist advice early (for example via an External Lottery Manager like Woods Valldata) so your proposition and reporting stay compliant.