Successful raffle prize donators

sonicshelly

Hi is there a thread on here where people have had success from businesses that donate raffle/tombola prizes.
We had a poor response when we were raising funds for a little girl needing treatment in America, because we weren't a charity.
Sadly the little girl passed away but we have managed to register a charity in memory of her to help children with the same disease.
https://www.chelseasangels.co.uk - charity number : 1134277

I am hoping now we are registered we can be more successful in this, if there is a thread already or anyone knows of businesses more than willing to donate, even if its just samples of their products.

Many thanks

Hermia

I have only done this once and the best company I encountered was Megabowl (not much good if you don't have one near you of course!). They gave us vouchers for a night's free bowling. I think each voucher was for 4 people so that was a nice prize.

Have you tried Freecycle for gifts? My friend got some nice unwanted Christmas presents for a charity sale on there.

sonicshelly

Hi Hermia
Thank you will try and local bowling alley, its nto megabowl, but worth a go
I have asked on Freecycle but no response, have asked on my facebook page and had only a couple of people reply
thank you for your help though, means a lot
xx

Gosia

sonicshelly wrote: »

Hi is there a thread on here where people have had success from businesses that donate raffle/tombola prizes.
We had a poor response when we were raising funds for a little girl needing treatment in America, because we weren't a charity.
Sadly the little girl passed away but we have managed to register a charity in memory of her to help children with the same disease.
www.chelseasangels.co.uk - charity number : 1134277

I am hoping now we are registered we can be more successful in this, if there is a thread already or anyone knows of businesses more than willing to donate, even if its just samples of their products.

Many thanks

Hi

I've been doing some fundraising for a Challenge Trek in aid of The Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital Charity recently and decided to do a raffle and in just three weeks I managed to get quite a few responses. These were as follows:

- Odeon x4 tickets (chased them up on my letter in person)
- Cineworld x 2 tickets
- Local Richmond Theatre
- Local Orange Tree Theatre
- Headmasters (hairdressers)
- x2 cuts and hair treatments from local hairdresser
- LUSH (chased them up on my letter in person)
- Wagamama
- Legoland x4 passes
- Bar Estilo restaurant vouchers
- Pret a manger
- Cafe Nero
- Ping Pong restaurants

Maybe a couple of others but cannot remember off the top of my head. Granted a lot of the above are based around the London area though.

Best of luck with the fundraising and trying to get raffle prizes.

cureMS

Hi all

I have recently raised 900 pounds for MS Society UK via my just giving website and am booking in my skydive shortly. After doing this, I am hoping to aim higher and focus on doing a trek in Machu Picchu in 2011 for the MS Society again. I will need to raise about 3000 for this one so was wondering if anyone has any ideas for raffle prizes?
Who should I approach? I would like one big prize... i.e TV or something in that region and once I get my skydive out of the way will be headhunting companies for any assistance. Just wondering how others have gone about getting prizes for fundraisers?

Thanks for any advice. It's all appreciated :j

Savvy_Sue

I'm going to merge you with another recent thread on the same topic. It is also worth doing a search of this board as the subject does come up from time to time. Although I'm not aware of people getting very big prizes this way!

clairelou44

Gosia wrote: »

Hi

I've been doing some fundraising for a Challenge Trek in aid of The Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital Charity recently and decided to do a raffle and in just three weeks I managed to get quite a few responses. These were as follows:

- Odeon x4 tickets (chased them up on my letter in person)
- Cineworld x 2 tickets
- Local Richmond Theatre
- Local Orange Tree Theatre
- Headmasters (hairdressers)
- x2 cuts and hair treatments from local hairdresser
- LUSH (chased them up on my letter in person)
- Wagamama
- Legoland x4 passes
- Bar Estilo restaurant vouchers
- Pret a manger
- Cafe Nero
- Ping Pong restaurants

Maybe a couple of others but cannot remember off the top of my head. Granted a lot of the above are based around the London area though.

Best of luck with the fundraising and trying to get raffle prizes.

Can I ask how you contacted them? Was it email through there website or by telephone? Any more information would be great thanks

Savvy_Sue

I know when I was gathering raffle prizes for the school, the BEST way was to call into the local shops with a letter, and then go back a week later to see if anyone had been able to think about it. And I wrote to 'attractions' further afield with reasonable success.

And then a thank you letter afterwards, because I was going to want another prize in 6 months time.

I wouldn't rely on email, too easy to ignore. But this is some years ago, when email wasn't really 'the' way to communicate at all!

Ianna

I've always found a handwritten letter works better (shows you're not just spamming loads of companies. I also ring up the company and find out who to send the letter to so it doesn't get lost in their system. Following up on letters with a visit and phone call often gets results.

I also seem to have better results with smaller companies, Cadbury, McDonalds and similar never got back to me at all, I guess they get asked all the time.

Gosia

clairelou44 wrote: »

Can I ask how you contacted them? Was it email through there website or by telephone? Any more information would be great thanks

Hi

Sorry to take so long to respond to your query - I don't often check this thread.

In fairness I managed to obtain 95% of all prizes by e-mailing requests. With one or two of the companies (Lush and Odeon) I did hand deliver a letter, to which I received no response of course, so I went in a week later to ask whether they've yet had an opportunity to consider my request. Instant success of course in both cases I walked away with the prize in my hand.

I would say there's nothing wrong with e-mailing the companies as long as you've got a good e-mail address i.e. I used my work e-mail address so that it wouldn't look like spam, and as it ends in .gov.uk it looks more official and genuine then someone just sending e-mail from a Yahoo! account.

Someone above suggested doing hand written letters but again that's subject to opinion. Let's face it for every 10 letters sent you might be lucky to get 1 prize so hand written letters are not only time consuming but also old fashioned and maybe a tad unprofessional. Just remember when the businesses read you letter they want to be able to understand it and see quickly what it is that you're after, what Charity you're doing it for etc. So keep it professional, brief and simple - as no doubt they've got another 100 such letters on their desk.

Last of all good luck:T

I am still £2,000 away from my intended target so have some way to go.

kazzah60

Our charity has had a lot of success recently via e mail

we have had an adult bike and helmet donated by Warburtons Bakery
£200 cash from Next
Lush - no luck at all despite them asking us to send a letter which we did
Jordans Foods - lovely hamper of goodies
£25 M&S voucher
£500 from Greggs bakeries ( that was via letter)
plus a lot more little items too
Good luck
Karen