WHILE a competition can be a useful promotional tool, it can also provide a valuable source of fundraising for charity organisations.
Rocky Bay public relations and fundraising manager Betty Cottrell said the charity had initiated car raffles in WA through its Mrs Western Australia competition 20 years ago.
“One of the contestants raffled a car as part of her fundraising obligations. The ideas grew from there,” she said.
“However, the car raffles have lost some of their impetus due to the number of people that have come into the area. Shopping centres have also started charging for the floor space used by the raffle.”
Ms Cottrell said the prizes offered were crucial to a raffle’s success.
“When I arrived at Rocky Bay we’d been offering all sorts of cars as prizes for our raffles,” she said.
“I decided we should go for better cars. We offered a Subaru WRX as the main prize and it was the most profitable raffle we’d ever run. At the moment we’re offering a Holden Monaro and that’s been hugely successful.
“It’s all about what people will buy a ticket in. More people will buy a ticket if there’s a chance of winning a Monaro than if the prize is just a Ford Laser.”
Ms Cottrell said there was a lot of red tape wrapped around raffle organisation.
“To run raffles on the scale we do you also need a good 20 to 30-strong group of volunteers,” she said.
Under Department of Racing, Gaming and Liquor rules all raffles require a permit, with two exceptions.
The first is where tickets are sold to people either in the same workplace or household, or to club members and their guests, and each prize is not worth more than $500 and the raffle is drawn within eight days. The second exemption occurs when tickets are numerically or alphabetically distinct, are drawn and sold on the same day and the aggregate prize is not worth more than $1,000.
