Raffles Run for a Cause, by the Numbers
Most raffle benchmarks assume the organiser and the beneficiary are the same organisation: the P&C raffles for the school, the club raffles for the club. A large minority are not. A workplace raffles for a colleague’s surgery, a restaurant runs a pink night for breast cancer research, a choir network draws for a women’s shelter every year, a rider in a charity challenge sells tickets to hit a target. Since 2016 more than 850 raffles on RaffleLink have been run by someone outside the cause the money was for, and they have raised about $3.4 million for more than 430 organisations.
This post is the baseline for those raffles. The fundraising for a cause page explains how the sign-off works on RaffleLink; this is what the numbers say.
What a raffle for a cause typically raises
| Raffles run for a cause | |
|---|---|
| Median raised | $2,750 |
| Lower quarter | under $1,170 |
| Top quarter | $5,450 and up |
| Top 10% | $12,200 and up |
| Largest | $95,000 |
| Median number of buyers | 74 |
| Spend per buyer (median) | $34 |
| Median campaign | 4 weeks |
| Typical ticket | $5 |
The median sits above the school raffle ($2,400) and the club raffle ($2,000) and a little below the charity raffle ($3,300). That surprised us. The explanation is in who runs them: a person raising for a cause they care about tends to bring a room, a workplace or a customer base the cause itself doesn’t have, and to sell harder into it than a committee does. The top-quarter line, $5,450, is the one to plan against: it is what a well-run event or business raffle clears.
Who runs them
We typed every raffle by what its own headline and purpose said about it. Most didn’t announce anything beyond the cause, so the first row is the bulk.
| Who ran it | Raffles | Median raised | Buyers | Typical ticket |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A person or small group with a nominated cause | 456 | $2,500 | 75 | $5 |
| Personal cause (surgery, treatment, in memory of) | 55 | $1,900 | 56 | $7 |
| Event or corporate night (dinner, awards, golf day) | 36 | $6,400 | 114 | $5 |
| Challenge participant (ride, trek, shave, marathon) | 31 | $3,500 | 82 | $10 |
| Business-run (shop, salon, staff and customers) | 15 | $4,000 | 77 | $20 |
The event raffle is the standout at more than twice the overall median. It is sold to a room that has already turned up for the cause, paid for a ticket and had a drink, and it is drawn before anyone leaves. The business-run raffle is the other pattern worth copying: a $20 ticket sold across the counter and to clients, with a prize the business could source at cost.
The personal-cause raffle raises the least, and it comes with a legal catch: a raffle whose beneficiary is a person rather than an organisation is only permitted in Queensland, under a special Category 3 licence (how that works). Everywhere else the personal campaign runs through a charity or foundation that agrees to receive the money.
Who the money went to
Keyed off the beneficiary’s name, so a third couldn’t be classified.
| Beneficiary | Raffles | Median raised |
|---|---|---|
| Health and medical charities (hospitals, research, foundations) | 201 | $2,300 |
| Community and welfare organisations (shelters, youth, disability, support groups) | 114 | $3,800 |
| Emergency services and legacy funds | 20 | $3,500 |
| Schools and early learning | 18 | $3,100 |
| Sports and community clubs | 15 | $3,000 |
| Animal rescue | 7 | $1,300 |
| Not classifiable from the name | 216 | $2,500 |
Health is the default cause, which fits the personal connection behind most of these raffles. Community and welfare organisations raise more per raffle, largely because the events (the choir’s annual fundraiser, the company awards night) tend to pick them.
The prize sets the ticket, and the ticket sets the total
We classified the first prize of every raffle.
| First prize | Raffles | Median raised | Typical ticket |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holiday or accommodation | 129 | $3,800 | $10 |
| Electronics or appliance | 91 | $3,300 | $10 |
| Experience or event tickets | 90 | $2,300 | $5 |
| Gift card or voucher | 53 | $1,600 | $5 |
| Jewellery, art or luxury goods | 53 | $2,500 | $5 |
| Hamper or prize pack | 37 | $1,000 | $5 |
| Sporting goods or leisure | 34 | $2,000 | $5 |
| Cash | 18 | $3,200 | $12 |
| Boat, motorbike or other vehicle | 15 | $7,600 | $10 |
| Car | 13 | $38,600 | $25 |
The pattern is the same as every other segment and the lever is the same: the prize decides what ticket price feels fair, and the ticket price decides the total, because buyer counts barely move. A holiday or an appliance carries a $10 ticket and raises three and a half times what a hamper does. Ticket price bands make the point directly:
| Ticket price | Raffles | Median raised |
|---|---|---|
| $1–$2 | 70 | $1,100 |
| $3–$5 | 248 | $1,900 |
| $6–$10 | 122 | $3,300 |
| $11–$25 | 118 | $5,000 |
| $26+ | 35 | $14,200 |
A business has an advantage here that a charity committee doesn’t: the prize can come from its own stock, its suppliers or its clients, at cost or donated, and it reads as generous rather than as an expense. Switching on the option for supporters to cover the platform fee at checkout is worth doing too; about one in three choose to.
A week in the room beats a month online
| On sale for | Raffles | Median raised |
|---|---|---|
| A week or less | 87 | $3,400 |
| 2–3 weeks | 137 | $2,300 |
| 4–6 weeks | 202 | $2,600 |
| 7–12 weeks | 127 | $2,500 |
| Over 12 weeks | 40 | $4,600 |
Raffles for a cause don’t reward length the way a charity’s supporter-list raffle does. The ones that sold in a week or less, almost all attached to an event, out-raised everything short of the three-month campaigns, and those are a different animal (a car, a $25 ticket, a season of selling). If you have a room, design for the room: a QR code on every table, Tap to Pay on two phones, and the draw before dessert. How one dinner raffle took $40,600 in a night is the worked example.
How the sign-off works
On RaffleLink the organiser signs up, chooses “I want to run a raffle to benefit an organisation”, finds the cause in the directory or enters its details, and the cause signs a Letter of Authority (or an admin approves in-app if the organisation is already on RaffleLink). The raffle can be built while that happens and goes on sale once it is approved. Most approvals come back the same day, and the typical organiser has tickets on sale three days after asking. A third of these organisers switch on the Ticket Booth for in-person sales and almost as many run paper tickets alongside, which is the event pattern above showing up again.
About the numbers
Figures come from raffles run on RaffleLink since 2016 by an individual or business raising for a nominated cause, with at least $500 in paid sales: 856 started, 593 counted. Buyers are distinct purchasers. Organiser sub-types and beneficiary kinds are keyword matches on the raffle’s own wording and the beneficiary’s name, so read them as ranking evidence rather than a census. Prize types come from a classification of each raffle’s first prize (machine-classified, then audited). Sign-off timings are medians across authorised raffles to 4 September 2026. Medians are per raffle; no organiser’s or beneficiary’s result is identified. Australian dollars.
The fundraising for a cause page collects the flow, the rules and the numbers in one place. There is no setup fee and nothing to pay until tickets sell.
