How to run a raffle for your school or PTA

Written: 27 October 2026

TL;DR: Taking your PTA raffle online can help you raise thousands of pounds by reaching parents, grandparents, local businesses and the wider school community. The simplest route is usually a raffle-style prize draw with a genuine free entry option, which avoids the need for a lottery licence or registration when set up correctly. Choose one or two desirable prizes, aim for £5 per entry with bundle offers, run your draw for two to three weeks, and promote it through school communications and social media. Pick a winner fairly, then make your raffle a regular fundraising tradition to maximise your impact.

PTAs run raffles all the time. At the summer fair, the Christmas bazaar, the end-of-year celebration. But taking that raffle online opens up a much bigger audience than the parents who made it to the school hall, and can raise significantly more as a result.

This guide covers how to run an online raffle or raffle style prize draw for your PTA legally and effectively in the UK, from choosing a prize through to picking a winner and making the most of the money raised. Please note there are some differences in thresholds and requirements in Northern Ireland.

Can a PTA legally run an online raffle?

Yes, but the route you take matters.

Under UK law, a raffle where everyone pays to enter and the winner is chosen at random is legally a lottery. Running an online raffle without the right setup can be a criminal offence, even for a school PTA.

There are two ways to do it properly:

The quick route: run a raffle style prize draw. If you include a genuine free entry route (anyone can enter without paying, often by post), your draw falls outside the definition of a lottery and requires no registration or licence. This is the model Crowdfunder uses, and for most PTAs it’s the simplest option by a long way.

The traditional route: register as a small society lottery. If you want a paid-ticket-only online raffle with no free entry option, your PTA needs to register with the local authority first. This comes with ongoing rules on ticket pricing, what tickets must say, how much of the money goes to your cause, and reporting to your council after every draw. The Gambling Commission’s guidance on small society lotteries covers the detail: gamblingcommission.gov.uk. Please note the rules on lotteries in Northern Ireland differ in some respects, please consult the NI Department for Communities.

What about the raffle at the school fair? A raffle where tickets are sold and the winner drawn at the event itself is usually exempt (as an “incidental lottery”) and doesn’t need registration, though there are limits on how much you can spend on expenses and prizes. Once you sell tickets before the event or online, the exemption no longer applies. At that point you’d need to register as a small society lottery, with the rules and reporting that come with it, or run it as a prize draw with a free entry route instead, which doesn’t need registration.

Full guide: how to run an online raffle legally in the UK →

Why take your PTA raffle online?

A school hall raffle reaches the parents who turned up. An online raffle or prize draw reaches grandparents, aunties, uncles, former parents, local businesses, and anyone in the school community’s wider network who’d happily spend £5 for a chance to win something if you made it easy for them.

The numbers shift when you go online:

• More people can enter (not just those physically present)
• Entries can come in over days or weeks, not just one evening
• Supporters can pay by card or bank transfer, not just cash, so no more counting coins at the end of the evening
• You build a list of supporters you can contact for future fundraising

Most PTA raffles at a school fair raise a few hundred pounds. Online PTA raffle style prize draws on Crowdfunder regularly raise into the thousands.

Choose your prize

An online prize draw works differently to the school fair raffle. At the fair, you might have 57 donated bottles, books and chocolates spread across a table. Online, that doesn’t translate. What works online is one or two prizes that people genuinely want to win, something worth sharing beyond the school WhatsApp. Fewer prizes, bigger impact, wider reach.

The prize is what gets people to share the draw beyond the school gate. A bottle of wine from the staffroom collection won’t travel far. Something genuinely desirable will.

What works well for PTAs:

• A family holiday or weekend away (donated by a parent who owns a holiday let, or sourced from a local hotel)
• A hamper of vouchers from local businesses (restaurant, spa, cinema, activity centre)
• A one-off experience: a sports coaching session, a kids’ party package, a cooking class
• Tech or gadgets (an iPad is the single most common high-performing raffle prize for PTAs)
• A year’s free breakfast club or after-school club place (if your school offers them)

How to source prizes for free:

Ask parents first. Most PTA committees underestimate what their parent community has access to. Someone works at a hotel chain. Someone runs a restaurant. Someone has a holiday cottage sitting empty in October. A direct ask in the class WhatsApp group or via the school newsletter often surfaces prizes that would cost hundreds to buy.

Then approach local businesses. Frame it as visibility, not charity: “Your business will be promoted to 400 families across our school community via email and social media.” Keep the ask specific: “Could you donate a voucher to the value of £50?”

Price your entries and set up bundles

£5 per entry is the sweet spot for most PTA raffles and prize draws. It’s low enough to be impulse-friendly, high enough to add up.

Offer bundles to increase what each person spends:

• 3 for £10 — this is the one to use if you only pick one bundle. It turns a £5 impulse entry into a £10 transaction.
• 5 for £20 — for the keener parents and grandparents
• 10 for £30 — for the PTA superfans

Average entry on a Crowdfunder prize draw is around £18, largely because of bundle pricing. Without bundles, it would be closer to £5.

Discounted bundles are only available on prize draws; they are not legally allowed in society lotteries as every ticket must be sold at the same price.

Make sure your free entry route is compliant

If you’re running a raffle style prize draw (the no-registration route), the free entry route is the thing that makes it legal. It needs to be genuine, not a technicality buried in the small print.

The free entry route must be:

• Available by post or another method that’s no more expensive or less convenient than paying to enter
• Clearly displayed on your prize draw page, not just hidden in the terms
• Open for the same period as the paid entry route
• Treated equally in the draw — free entrants have the same chance of winning

Common mistakes PTAs make:

• Only mentioning the free entry route in the terms and conditions
• Closing the free route before the paid route ends
• Not adding free entries to the draw before picking a winner
• Requiring free entrants to jump through extra hoops paid entrants don’t face

On Crowdfunder, every prize draw must include a free entry route before it can go live, and the terms template walks you through how to set it out.

Set your target and timeline

Target: Think carefully about whether to choose “keep what you raise” or “all or nothing.” With keep what you raise, you must award the prizes whether or not you reach your target, even if only a handful of entries come in. With all or nothing, you only award prizes if your project reaches its target, and all entries are refunded automatically if you don’t. Most PTAs choose keep what you raise, especially when prizes have been donated and there’s no cash outlay to recover.

Timeline: Two to three weeks is the right window for a PTA raffle. Long enough to build momentum, short enough to maintain urgency.

Time it around the school calendar: the week before half term, the run-up to Christmas, or the last few weeks of the summer term when goodwill is highest.

Fix your closing date before you launch. The deadline is what drives entries in the final 48 hours, which is typically when a third of your total comes in.

Promote it through the school community

Week one: the inner circle. Your PTA committee and class reps should be the first to enter and share. Ask each class rep to forward the link to their year group WhatsApp or email list. Early entries make the page look active when wider audiences see it.

Week two: the full school community. A message from the head teacher or PTA chair via the school’s usual communication channel (Parentmail, ClassDojo, school app, email) is typically the single biggest driver of entries. Follow up on social: the school’s Facebook page, Instagram, and any local community groups you’re part of.

Final 48 hours: the urgency push. A countdown reminder via the school’s comms channel and the class WhatsApp groups. Remind people of the prize, the cause, and the deadline. Make it easy to forward to grandparents and extended family.

Don’t forget: if a local business donated the prize, ask them to share the raffle with their own customers. A post from the local restaurant to their Instagram following can drive entries from people who have no connection to the school at all.

Pick your winner

The winner must be selected fairly. Crowdfunder’s number generator can help with this.

Before you draw:

• Make sure all free entries have been added to the pool
• Record the total number of entries
• Run the generator and save the result as your record of a fair draw

Announce the winner via the school’s usual channels and on your prize draw page. A photo of the winner collecting their prize (with permission) is great content for promoting your next one.

After the draw: turn it into a tradition

The PTAs that raise the most from raffles don’t run one and stop. They make it a fixture: a Christmas raffle, an end-of-year raffle, maybe one tied to a specific project (new playground equipment, a library refresh, a residential trip subsidy fund).

Each raffle builds on the last. Parents who entered once expect it the next time. The class reps know the drill. The local businesses who donated prizes are easier to approach again because they saw the visibility the first time round.

A PTA raffle style prize draw that runs twice a year at £2,000–£5,000 each is £4,000–£10,000 annually, with minimal effort and no registration, licensing or reporting.

Success stories

Friends of Sheldon School (Chippenham) raised £2,026 with a prize draw headlined by a Dyson Supersonic Nural hairdryer worth £399. The funds went to student enrichment programmes, trips and extra-curricular activities. A single standout prize, clearly photographed, with a simple entry structure: £2 for one entry, £10 for seven, £20 for fifteen.

Friends of Meersbrook Bank School (Sheffield) raised £5,110 with a signed Arctic Monkeys drum skin as the prize, funding a playground revamp. A local-pride prize tied to the city’s most famous band, it travelled far beyond the school gate.

KAStonbury Grand Prize Draw (London) is a repeat annual draw run by the King Alfred School parents’ group, tied to its festival-style school event. It raised £2,810 in 2024 and grew to £4,585 in 2025. A good example of how a seasonal draw builds year on year.

SMSJ PTA Oasis Tickets Prize Draw (London) raised £444 from 82 supporters by offering a pair of Oasis tickets at Wembley. The PTA didn’t buy the tickets as a prize, they already had them, and turned a single asset into a fundraiser that engaged the whole school community.

Lady Margaret School PTA (London) raised £2,754 with a Christmas market prize draw. The funds went to the school’s mental health and wellbeing initiative and its library project. Timed to the school’s Christmas market, it extended the fair’s reach online.

Ready to start?

A raffle style prize draw on Crowdfunder is free to set up for schools and PTAs, requires no licence, and can be live in about 20 minutes.

Pick your winner with our number generator →

Browse prize draws on Crowdfunder →

UK legal guide: do you need a licence for your raffle? →

This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. If you are in any doubt about your specific situation, seek independent legal advice.