What makes a good raffle prize?

Broad appeal and one or two strong headline prizes. A weekend away, a meal for two at a restaurant people know, or a family attraction pass sells more tickets than a long tail of small items. Below that, vouchers and services from local businesses are the backbone: they are easy to donate, easy to carry home, and hard to buy for yourself. Avoid prizes that are perishable, bulky, only usable far away, or that need the winner to spend more money to enjoy.

How do you ask a local business to donate a raffle prize?

Approach them six to eight weeks before the event, in person where you can, and with a short letter on headed paper. Name the event, the date and the cause, suggest one specific thing rather than asking open-endedly, and say how the business will be credited. Keep a running list of what has been promised and follow up the week before. Start with the businesses your own families already use.

What should a raffle prize request letter include?

The group and the cause, the event and its date, what last year raised and what it paid for, a specific and modest suggestion of what to donate, exactly how the business will be thanked, a named contact with a phone number, and the date you can collect by. Keep it to one page. There is a copyable version on this page.

Do businesses get a tax break for donating a raffle prize?

Sometimes, but do not lead with it and do not advise on it. A business that donates its own products or stock, rather than buying something in to give, may be able to treat it as a gift of trading stock and claim tax relief, but only where the recipient is a charity or another body HMRC lists, which includes registered charities and community amateur sports clubs. Whether a particular PTA or club qualifies is a question for the business’s accountant. Buying a voucher to donate does not attract this relief. Point them at HMRC’s guidance rather than making the case yourself.

How many prizes does a raffle need?

Enough that most people at a busy table feel they have a real chance, which usually means one prize for every ten to twenty strips of tickets you expect to sell, plus one or two headline prizes to draw people in. It is better to bundle several small donations into a few good hampers than to draw thirty near-identical bottles of shower gel.

Do donated prizes count towards the £500 limit on raffle prizes?

No. For a raffle run as an incidental non-commercial lottery at an event, no more than £500 of the proceeds may be spent buying prizes, but prizes donated by businesses or parents do not count towards that and have no cap on their value. This is why most fair and church raffles run almost entirely on donations. Whether your raffle needs registering with the council depends on when tickets are sold, not on the prizes.

Raffle prize ideas, and how to ask a local business to donate

A good raffle runs almost entirely on donated prizes. The hard part is rarely the raffle itself. It is standing in a shop you use every week, asking the person behind the counter for something for nothing, and not knowing quite how to put it.

This page has two halves: prizes worth asking for, grouped by where they come from, and a plain method for the ask, with a letter you can copy. It is written for PTAs, churches, village halls and clubs, and it assumes nobody on the committee did this last year.

What makes a prize worth having

One or two headline prizes do the selling. A weekend away or a meal at a place people know turns a single ticket into a strip. A long tail of small items does not.
Broad appeal beats high value. A £30 supermarket voucher is wanted by everyone in the room. A £120 round of golf is wanted by four people.
Things people cannot easily buy themselves. A haircut, a restaurant meal, a family day out. Vouchers and services travel home in a pocket and get used.
Nothing that needs the winner to be there, spend more to enjoy it, travel a long way, or eat it before Tuesday.
Bundle the small stuff. Five modest vouchers become one prize people fight over. Thirty near-identical bottles of shower gel do not.

Prize ideas by source

Headline prizes, to sell the tickets

One or two is plenty. These are what make someone buy a strip rather than a single.

A weekend hotel stay or a night away nearby
Dinner for two at a restaurant people already know
A family pass or annual membership to a local attraction
Theatre, concert or comedy tickets
A signed shirt, a ball, or matchday tickets from the local club
One large hamper built from many smaller donations

Vouchers and services from local businesses

The backbone of most raffles. Easy to give, easy to carry home, hard to buy for yourself.

A haircut or a blow-dry
A café, pub or deli meal, or afternoon tea
Garden centre, bookshop or toy shop vouchers
A farm shop or deli hamper
A car valet or a bike service
Cinema, soft play or climbing wall passes
A month at the gym, or a block of classes
A driving lesson, a photography sitting, picture framing
A florist bouquet, or flowers once a month for a season

Things the committee can put together

No asking required. Useful when donations are thin or arriving slowly.

A wine, gin or beer collection, one bottle from each of several donors
A "fill the hamper" lot, where each class or team brings one item
A cake or a bake from a parent who bakes
Spare plants from the spring sale
Several small vouchers bundled into one better prize

School prizes that cost nothing

Often the most popular on the table, and free to the PTA.

Name a non-uniform day
Front of the lunch queue for a week
The head teacher’s parking space for a term
A class party, or an extra break
Be the head teacher for an afternoon
A framed piece of art made by the children

National chains

Slower and less certain, but worth a form. Expect a voucher or a small hamper, not a headline prize.

Most large supermarkets have a community donation route, usually through the store manager or a form on their website
Ask at the customer service desk who handles local requests
Give them the same one-page letter and as much notice as you can

How to ask a local business

Most of the difficulty is in the asking, not the getting. A local business turns down a vague email without a second thought and says yes to a specific, well-timed request from a customer surprisingly often.

List the businesses to approach. Start with the ones your families already use: a café, a hairdresser, a garden centre, a bookshop, a gym. Make the list longer than you need, because roughly half will say no or not reply.
Time the ask. Approach six to eight weeks before the event. Closer than that and a business has often already committed its goodwill budget for the term.
Prepare a one-page letter. On headed paper where you have it. Name the group, the event, the date, the cause, a person to contact and the date you will collect by. Say how the business will be credited.
Ask in person where you can. A parent walking into a shop they already use, at a quiet time, gets a yes far more often than an email does. Leave the letter so the manager can show the owner.
Make it an easy yes. Suggest one specific thing: a voucher, a single item, a service. "Would you put up a voucher for a cut and finish" is easier to act on than "anything you can spare".
Offer credit that is worth having. A named list on the day, a mention in the newsletter and on social media, a printed thank you. For a small business that is often worth more than the item costs them.
Log every promise. One shared list: business, prize, promised or collected, who is chasing. It stops three people asking the same shop and stops prizes being forgotten on a hallway table.
Collect, then thank. Collect in the week before. Afterwards send the thank you you promised and tell them what the event raised. That is what makes the second ask, next year, an easy one.

A letter you can copy

Keep it to one page. Fill the brackets, print it on headed paper if you have it, and take it with you rather than posting it.

Dear [name],

[Group] is holding its [event] on [date], raising money for [cause]. Last year it raised [amount], which paid for [what it paid for].

We are asking local businesses to donate a raffle prize. Something like a voucher or a single item is perfect, and there is no expectation of anything large. In return we will name [business] on the prize list read out on the day, in our newsletter to [number] families, and on our Facebook page.

If you are able to help, I can collect any time before [date]. My number is [number] and I am usually in on [when].

Thank you for considering it.

[Name], [role], [group]

In person, the short version is enough: name the event and the cause, ask if they would put up a voucher or a small item for the raffle, say how they will be credited, and leave the letter for the owner.

What to avoid putting in the raffle

Alcohol as a prize a child might win. An alcohol prize is allowed, but it has to go to an adult, so hold it for a named grown-up rather than handing it over on the spot.
Perishable or bulky prizes that assume the winner is standing at the table when the number is called.
Prizes with a catch: a spa voucher that only covers a fraction of the treatment, tickets to somewhere two hours away, a meal that needs two more paying guests.
Aiming the raffle at the children. Keep the selling and the prizes pointed at the adults. For a raffle with advance ticket sales, tickets can only be sold to people aged 16 or over anyway, which is covered in the rules guide.

Donated prizes do not count towards the £500 that a raffle run as an incidental lottery at an event may spend on prizes from its proceeds, and there is no cap on their value. Whether your raffle needs registering with the council depends on when tickets are sold, not on the prizes: the guide to the rules explains which case you are in. This is a plain English summary, not legal advice.

Where Prize Desk fits

A raffle that runs on donations ends with a table of prizes that are nothing like each other and a list of winners to match them to. Prize Desk lets you list every donated prize, draw the winners on a wheel with a certificate recording how it was done, then send each winner a private link to pick their own from what is left. The café voucher goes to someone who will use it, nothing is assigned by hand, and no prize is promised to two people. It is free, and it never sells tickets or handles money.

There is more on how the prize pool works, and on the other ways of deciding who gets which prize.

Set up a raffle Run a school raffle, start to finish

Sources, checked for this page: the Gambling Commission guidance on lotteries and raffles at events for the £500 prize limit and donated prizes, and HMRC's Business Income Manual BIM45155 on gifts of trading stock. Related: running a school raffle, who gets which prize and the rules in full.