Recently I spoke with our local Triton Trailer dealer (Donny Kompas of AER Trailers) about fundraising for clubs.  There are endless possibilities when it comes to fundraising for your clubs but raffles have been raising a large portion of the funds for our clubs for years. This year our local Waukesha, Wisconsin county snowmobile association will be raffling off a new Triton 2-place snowmobile trailer with all the fixings as our raffle's grand prize.  

It's true, this isn't a new idea, but getting together several dealers to share in the cost is not an easy job sometimes. Through hard work and determination Donny was able to secure some major sponsors of our raffled trailer including Triton Trailer Corporation, Robs Performance of Johnson Creek, and John Hartwig Motorsports of Watertown to name a few. Donny figured the value of the trailer was over $2,800, but proceeds from this one raffle will exceed $25,000!  That is huge!  Very few other fundraising ideas can still net this for your club.  Not only that, but entrants have the opportunity to win prizes for 2nd prize ($1000), 3rd prize (500), 4th prize (250.00 gift certificate), 5th prize (vacation for 2 to Chanticleer Inn, Eagle River), so the ticket buyers have several chances to win as well.

After getting the sponsors, a next major hurdle is having the trailer displayed at enough high-traffic events that you can sell tickets at.  Simply selling tickets to your own club and friends or at the sponsor's places of business won't cut it if you want to realize your full fundraiser potential. Currently this trailer that our club is raffling off will be at the Milwaukee Snowmobile USA show Oct. 14-16, a large local swap meet in October and the New Berlin Races in January. Plans are in the works to have it at at least a couple more big snowmobile events as well.

Finally, use social media and the web to market your raffle... it's free marketing!  Take advantage of it and get infomation up on your website, in your e-newsletters and blast it out on your Facebook pages or any other electronic media options you have. Everyone loves to be able to win something, and these are the quickest ways to reach large amounts of people with little effort from the comfort of your own chair!  I am sure some club members may lynch me for harping on this, because the raffle is not up on all the club sites.... yet.

I guess the moral of this rambling blog-story is that the old ways of raising funds for you club can still work, but the time and effort to get sponsors, sell tickets, display the product, and actually do some marketing is more important now than ever.

For more info on this raffle contact:  www.aertrailersales.com, www.robsperformance.com, or www.johnhartwigmotorsports.com