How to Run a Raffle or Silent Auction Fundraiser for Your Youth Sports Team, Step by Step

A basket of gift cards, a signed jersey, a weekend at a lake house someone’s uncle owns — raffle and silent auction fundraisers consistently pull in more per attendee than almost any other single-event format, because people are buying a chance at something instead of just handing over money. The tradeoff is that they take more coordination than a bake sale: prizes to source, tickets to track, and a drawing to run cleanly.

Here’s the full process, from picking the right format to closing out the night without any loose ends.

Why Raffles and Auctions Outperform a Straight Ask

People are far more willing to spend $20 on a raffle ticket for a shot at a $200 prize than to simply hand over $20 with nothing in return — the chance of winning something raises the average gift size, even though the odds rarely favor the buyer. Silent auctions push this further: bidders competing against each other, especially in the last few minutes before closing, routinely push final bids well above a prize’s retail value.

How to Run It, Step by Step

1. Decide Raffle, Silent Auction, or Both

A raffle — fixed-price tickets, one random winner per prize — works best for a single big event with a broad audience, like a game night, banquet, or end-of-season party. A silent auction, where the highest written bid wins, works better with a handful of higher-value items and a crowd willing to compete for them, like a tournament weekend or a parent fundraising gala. Many teams run both side by side: raffle tickets for broad, low-cost participation, and a small auction table for three or four premium items.

2. Line Up Donated Prizes at Least Six Weeks Out

The best prizes are almost always donated, not purchased — local restaurants, salons, and family-owned shops will often give a gift card or service in exchange for their name on your event materials. Start asking at least six weeks before your event, since the businesses that say yes on a rushed, one-week-notice request are far fewer than the ones who’ll say yes with real lead time. Keep a simple list of what’s been donated, its estimated value, and who to thank afterward — this doubles as an input for your season fundraising goal and your post-event thank-you list.

3. Price Tickets to Match the Prize Pool

A reasonable baseline is pricing a single raffle ticket at roughly 3–5% of the total prize pool value, then selling bundles (one for $5, five for $20) to nudge people toward buying more than one. For silent auctions, set a minimum opening bid at about 40–50% of retail value and print a minimum bid increment — often $5 or $10 — right on the bid sheet so bidders don’t have to guess.

4. Sell Tickets Across Multiple Touchpoints, Not Just at the Event

Teams that sell raffle tickets only at the event itself leave money on the table. Sell them in the two weeks leading up through a payment link or QR code, at practices, and through the team group chat — pre-sold tickets also guarantee some revenue even if event-day turnout runs lower than hoped.

5. Run the Drawing and Close Out the Same Night

Draw winners publicly, announce them immediately, and get prizes into winners’ hands — or scheduled for pickup — before people leave. An unclaimed prize that has to be chased down over email for two weeks is a common source of after-event headaches. For silent auctions, close bidding at a hard, announced time instead of “whenever things wind down,” which tends to fizzle out engagement instead of driving the last-minute bidding surge that raises final totals.

Legal and Logistics You Can’t Skip

Raffle rules vary by state — some require a permit or license for cash-prize raffles above a certain dollar threshold, and some restrict who can legally run one at all. Check with your league or your booster club’s parent nonprofit, if you have one, before printing tickets, since a violation can affect the parent organization’s standing and not just your event. It’s also worth confirming whether donated prizes need any paperwork for the donor’s tax records — most in-kind donors will ask for a receipt.

Mistakes That Quietly Cut Into Your Total

The most common one is under-pricing tickets out of worry that “no one will buy them” — most teams find afterward they could have priced 20–30% higher without hurting sales at all. The second is waiting until the week before the event to start asking for prize donations, which limits you to whatever’s left over instead of your first-choice list. The third is skipping a real headcount of expected attendees when deciding how many prizes to line up: too few for a big crowd feels stingy, and too many for a small crowd dilutes the excitement around any single item.

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Want a done-for-you event fundraiser checklist plus scripts for asking businesses to donate prizes? Grab our free Youth Fundraising Quick Startup Guide to get moving today.