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The Story of One Church & How They Donated a Car to Fundraise

The members of a church thought that their pastor had lost his mind when he said that a great way to raise money would be by giving away a car. Not just any car would do. It had to be a brand new car with every available option.

 
The church was in the midst of raising money for an aggressive foreign missionary project, and the church bank account needed a little extra boost.

That is when the pastor came up with the idea for a car raffle. He negotiated a deal with a local car dealer that allowed him to take the car now, but pay for it at the end of the raffle. This allowed the church to display the car with a sign “WIN THIS CAR” without having to pay for it up front.

 
Because it was for a charitable group, the dealership gave the church a good price, but the final cost was still going to be $22,000.That’s a lot of raffle tickets.

Even the pastor admits that he was nervous, but he thought it was worth a try. He thought that the worst case scenario would be that they would be break even. He never considered the possibility that they would wind up in the hole.

 
Ticket prices were set at $20 each. That is a lot of money for a ticket, but because the potential prize was so big and the cause was considered by many to be worthy, people were willing to pony up. The $20 price tag meant that the group would have to sell 1100 tickets to break even. Anything after that would be profit.

Since the congregation was on the small side with only 300 members, selling that many tickets would take some aggressive action on the part of the church members.

 
The period for which tickets would be sold was set at two months. During the first month, only 750 tickets were sold. While at the first part of the month, the tickets were selling at a pretty good pace, sales had slowed way down.

The pools of families, co-workers and neighbors of the congregation had been exhausted. Everyone was getting nervous. A new strategy was needed.

That is when someone came up with the idea that turned this fundraiser from a near disaster into a very successful event. They purchased tables at local car shows and flea markets and spent the final four Saturdays of the event selling tickets at places with very heavy foot traffic.

 
At one car show alone, 250 tickets were sold. Instead of visiting the same places each Saturday, they chose a different location each time. This was a good strategy because they were in front of a different crowd each Saturday, rather than seeing the same faces that had purchased tickets the week before.

 
When the day came for the drawing, they had sold a whopping 1974 tickets! The grand total of their profit, after paying for the car, spots at the flea markets and car shows and advertising was $15,580!

 
While the event ended up as a great success, the group also said that they would never do it again. The stakes were too high should the tickets not get sold, and it was a LOT of work and ended up being very hard on the congregation.

While this event has the potential to bring in some big money, it also carries some big risks and that should be carefully considered before your group decides to try such a fundraiser. It’s best suited for very large groups. If your group is small, try joining with other groups if you want to try this.

  

Whether raffling a car is the right fundraiser for your group or not, this story proves that with the right combination of creative thinking, hard work and persistence even fundraisers that appear to be tanking can be turned into a success story.