One Kind Testimonial
OneKind's Lottery Success
Many charities, schools and good causes are keen to start a charity lottery and tap into a new source of charity fundraising. However, setting up an online lottery can be expensive and time-consuming. The GivingLottery is a free, easy-to-join, risk-free alternative that allows charities, schools and other good causes to start raising money with the first ticket sold.
We spoke with OneKind’s Lauren Buchanan to find out why they decided to set up a charity lottery to support their charity fundraising and what steps they have taken to ensure it has been a success.
Animal charity, OneKind, joined the GivingLottery in October 2020, but didn’t start promoting it to their followers until early 2021. They have found it to be a fantastic, new way for them to raise funds. So far, the animal charity has managed to attract nearly 100 supporters and is on track to raise over £4,500 in 2021.
Why did OneKind decide to start a charity lottery with the GivingLottery?
We haven’t been able to attend festivals, face-to-face events or run challenge events this past year so we have had to find other ways to fundraise. To be honest, a lottery had been on our list for a long time and the GivingLottery was a great way for us to start a charity lottery, given that we have such little time and resources to run our own charity lottery in-house. Having the dashboard and all the resources and implementations the GivingLottery offer has taken a huge weight off of our shoulders so that we can concentrate on recruiting players, raising income and giving them a great journey with us.
What planning did you do before launching a charity lottery?
We planned how to start a charity lottery 2 months after signing up to the GivingLottery. We thought about how we would market and put together a plan. Our designer created some additional content that we knew would appeal to our supporters, including memes for social media.
How did you market your charity lottery?
When we decided to start a charity lottery we put together a social media marketing plan, which consisted of:
An email launching the lottery to our entire email opt-in database (around 24k)
2 social media posts per week (across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) and 2 Facebook ads running for 5 days every 2 weeks.
I have done some analysis and identified that the vast majority of our players are people who were already on our database but had either not donated to us before (but had taken part in actions – petitions, etc.) or had donated some time ago. Essentially the GivingLottery appeals to people on our database that haven’t engaged well with our other fundraising campaigns.
How else do you engage with your GivingLottery supporters?
We write to those who have signed up to the GivingLottery to say thank you and also to those who have not purchased tickets. I am in the process of setting up an email journey. I have a further email planned to go out to those who received the first email but didn’t open it.
You’ve done really well. Is there a large team running your charity lottery?
It’s so nice to hear that you think we are doing well. I have no idea how this works for other charities and we are a tiny one (with 9 staff)! We recruit roughly 5-10 regular donors each month so to have the number of players we have already, has also blown us away, especially given our size. It’s myself and my colleague Kirsty who are responsible for the entire fundraising of the charity, which runs solely on funding (we receive no Government funding and have not been supported by any of the packages offered to charities during Covid).
Have you spent anything on advertising your charity lottery?
After deciding to start a charity lottery, I put a marketing journey in place for January as a test and I intend to increase the advertising on social media going forward. So the players we have recruited so far cost us £30 in total! That’s all I spent on the first social media ads. Now that I know the success of month one, we will be increasing that so hope to reach more people.
Tell us more about OneKind and your campaign work
OneKind exists to end cruelty to Scotland’s animals. We expose cruelty and persecution through our investigations and research and end it for good by giving Scotland’s animals a voice. We’re Scotland’s leading animal campaigns charity. We are based in Edinburgh, with volunteers across Scotland and the UK, and our work covers Scotland’s wildlife, farmed animals, companion and lab animals. Our campaigns make a big difference. They end cruelty for good. From stopping the unrestricted killing of Scotland’s seals to preventing hedgehog culls and ending the docking of dog’s tails, our successes speak for themselves. All of our campaigns are completely people-powered. They’re funded by individuals and it’s our campaigners who email, write, volunteer, and protest who make all the difference.
One of our longest-running campaigns was to end the mass culling and persecution of mountain hares by securing their full protection. This was successful and announced in June (here’s the link to our blog Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Bill will become law – OneKind) and takes effect from March 1st this year.
Fox hunting is also something we are passionate about ending – as although currently banned in Scotland to hunt with dogs, there are loopholes in the law that allow it to continue pretty much as was before.
About the author
Rachel Jackson
Giving Director - Marketing
Rachel oversees all our marketing activities. Rachel is a wife and mum to two children, she enjoys theatre trips and (fair-weather) running. You may also find her treading the boards with a local theatre company.