Say hello to our new charity partners!

My my my, haven’t we been busy here at Raffle.it!

We want to give you the finest choice of charities – and you now have a juicy 8 to pick from with more being added on a regular basis! Who are they? Let me introduce you to our latest recruits.

The Book Bus

The Book Bus Foundation recognises the right of every child to gain enjoyment from, and to learn from, books and reading. The charity’s aims are to share with thousands of children around the world the pleasure and value that books can bring, and to plant the seeds of a life-long love of reading. By including art and music in the Book Bus’ activities, they hope that young children will associate reading with enjoyment and creativity. They currently operate in Zambia and Ecuador and offer fantastic opportunities for people to go on the bus and hand out the books for a week or two. With Quentin Blake designing the bus’ personally – you won’t get a better looking bus anywhere.

If you would like to help support their fantastic cause please go to their Raffle.it page or to find out more go to their website

Disability Snowsport UK

Disability Snowsport have gone beyond the norm and insisted that anyone, regardless of their disability can take part in the thrill of snowsports. For nearly 30 years they have applied exceptional know-how and adaptability to enable those with a disability to enjoy skiing alongside the able bodied. They provide: training for instructors, volunteers and ski sentre staff; advice; encouraging and overseas activity weeks as well as in local snowsport schools. They also support the British Disabled Ski Team.

To read more about their life changing work please visit their website – or support them now by visiting their Raffle.it homepage.

 

The Butterfly Tree

The Butterfly Tree aims to assist rural communities in Zambia, such as Mukuni, decimated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Zambia; providing improved education, feeding programmes, safe water, health care and an orphan sponsorship programme. Jane, the founder, started the charity after a business incentive trip to Zambia with her late husband in February 2006. She and the other trustees give all their time for free meaning as much money as possible goes straight to the children.

This is a great cause, and just a small charity. If you want to find out more visit their website or just get playing to help the cause!

 

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust

More of an animal lover? These little critters may not be your number one love – but without them the world would be a much blander place as they buzz away pollinating our country and making sure we have flowers all over the shop. Not only this but they create one of my favourite substances – honey! The UK had 27 species of Bumblebee, but sadly 3 are already nationally extinct. This trust works to keep the Bumblebee alive for future generations to enjoy and to keep our country bee-autiful! (See what I did there!) They have some fascinating info on their site about bees and how to keep your garden bee-friendly so take a look. Alternatively do your bit to help save the bumblebee and visit their raffle page.

 

Bullies Out

Bullies out provide help, support and information to individuals, schools, youth and community setting affected by bulling. They endeavour to make sure those affected by bulling do not feel they are alone and have a strict no tolerance rule. Their website offers support for all kinds of bullying such as cyber, racist and homophobic bullying. If you want to help stop bullying visit their raffle page and buy some tickets!

Disability Challengers

Established back in 1979 Disability Challengers is dedicated to providing exciting and challenging play and leisure opportunities to disabled children and young people across Guildford, Farnham and Surrey. Another benefit to their service is offering families with short term breaks during high pressure times eg. At the weekend or during school holidays. This allows the families to focus on other necessities such as the weekly shop whilst their child is in safe hands. Raffle.it is proud to support a charity so local, so if you want to find out more then please visit their website or just get involved and start donating via their Raffle.it page.

 

 

 

 

If that is not enough we’ve got some fab charities coming on board shortly! We want to give you the best selection of charities – so if your favourite isn’t here or if you are from a charity please get in touch so we can help you raise money!

80% of the profit from every ticket we sell goes to good causes such as these. Which one? That’s your choice. So get playing! From just 50p you can already be donating and in with the chance of winning something really exciting! Now that’s a great way in my opinion to spend a couple of quid.

Also don’t forget our previously mentioned partners, Mothers4Children and War Child!

Great Tips from One of Our Winners!

It’s great to hear from our previous winners. It’s easy to forget that real people take home these prizes – but play the game right – or get lucky and any of our prizes could be yours!

One of our winners was lucky enough to win a £2000 shopping spree and pamper day at Selfridges, a gold plated Mont Blanc pen AND a cashmere baby gift set!

In her blog she describes Raffle.it as ‘curse free’ as with other charity auctions you can often pay over the odds or feel robbed after for spending more than you intended or than the object was worth. This is what we love about it too – you can spend a couple of quid and win something fabulous.

She has some interesting insights on how to play the game – check it out at on her blog http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2009/09/28/deborah-friedell/winners-curse/

36 hours…£67,000 of prizes…43 winners

In 36 hours we’ll be giving away £67,000 worth of prizes to 43 lucky winners…will you be one of them? Every prize is going so get your tickets while you can! Remember, every penny you spend on tickets goes to charity Mothers4Children.

Last chance to:
Get your Jimmy Choo’s for £1 http://raffle.it/raffles/20006
Win 3 limited edition Tracey Emin signed prints for £2 http://raffle.it/raffles/20056
Live in luxury for 8 days for £3 http://raffle.it/raffles/20017

Want the best chance of winning? WThese raffles haven’t sold many tickets, but we are giving away the prizes! Get in there now while you can!
An Asprey gorgeous evening gown, worth £2,500, yours for £3! http://raffle.it/raffles/20031
This Montblanc gold plated top quality pen – only £1! http://raffle.it/raffles/20035
or
The new Ralph Lauren Polo Baby Ricky bag? Again yours for just £1 http://raffle.it/raffles/20051

Giving to charity never felt so good! Play and Enjoy

Are you a charity? It’s your turn to benefit from Raffle.it!

Those of you who avidly read this blog will already know that sadly our Mothers4Children big win raffle is ending the 18th September. We’ve had great fun doing it…so have decided not to let the giving stop there! We already have a plan, and are working hard to help as many charities as possible. It is really simple. If you are part of a charity and want to know more then please e-mail us on charitybegins@raffle.it!

When will it all end?

We often get asked ‘When are the raffles ending?’ This is a question we’ve struggled to answer. We apologise now to anyone who has been confused by the estimated 14 days left displayed on the website. It says this because the timer is based on the frequency of ticket sales, if sales aren’t frequent enough it automatically states 14 days. Soon a less confusing system for everyone will be in place.

However! The end is in sight! I can exclusively reveal ALL raffles will end by the 18th September latest, regardless of how many entrants there are. This means there is a really high chance of winning on some of the raffles, especially those where not many tickets have sold!

So please, accept our apologies for the confusion, and take solace in that soon that amazing Gucci handbag or pair of Jimmy Choo’s could be yours.

Why so long?

Why so long to wait?

To make the Mothers4Children Raffle event as successful as possible we want to have loads of individual raffles running. These will be donations from celebrities, designers, brands and retailers, all rallying to support Mothers4Children. Some of the prizes will be completely unique, others aspiration items we’d all love to own.

To organise this takes time. Added to the donations we also need to ensure there are great and relevent reward vouchers in place for every player and again this is no small challenge.

Friday was the official anouncement of our partnership with Mothers4Children and we have given ourselves until the end of May to pull all raffles and rewards together. In the meantime we have dedicated Raffle.it to Mothers4Children to encourage lots more donations.

Make sure you get your name down for our invite only head start by registering at Raffle.it now.

Also if you are on Twitter follow @raffleit and send us the number you believe will be the lowest that no one of 499 other followers tweeted.

The Power of Love

So it’s official, we’ve taken Raffle.it on holiday in preparation for an incredible re-launch in June. We have partnered with the new charity, Mothers4Children.org to help them with their fund raising efforts.

The board of Mothers4Children are an inspiring bunch, Lisa Bilton, Yasmin Le Bon, Natalie Massenet, Trinny Woodall and Anya Hindmarsh. Between them they have created a charity that is set to improve the lives of many neglected children in the UK and Europe.

Lisa recognised that Raffle.it provides a perfect solution for charities trying to fund raise in this tough economic climate. As opposed to relying on auctions and the ever diminishing group of deep pocketed individuals, Raffle.it appeals to everyone by only requiring a tiny financial commitment.

To celebrate the launch of Mothers4Children, the girls organised an incredible lunch at The Mayfair Hotel for 200 of their closest friends. And we got to go along and explain how Raffle.it works.

I’ll add the video of Yasmin attempting to explain how our raffles differ from traditional raffles and how we got on with our biggest live raffle to date as soon as it becomes available.

On a serious note though Mothers4Children.org isn’t just for Mothers to help. I’m a Dad, most of the Raffle.it team are dads, uncles or big brothers and what we all take for granted is love. This is what is missing for most of the children Lisa and co are trying to help.

The cuddles I receive from my children on arriving home have almost magical properties, a sense of relief flooding over us and the weight of the day being lifted away. I can’t imagine what it would be like not to get these hugs. Money can’t buy love, but if we raise enough we’ll be able to help Lisa provide the support network and education required to help show many more children what it feels like to be loved.

If you’ve got something you’d like to donate for the Mothers4Children Raffle please complete this form and we’ll be in touch.

If you haven’t yet registered at Raffle.it, do it now. You’ll get early access to the raffles meaning you won’t miss out on the most popular unique gifts currently being pledged.

And if you’re on Twitter follow us @raffleit. We’ll mostly be tweeting the prizes being pledged but we’re also going to be running a cute Twitter Raffle, more on that in another post.

Raffle.it goes on holiday .. off line & crashing a charity golf day

Race for Life – well done Stacey

 

You can see why this is a girl only affair, serene, supportive and good natured. If us guys were allowed in on the action it would be all hustle and bustle, everyone out to win.

Just wanted to give a shout out to our Stacey for completing her 5k stint in great time raising a decent wedge of cash. She used Cancer Research’s own Sponsorme site, powered by Just Giving to raise her sponsorship. They’re great sites, another is Help.co.uk, and have really made it so simple to collect sponsorship or donate money.

Raffles are synonymous with charity fund raising so a natural addition to Raffle.it is to enable people to create their own raffles to raise money/sponsorship for a particular charity or charity challenge (Ultimate Challenges is a good place to start). We are developing this alongside the standard marketplace and would really welcome your feedback as to whether you think this is a good idea – would you use it? 

An example could be you need to raise £3,000 to do trek in Vietnam on behalf of Action Aid. The prize you offer up could be “Your house cleaned once a week for a year” (guess who’ll be doing that on their return from the trek… or your prize could be paid for by raising additional funds through the raffle, say a £200 treadmill so the winner can share your pain albeit in a far less inspiring environment. With Raffle.it you create your raffle – we’ll provide a reward for everyone that takes part from one of our retail partners – with 1500, £2 tickets.

Any thoughts, suggestions etc, greatly appreciated.

- Pascal