Seeding or Guaranteeing Pots

Seeded Pot

Seeding the pot is when a percentage payout raffle (e.g. 50/50 draw) has a starting pot of a certain monetary value as opposed to starting at $0.

Imagine you are one of the first people to see the link shared with you for a new online raffle. You get excited because it is for a 50/50 draw and you are eager to get a ticket and win. You get the link, click it, and see the prize value of the 50/50 draw is…. only $10.

Do you think you’d feel better about purchasing a ticket if it was at $250 or even $500? Of course! We feel the same way! That's why the two best ways to get your raffle of to a great start are early-bird prizes and seeding the pot.

An organization would seed the pot by essentially committing a certain amount of money to the raffle right off the bat. 

If you decide to seed the pot, this means that you are committed to paying out the winner’s percentage of the seeded amount at the end of the raffle… so keep that in mind. Seeding the Pot isn’t a part of the sales revenue your raffle earns, so make sure you have those funds in reserve.

So seeding the pot means you have to be willing to part with a percentage of what you seeded the pot with, but it can easily be made up through the sales that you make early on in your raffle.

You don’t pay Funding Change any fees on your pot amount, just sales.

Guaranteed Pot

Guaranteeing the pot is similar, but different. When you guarantee the pot you advertise a minimum pot size that people can win and you need to have the guaranteed pot amount in reserve before you start your raffle (similar).

It's different in that the advertised pot size will not change until total ticket sales exceed the guaranteed amount. For instance, if you guarantee the pot at $5000, until the total actual ticket sales exceed $5000, the displayed pot size will not change. The aim that your sales will overtake it before the end of the raffle and then you won't need your own money (or the Corporate Sponsor's) to pay the winner. 

If you guarantee the pot size at $5000 then you are saying that no matter what the sales are, ticket purchasers will win at least $5000. The aim for you is to get the raffle off to such a good start that your sales climb up and take over the guaranteed pot size, growing to double or triple the size.

Again, you don’t pay any fees to Funding Change on the amount you guarantee to a winner, just actual ticket sales!