David Cluckie emailed us this week with his tip-off that a race night can be a big boost to your fundraising.
“Race nights seem to work very well for us. We’ve run one every year we have done our event and through good organisation you can make a profit of nearly £2000.
- You need to sell the horses beforehand – about seven races each with eight horses in them. I usually hand out a blank sheet with the spaces for the name of the horse and the owner.
- Collect prizes/sponsorship for each race.
- The most important thing is to publicise and get people through the door. The more people on the night the more money you make.
- I go for simple, large venue, game of stand-up bingo, the horse racing and a raffle. It can be made more complex – add in food, discos, karaoke etc. – but these can ‘eat’ into profits.
- Need people on the evening to be ‘tote’ sellers and hopefully the company you book can calculate the odds and the payout. Big tip: DON’T let the MC bet on your races.
Check out http://www.racenights.org.uk/faq.htm – this is the company we use – great organisation and electronic tote selling too! The cost of the company coming in is usually covered by the ‘selling’ of the horses beforehand so everything on the night is NET profit (except venue).
Latest from our last night was about £2400 with around 100 at the event, £5 a horse, £50 from companies to sponsor a race, auction race, raffle and stand up bingo.”
Good luck David and the whole Ben Nevis Challengers team fundraising for St Andrew’s Hospice.
Tags: Fundraiser tips of the day, race night