Choose your perfect charity lottery fit
Win Big with a Charity Lottery Powered by Woods Valldata
If you’re looking to engage supporters, build sustainable income, and bring a splash of joy into your fundraising mix, look no further than a charity lottery. This prize-led, regular giving product is fast becoming a staple in the fundraising toolkit – and for good reason.
Weekly lotteries combine the thrill of winning with the feel-good factor of supporting a cause. In fact, a well-run weekly lottery can be one of your charity’s most powerful regular giving products, offering supporters the chance to win prizes while providing you with consistent income and deeper engagement.
And the best bit? Here at Woods Valldata, we’ll do the heavy lifting for you. You see, we’ve spent decades helping charities of all shapes and sizes get the most out of their weekly lotteries, including setup and compliance, as well as player sign up, engagement, and retention.
We’re not just ticking boxes or crunching numbers – we’re partners in possibility, helping charities grow their lottery programmes from a lightbulb moment to life-time value.
What is a Charity Lottery?
Let’s start by taking things back a step. A charity lottery – or weekly lottery – is a prize-led fundraising programme where supporters pay a regular fee (typically £1 a week) to be entered into a draw. The proceeds go towards your charitable mission, and winners walk away with prizes. Easy, right?
But beneath the surface, this isn’t just a bit of Friday fun. It’s a powerful regular giving mechanism, built on strong direct debit foundations and supporter loyalty. And it works – pretty brilliantly, if we may say so ourselves.
Why Charity Lotteries are Having a Moment
Weekly lotteries aren’t just a fleeting trend. In fact, lotteries are booming – and are even forecast to reach £4.9 billion by 2029. And there’s good reason for that:
Reliable Income
Unlike one-off donations, a weekly lottery gives you predictable income, month after month. It’s regular giving – with a prize-shaped cherry on top.
More Than Just a Transaction
It’s a value exchange. Your supporters give, they get the chance to win. And they feel great doing it.
Broadened Appeal
Lotteries draw in different demographics – people who might not usually donate but love the thrill of a flutter. Think retirees, busy parents, and casual givers. Different types of prize seekers, all with different motivations.
Emotional Engagement
It’s not all about the jackpot. Players often feel closer to the cause through regular communication and a sense of being part of something positive and exciting.
Recession-Resilient
In tough times, lotteries tend to thrive. That “feel-good for a quid” factor (combined with the chance of winning big!) is hard to beat.
Why Choose Woods Valldata as Your Charity Lottery Partner?
Despite all the benefits of running a charity lottery, it can be complex. Between compliance with the Gambling Commission, data handling, prize management, attrition rates, and making sure everything stays fun and ethical… it’s a lot to take on.
That’s why most successful charity lotteries outsource to an External Lottery Manager like Woods Valldata. With over 40 years of experience, 150+ expert staff, and partnerships with over 100 charities, we know how to turn a simple lottery concept into a strategic, income-generating powerhouse.
We’ve helped charities large and small raise over £100 million through our lottery solutions. And most importantly: we care. Your cause becomes our cause, and your supporters become our priority. Here’s what you get with us:
- A fully managed, compliant lottery programme (we’re licensed by the Gambling Commission, and are a validated PCI DSS Level 1 Service Provider)
- A user-friendly, branded lottery website
- Payment processing, draw management and supporter services
- Strategic insight and reporting to keep things optimised and growing
- Friendly, empathetic account management and support from people who genuinely get it
Affinity
Perfect for small charities, local causes, first-time lottery fundraisers, and organisations who want a no-hassle entry into prize-led fundraising, Affinity is our off-the-shelf online lottery platform designed with simplicity in mind. It’s low-cost, low-commitment, and high-impact. Think of it as your charity’s first foray into the world of lotteries – without the paperwork-induced headaches.
Why charities love Affinity:
Affinity is a pooled lottery ideal for charities with limited internal resources. You don’t need a full Gambling Commission licence to start (registering with your local authority is enough). Plus you can piggyback on our banking Service User Number (SUN) to get going quickly and compliantly.
There’s also zero risk on the prize fund because all payouts are handled by us. It’s no wonder Affinity has a proven track record with charities of all sizes, parish councils, local trusts and community causes.
Key Benefits:
- No ongoing fees – pay only for the chances played
- £25,000 insured top prize – with Woods Valldata footing the bill for all prizes
- Fully managed platform – we handle the draw, data, payments, prizes and more
- Fast and easy setup – live in just a few weeks
- Brandable website – your own lottery microsite with your logo and messaging
Aspire
Perfect for charities looking to grow regular giving income and teams who want a bespoke brand experience without operational hassle, Aspire is your very own weekly lottery programme, professionally managed by Woods Valldata. You retain control of your branding and prize structure, whilst we handle the setup, tech, admin, draw logistics and supporter communications.
Why charities choose Aspire:
With a modest setup fee , Aspire is designed to break even quickly. Plus, with our digital tools and insights, you can scale at your own pace while maintaining supporter engagement and low attrition.
Aspire has all the benefits of an owned product with none of the operational drain. There’s the ability to build brand equity while maintaining compliance, plus you can offer a seamless supporter experience with full data management.
Key Benefits:
- Branded lottery microsite – complete with your charity’s look and feel
- Custom prize structure – offer a £20,000 or £25,000 insured top prize, plus optional runner-up cash prizes
- Set up in weeks – quick onboarding with clear milestones
- Compliance sorted – includes Bacs, PCI DSS and Gambling Commission best practice
- Admin-free – we take care of everything: direct debits, draws, supporter services and reporting
Advantage
Perfect for larger charities, established fundraising teams, and charities needing a fully bespoke, insight-led lottery model, Advantage is the flagship charity lottery service from Woods Valldata. It’s not just a product – it’s a strategic partnership. Advantage gives you the tools, insight, flexibility and dedicated account management to build a lottery programme that grows year on year.
Advantage is ideal when you want to:
- Test and optimise messaging across supporter segments
- Embed lottery into your full fundraising ecosystem
- Drive sustained income and donor engagement over time
- Introduce advanced features like superdraws, tiered prizes, or bespoke campaigns
Why charities trust Advantage
Built with enterprise-level fundraising strategy in mind, Advantage puts Woods Valldata’s full service and strategic expertise behind your lottery. It’s designed to adapt and evolve with your programme – and your ambitions.
Key Benefits:
- Fully bespoke design – from prize structure to journey mapping to site development
- Advanced insight and reporting – track ROI, attrition, lifetime value, and campaign performance
- Multi-channel integration – easily link to warm supporter journeys, social acquisition, DRTV, face-to-face, and more
- Scalable architecture – ready for thousands of players, data segments, campaigns and more
- Dedicated strategic support – your own account management team and access to data and creative teams
Getting Started: How to Launch Your Charity Lottery
If you’re thinking of starting your own lottery, it can be overwhelming knowing where to begin. Isn’t there a mountain of red tape? Who picks the prize? Do you need a licence? And what happens if something goes wrong?
We’ve got you. At Woods Valldata, we make starting your charity lottery simple, strategic, and stress-free. Whether you’re starting from scratch or switching from another provider, we’ll walk you through everything step by step:
Our expertise means you get:
Step 1: Consultation
Step 2: Compliance & Registration
We help you tick all the Gambling Commission boxes. Lotteries are gambling products, which means compliance is crucial – but you don’t need to worry about handling it alone. From Gambling Commission Licenses to Service User Numbers and more, we’re here to help every step of the way.
Step 3: Platform & Design
We build a branded digital platform and print materials to get your lottery presence looking sharp and supporter-ready. You’ll get a dedicated lottery microsite aligned with your charity’s branding, clear, user-friendly sign-up flows, fully tested age verification and self-exclusion safeguards.
Step 4: Benchmarking & Insight
From paid social ads to DRTV and door drops and even face-to-face methods, we bring benchmark data, and decades of campaign performance insight to the table – so you can choose the right recruitment methods and make a recruitment plan that isn’t based on guesswork, but on what actually works.
Step 5: Ongoing Management & Growth
Once your lottery is live, we’ll help you keep things compliant, smooth and supporter-focused. We’ll handle draws, prizes, admin comms and reporting, so you can sit back knowing your lottery is running smoothly – and professionally managed by people who do this day in, day out.
Lottery Growth: Retention, ROI & Lifetime Value
A successful weekly lottery doesn’t just sit there bringing in passive income (although that is nice!). It needs to be nurtured – much like your supporters – to really flourish. At Woods Valldata, we work with charities to grow their lotteries strategically, ensuring long-term sustainability, increasing lifetime value (LTV), and boosting return on investment (ROI).
We’ll use our years of experience to help you develop long-term strategies for:
Player Acquisition
We identify your ideal player segments and the best channels (Face-to-Face, DRTV, digital, warm conversion) to bring them in.
Retention
Early drop-off? Not on our watch. We help you design journeys that keep players engaged, appreciated and active.
Development
Think upgrades, cross-sells, superdraws and multi-channel stewardship. We don’t want you to just keep players – we want to help you grow their value over time.
Insight & Testing
We bring robust forecasting, benchmarking and analysis to every campaign – helping you make decisions based on data, not guesswork.
Integration
When integrated with your other fundraising channels, your lottery can help bring in new supporters. We help you segment players based on their engagement and motivations, cross-sell appeals or campaigns at appropriate moments, so you can use your lottery as a stewardship tool to deepen supporter journeys.
Ready to Get Your Charity Lottery Started?
In a crowded fundraising landscape, weekly lotteries cut through the noise. And with Woods Valldata in your corner, setting up and scaling a charity lottery has never been easier – or more rewarding. So, whether you’re dipping a toe in or diving right into weekly lotteries, as your partners in possibility, we’ll meet you right where you are.
Ready to create a lottery that delivers purpose, profit and prizes? Contact our charity lottery team today – and let’s build something brilliant together.
