Hey JHB- The gambling/lottery laws prohibit our school from raffles and I'm not even sure about silent auctions (no live auctions). Our church can but they are licenced and use Bingo as their main fundraiser.
We eliminated Principal for a Day from our auction because it seemed wrong to have this honor because your parents spend enough. I could see how doing it as a raffle would be okay, because someone who only bought one ticket would still have a chance.
Our district has a policy about "no raffling" as well so for years, we'd have each classroom bring in themed products to fill a basket with and the kids sell tootsie rolls for $1 each and the purchaser gets a chance in the drawing for the baskets.
We recently sent out a survey to our parents and teachers and have had a few comments from the teachers about this particular event.
They STILL consider this a raffle no matter how it is worded and raffles are considered "gambling" which many do not believe in for either personal or religious reasons.
Earlier in the survey we offered some suggestions for events for next year and one was a silent basket auction/silent auction.
Every survey turned in has circled that event so looks like that's how we'll do our holiday baskets next year.
LOL, so in October/November be prepared for me to ask MANY questions on how to do this as it will be a first for not only our school but for myself as well LOL LOL
We have been asked by our principal to not hold raffles. She has been "lectured" by the district the last time it happened. I don't know all the details of this... but I can work around it -- this year anyway [img]smile.gif[/img] It may be we can have a "drawing" I didn't even think of that. I will have to check into it.
When you say your school "doesn't allow raffles", are you sure? Perhaps an odd question, but sometimes it's merely semantics.
I know of some that don't permit "raffles", as in when you have printed raffle tickets. Volunteers take books of tickets to sell over a period of time, and then at some point a drawing is held.
But then they do allow "drawings" where there's a big jar at an event. People purchase chances to win, drop them in the jar, and at the end the winner is held. Everything happens that night in plain sight. No pre-sells.
At our silent auction we usually have about 4 drawings/raffles. Each jar is marked with the designated item. People buy tickets (business card size pieces of paper for name/phone that we create), fill them out and drop them in whichever jar they want.
Technically, I believe these are both forms of raffles, but sometimes it makes a difference what you call it.
