Start A Raffle
Two fundraising professionals examine the results of their last online raffle.

How to Measure Fundraising Success to Run a Better Raffle

The success of a fundraiser goes way beyond just how much money is raised. They’re rarely one-off events, and knowing how to measure fundraising success can lead directly to better outcomes the next time your organization needs to bring in money. Paying attention to vital fundraising metrics and tracking what did or didn’t work gives you critical information and a leg-up for future fundraisers.

Here, we’ll look at how to measure fundraising success and the tools you need to analyze the data to improve future ticket sales and prize selection.

Key Takeaways

  • Measuring fundraising success goes beyond revenue—participation rates, donor retention and ROI all matter.
  • Setting a realistic fundraising goal before your raffle starts gives you a benchmark to measure against.
  • The most valuable metrics cover ticket sales, revenue, participant engagement and prize performance.
  • Don’t wait until your raffle ends to look at data—real-time insights let you adjust strategies while there’s still time to act.
  • Detailed post-raffle reporting is the foundation for running a stronger fundraiser every single time.

Why Measuring Fundraising Success Matters

Fundraisers don’t exist in a vacuum, and whatever you can learn from one will benefit you the next time. Knowing how to measure fundraising success provides you with vital information to improve future efforts. 

Whether it’s the cost of tickets, prize selection, timing or information about your target audience, every fundraiser provides valuable data and key performance indicators that allow you to improve the way future fundraisers perform.

How to Set a Fundraising Goal That's Actually Achievable

When you host a fundraiser like an online raffle, setting a fundraising goal is an important step. It can inform what type of raffle you choose to run, what prizes you offer, ticket pricing, and what time of year your raffle takes place.

That makes setting a fundraising goal really important, and you don’t want to be guessing how much you’ll bring in. There are a few key indicators that can help you set a goal that’s both realistic and ambitious:

  • Your target audience: Who are you looking to sell tickets to, and how many tickets are they realistically going to buy? 
  • Ticket price: What’s the right price for a ticket? You’ll want it to be affordable, but not so cheap that you won’t be able to cover the cost of prizes.
  • Past performance: How much revenue have you brought in during previous fundraisers? This provides a reasonable benchmark you can try to surpass.
  • Donor retention: Who has contributed in the past? These people are likely going to be willing to support your cause again, so leveraging those relationships and relying on their contributions should help you set a realistic goal.
A group discusses previous fundraising metrics, recording key details to use for their next fundraiser.

Fundraising Metrics to Track

Knowing which metrics to track is one thing — understanding why they matter is another. Here’s a breakdown of the key fundraising metrics for your raffle, and what each one is actually telling you about your performance.

Ticket Sales Metrics

Ticket sales are the most immediate indicator of how your raffle is performing. Beyond the total number sold, looking at when tickets are selling and how many each buyer is purchasing tells you whether your pricing and promotion strategies are working — and where you might need to push harder.

  • Total tickets sold vs. goal
  • Tickets sold per day / per week (sales velocity)
  • Peak sales periods (time of day, day of week)
  • Average number of tickets purchased per buyer
  • Percentage of available tickets sold

Revenue Metrics

Revenue metrics tell you not just how much money came in, but how much your organization actually kept. Gross revenue can look impressive on paper, but once you subtract prize costs, platform fees, and other expenses, the real picture of your fundraiser’s financial performance becomes clear.

  • Gross revenue generated
  • Net revenue (after prizes, platform fees, and expenses)
  • Revenue by ticket tier or bundle (if multiple price points are offered)
  • Revenue per participant
  • Return on investment (ROI) compared to previous fundraisers

Participant Metrics

These metrics tell you who is actually buying tickets and where they’re coming from. Understanding your audience—how many are new supporters versus returning ones, and where they’re located—helps you target your promotion more effectively next time and identify untapped communities you haven’t reached yet.

  • Total number of unique buyers
  • New vs. returning supporters
  • Tickets sold per tier to understand buyer preferences

Engagement & Promotion Metrics

Your promotion efforts drive everything else, and these metrics show you which channels are actually working. If most of your ticket sales are coming from email but you’re spending most of your time on social media, that’s a clear signal to shift your focus—and you won’t know that without tracking it.

  • Raffle page views and unique visitors
  • Traffic sources (social media, email, direct, word of mouth)
  • Social shares and referral clicks
  • Email open rates and click-through rates for raffle promotions
  • Total sales by sellers to determine who on your team is contributing the most

Prize Metrics

Not all prizes are created equal, and these metrics reveal which ones are actually driving ticket sales. If prizes from one raffle are generating significantly more revenue than a prize for another raffle, that’s valuable information for determining prizes in your next raffle.

  • Consider volume of purchasers to understand the interests of your audience
  • Revenue generated per raffle can help determine which prizes were received well
  • Unclaimed prizes (if applicable)

Donor Retention Metrics

These metrics are about the long game. A raffle that brings in new supporters is valuable, but one that keeps bringing back the same loyal donors year after year is even more so. Tracking donor retention tells you whether you’re building a sustainable supporter base or starting from scratch every single time.

  • Percentage of buyers from previous fundraisers who participated again
  • Lapsed donor re-engagement rate
  • Average donor lifetime value across multiple raffles

Post-Raffle Metrics

Once your raffle ends, these metrics help you understand how the experience landed with participants. A supporter who had a great experience is far more likely to buy tickets again — and to tell others about your organization. Satisfaction and sentiment data are easy to overlook, but often the most telling indicators of long-term fundraising health.

  • Participant satisfaction (via follow-up survey)
  • Opt-in rate for future communications
  • Social media mentions and sentiment after the draw
  • Number of complaints or support requests
Two people look at fundraising metrics on a computer.

How to Use Your Data to Improve Future Raffles

Collecting information on how to measure fundraising success is one step. The other is applying it to future raffles. Both during the raffle and after it ends, you’ll receive valuable information about what is and isn’t working. The key is to use those insights and take action.

As you evaluate the data you receive, ask yourself:

  • What promotional efforts were effective?
  • Who bought the most tickets?
  • What performed well and what underperformed?
  • Who signed up for more information?
  • What prizes motivated ticket purchases?
  • What prizes generated the best return-on-investment?
  • Who sold the most tickets?

The answers to these questions should directly shape how you run your next raffle. 

For example, if your ticket sales data shows a consistent spike on Tuesday evenings, that’s a signal to schedule your next promotional email for Tuesday afternoon, time your social media posts to go live earlier that day and save any major announcements (a new prize addition, an early-bird offer, a milestone update) for that window when your audience is most engaged.

The same logic applies across every metric. If a particular prize generated significantly more ticket sales than others, that tells you where to focus your prize budget next time. If your email open rates were high but your conversion rate was low, your messaging may need work rather than your distribution. Every data point is an instruction on what to do differently or more of next time.

When to Check Your Metrics

The data you collect for how to measure fundraising success isn’t just useful at the end of a raffle. It can be helpful even when your raffle is still running, as it can help you improve in real-time and make in-the-moment changes that will improve communications, sales and connecting with donors. 

  • Before a Raffle: Review the metrics from previous fundraisers as you begin planning your next raffle. Incorporate that information into your strategies and plans to ensure you improve on areas where you could have done better last time and repeat strategies that worked. 
  • During a Raffle: What’s working? What’s not? Is there a time of day when tickets are selling fast? Could you send out more social media posts or e-mails to capitalize on that information and increase sales? You don’t need to wait until a raffle is over to start measuring fundraising success.
  • After a Raffle: This is when you’ll have all the information you need from tracking fundraising, and can sit down and properly measure your raffle performance. As you review your fundraising metrics, be sure to take detailed notes that you can use the next time you need to bring in funds.

How Raffle Rocket Makes Tracking Easy

When you host an online raffle with Raffle Rocket, you get access to all the data you’ll need for tracking fundraising metrics and evaluating your raffle performance. Both throughout your raffle and after it is finished, you’ll be able to export raffle reports and receive detailed information on:

  • All tickets sold
  • A breakdown by price point
  • Ticket purchaser information, including names, addresses and contact information
  • Lists of all ticket numbers that have been voided

Throughout the raffle, you can also keep track of when tickets are being sold, activities undertaken by administrators and more.

This information is incredibly valuable for analyzing fundraising KPIs and determining the best way to run a raffle for your organization. Raffle Rocket’s overview tab also provides detailed information you can monitor throughout the duration of your raffle, including how many sales are being made daily, weekly, and monthly, while sales can be broken down by unit, total sales per unit and sellers.

These tools ensure that tracking fundraising efforts is made easy, and you will be able to collect all the data you need to determine what worked, what didn’t and where you can improve the next time you host a raffle fundraiser.

Better Data Today Means a Better Fundraiser Tomorrow

Every raffle your organization runs is an opportunity to learn, and the data you collect today is the foundation for a stronger fundraiser next time. Raffle Rocket’s reporting tools make it easy to track what’s working, adjust in real time and walk away with the insights you need to keep improving.

Start your next raffle with Raffle Rocket and put your data to work.

FAQs About Raffle Data

How do I measure fundraising success if this is our first raffle?

Your first raffle is essentially your baseline. Every metric you track becomes the benchmark you’ll measure future raffles against. Focus on capturing as much data as possible, even if you have nothing to compare it to yet. The goal is to build a picture you can improve on next time.

How can I make my raffle more interesting?

Making a raffle more interesting starts with the prizes—the right combination of cash, experiences, and unique non-cash items gives more people a reason to buy tickets. Beyond prizes, creating urgency with a clear deadline, updating your community on the growing pot size, and running early-bird ticket pricing can all drive excitement.

What are the most important metrics for measuring raffle success?

Every organization will have different thoughts on this, but measuring your total revenue compared to your net profit is the most common financial metric for success, while calculating your fundraising ROI and your costs per dollar raised are important, too.

What makes a good raffle?

Ultimately, a good raffle is one where your organization meets its fundraising goals, winners are excited about the prizes they get, and donors learn a little more about the work you are doing. Raffles are a useful fundraising tool for charities, non-profits and religious organizations of all shapes and sizes.

What should I do if ticket sales are slow mid-raffle?

Check your engagement metrics first. Are people visiting your raffle page but not buying, or is traffic low overall? If it’s a traffic problem, increase your promotional efforts with additional emails or social media posts. If people are visiting but not converting, consider highlighting your prizes more prominently or adding urgency by reminding people how much time is left.

Start setting up your own online raffle fundraiser!

register for free

More from our blog