How to Build a Year-Round Fundraising Plan for Your Club (UK Guide)

If your club raises money in panicked bursts — a raffle when the kit bill lands, a quiz night when the boiler goes — a simple year-round plan will almost always raise more for less effort. The most reliable structure is a small amount of steady, always-on income sitting underneath two or three bigger seasonal pushes. The easiest way to build that steady layer is an online 50/50 draw or club lottery, which is what Play Fund Win is built for: there's nothing to pay up front, it takes about ten minutes, runs the draw compliantly and pays the club its share of every ticket sold.

Start with the number, not the ideas

Most fundraising plans fail because they start with activities. Start with arithmetic instead. Sit down with your treasurer and write out what the club actually needs over the next twelve months:

• Fixed costs — pitch or hall hire, affiliation and league fees, insurance, referees or officials, utilities.
• Predictable replacements — kit, balls, nets, first aid, training equipment.
• One-off projects — floodlights, a clubhouse repair, a tour or a new minibus.
• A buffer — because something always breaks.

Subtract subs, match fees and any confirmed grants or sponsorship. What's left is your fundraising target. Divide it by twelve and you have a monthly number to aim at — which immediately tells you whether you need a steady trickle, a couple of big events, or both.

Build in three layers

A plan that works across a whole season usually has three layers, each doing a different job.

Layer one: always-on income. This is money that arrives every month without anyone organising anything. A weekly or monthly 50/50 draw, a club lottery, a 200 club, or regular small donations. It's rarely dramatic, but it's the layer that covers the boring bills and stops you fundraising from a standing start every time.

Layer two: seasonal peaks. Two or three bigger moments in the year when your community is already paying attention — pre-season, a home tournament or finals day, Christmas, and end-of-season presentation night. These are where events, big raffles and appeals belong.

Layer three: targeted pushes. Time-limited campaigns tied to a specific thing: a crowdfunder for new floodlights, a sponsored walk for a tour fund, a sponsorship drive before kit is ordered. People give far more readily to a defined goal than to general funds.

Map it to your club's actual year

Your calendar should follow your season, not the tax year. As a rough shape for a club whose season runs autumn to spring:

• Pre-season — launch or relaunch the ongoing draw, confirm sponsors before kit is ordered, sign up new members and their families.
• Early season — matchday fundraising while attendance is highest: 50/50 draws at home games, refreshments, small raffles.
• Winter — Christmas is the strongest giving period of the year for most clubs. A festive draw, a hamper raffle or a Christmas quiz tends to outperform the same activity in February.
• New year — quieter months. Lean on the always-on layer, and use the time to write grant applications rather than run events.
• End of season — presentation night, awards, a final big event, and the ask for next year's sponsorship while goodwill is high.

Summer clubs simply invert this. The principle holds: put the effort-heavy activity where the attention already is.

Keep it legal from the start

Anything where people pay for a chance to win is gambling in law, and the rules in Great Britain sit with the Gambling Commission. In short:

• A raffle held entirely at a single event, with tickets sold and drawn on the day and no rollover, is usually an incidental lottery and doesn't need registration.
• A draw that runs over time, online, or beyond a single event — including most 50/50 draws and club lotteries — normally needs registering as a small society lottery with your local licensing authority, with returns submitted afterwards.
• Entrants must be 18 or over, and you must be honest about how proceeds are used and what share goes to the cause.

Rules differ in Northern Ireland, so check locally. If that sounds like admin you don't have time for, this is exactly the case for running your draw through a compliant platform that handles registration guidance, age checks, ticketing and the draw itself.

Share the load and write it down

A plan that lives in one volunteer's head disappears when they step back. Put the twelve months on a single page, name an owner for each activity, and give each one a target. Two or three people sharing a fundraising role beats one exhausted person doing everything — and it makes handover survivable.

Then track what actually happens. Record what each activity raised and roughly how many volunteer hours it took. After a season you'll know which of your events are genuinely worth repeating and which are just tradition. Most clubs are surprised: the quiet monthly draw often outperforms the event everyone spends a fortnight organising.

Make the first move small

You don't need the whole year mapped before you start. Set the target, get the always-on layer running this month, and slot the bigger moments in around it as the season takes shape.

If you'd like the steady layer sorted quickly, Play Fund Win lets UK clubs and charities set up a compliant online 50/50 draw, raffle or club lottery in about ten minutes, with nothing up front and the club keeping its share of every ticket sold. Get started at playfundwin.com.