The Power and the Pitfalls of a Sweepstakes

Presentation Summary: Looking for a creative take on building another revenue stream? Join us to examine the power and the pitfalls of launching a fundraising sweepstakes campaign. The National Park Foundation successfully launched for the first time the Explore More Sweepstakes in August of 2023, in partnership with their corporate partner Subaru of America the sweepstakes offered a new EV Subaru and Park Trip voucher to the winner. This 2-month long campaign raised over $1.5 million in both digital and direct mail efforts and activated over 18,000 new donors! This was a truly cross channel effort, though this session will be focused on the digital tactics from email and digital ads that made this campaign a success.

But we get it, not every organization has a car to offer for a sweepstake, so how can you use this model to build your own sweepstakes campaign with the resources available to you. In this session we will share considerations for planning including scalable budgeting, how to approach a marketing campaign, we will share the pitfalls and our lessons learned, and finally discuss a plan for how to leverage these newfound donors and keep them engaged in your mission. As three data nerds, we will pull back the curtain and share how the numbers highlighted our success and pointed out the pitfalls.