Raising money with a competition

Why it works

It runs for weeks, not an evening

A quiz raises what it raises on the night. A Last Man Standing competition keeps the same group of people talking about it every weekend until somebody wins, which is why the money and the goodwill both go further.

The entry fee is yours to set

Whatever you charge is between you and your players, and it is your competition to price. Multiply it by everyone who joins and even a modest fee adds up quickly across a decent-sized group.

There is nothing to buy

No printing, no equipment, no room to book, no volunteers on the night. The whole thing is a link you send to a group chat.

It brings people back

Players check in every week to make a pick. For a pub that is footfall on a quiet night; for a club it is members who otherwise only appear at the AGM.

What it comes to

Nothing clever here — players multiplied by entry fee. What reaches your cause depends on how you split it, which is the next section.

Against that, what the tool costs you. Your first twenty player places are free and stay free; after that, packs start at £10 for twenty more and there is no subscription. Places are counted per player per competition, so running a second competition — or resetting this one for another go — draws on them again.

Three ways to set it up

Charging an entry fee has rules attached. They are not onerous and most fundraisers sit well inside them, but they are worth ten minutes before you take anybody’s money — where a competition sits under UK gambling law.

Buy-backs, if you want them

A knocked-out player can pay in again and you can put them straight back into the competition, the way a poker night lets somebody re-buy. It is the same idea as an entry fee, charged twice: the pot grows, and the people who went out in week three are still involved in week seven instead of having stopped thinking about it.

Set the terms before you need them. What a buy-back costs is entirely yours to decide — and so is how late in the competition you will still take one. Poker rooms close late registration for a reason: if anybody can pay their way back in during the closing weeks, reaching the end has stopped meaning much. Allowing buy-backs for the first few rounds and running a straight knockout after that is the shape most people settle on.

Be even-handed with it. If one person is allowed back, be ready for the next person to ask, and say up front if the answer is going to be no.

The money stays with you. We never handle entry fees, buy-backs or prizes, and we do not know what you charge for any of them — you collect a buy-back however you collected the entry fee, and bring the player back in once it is paid.

Running it well

Say where the money goes, first

Before anyone pays. The cause, the split, who is holding the money and when it gets handed over. People give more readily to something specific than to "club funds", and it heads off the only awkward conversation this ever produces.

Collect it however suits you

Cash behind the bar, a bank transfer, a JustGiving page — we are not involved in it, so use whatever your players already use. Tick people off as they pay and add them to the competition as you go.

Announce the total

At the end, tell everyone what was raised and hand it over publicly if you can. It is the part most organisers skip and the part that makes the next one twice as easy to fill.

Run it again

Reset the competition rather than starting a new one and your players keep their place without being invited again. Most fundraisers stall on recruitment; this is the one thing that removes it.

We never take entry fees, hold stakes or pay prizes — deliberately. The money is between you and your players, and the only thing you ever pay us for is player places.