Royal Life Saving Society WA

Raffles had been in the fundraising mix at RLSSWA for 20 years, helping fund their mission to prevent deaths by drowning in WA. In 2017 they embarked on a technology project to open up new marketing channels and improve their supporter experience, but they could not find a digital platform to meet the needs of the heavily regulated raffles market.

So they created a platform for raffles themselves: auRaffles Digital Platform, a single platform for all marketing channels — DM, digital, social, telephone — that supports real-time ticketing and credit card payments. It also allows pledges so that supporters can pay with their method of choice. “This was an important feature, ensuring none of our supporters were alienated by only offering credit card payments,” says Allan Godfrey, Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Fundraising at RLSSWA. “Many of our loyal long-term supporters are older and prefer more traditional payment methods and we wanted to make sure we could support and enable them as well.”

Since the migration in 2018 and at the time of award entry submission last year, RLSSWA raised more than $2.4 million via almost 70,000 transactions on the platform. The platform delivered more than $75,000 in savings across print, postage and admin, which has reduced carbon emissions by an estimated 1.3 tonnes.

Not only has the digitisation of fundraising raffles been a game-changer for RLSSWA, but they have shared the technology with the sector. Taking a cost recovery-only approach, more than 50 charities have joined RLSSWA’s white label ecosystem to deliver 500 campaigns and raise more than $20 million, saving $600,000 and 10 tonnes in carbon emissions. It’s no wonder the winners of Impact Through Technology once again made their way to the podium on awards night.