Running a Charity Quiz Night That Raises Real Money

The first charity quiz night I helped organize raised 212 pounds for our local food bank. We had booked the church hall, printed forty question sheets, made sandwiches and spent two weeks promoting it. Forty one people came. After paying for the hall and the food, we were left with a sum that barely covered a week of the food bank's fresh produce.

The third quiz night we ran raised just over 1,400 pounds, with roughly the same number of people and the same hall. The questions were not better. We had simply learned where the money in a quiz night actually comes from.

Where quiz night money really comes from

Most first time organizers assume the money comes from ticket sales. It does, but only a small part of it. The bigger sums come from everything else that happens during the evening.

The raffle alone raised more than twice the entry fees. The donations came from simply putting a bucket by the door with a clear sign saying what the money would buy.

Running a raffle that feels fair

Raffles are the backbone of most community fundraising, and they only work if people trust them. Many of our regular quiz goers also play football pools or check draws on sites like ankertoto, so they notice when a raffle feels badly run. A few habits keep it clean:

• Ask local businesses for prizes early. A meal voucher, a haircut or a hamper costs them little and draws far more tickets than cash prizes.
• Display the prizes on a table all evening.
• Sell tickets in strips at a simple price, such as one pound each or five for four pounds.
• Draw publicly and have someone uninvolved pull the tickets.
• Check local rules. In the UK, small raffles held at a single event are usually allowed without a license if all tickets are sold and drawn on the night, but rules vary by country and council.

Keeping costs low

Costs quietly eat into fundraising. Our first night lost a large share of its income to hall hire and catering. By the third, we had changed three things:

1. The hall was donated. We asked the church to waive the fee for a charity event, and they agreed.
2. Food was donated or at cost. A local bakery gave us bread and pastries. Volunteers made soup.
3. Printing was minimal. One answer sheet per team, not per person.

Our guide on supporting local businesses covers how to ask for donations in a way that benefits both sides.

The advice I disagree with: make the questions hard

Many quiz masters take pride in difficult questions. A hard quiz, they argue, separates the strong teams and gives the winners something to be proud of.

For a charity quiz, I think this is a mistake. The goal is not to find the best team. It is to give everyone a good evening so they buy raffle tickets, order food, donate and come back next time. Teams that score badly and feel stupid tend to leave early and spend less. A quiz where every team gets roughly half the questions right, with a few easy wins and a few real challenges, keeps the room happy and the money flowing.

We aim for rounds where most teams score between 50 and 70 percent. Picture rounds, music rounds and local knowledge rounds help, because they reward different kinds of people.

Bonus rounds and side games

Small paid extras add up quickly and add fun to the evening:

• Joker cards for one pound, letting a team double their score on one round.
• Heads or tails for a pound a head, with a donated prize for the last one standing.
• Buy a clue for difficult questions, fifty pence each.

These should always stay small and optional. The aim is fun, not pressure.

Finding volunteers for the evening

A quiz night needs more hands than people expect. For a hall of forty to sixty people, we now plan for at least six volunteers: a quiz master, a scorer, two people on food and drink, one selling raffle tickets and one on the door taking entry fees and donations. Trying to cover all of that with two or three people is how our first night ended up with no raffle and nobody collecting donations.

Ask for specific jobs with specific times rather than general help. Could you run the raffle table from 7 to 8 gets a yes far more often than could you help out on the night. Many people who would never organize an event are happy to do one clearly defined task, and some of them become the core of your team for future events.

After the night

Announce the total at the end, and again on social media and local noticeboards the following week, with a thank you to donors and a photo of what the money bought. People who see the impact are far more likely to come next time. Our guide on how community noticeboards work in the digital age has tips for sharing results.

Our food bank quiz now runs three times a year and has raised just over 9,000 pounds in total. The questions are still only moderately hard. More practical guides are in our Guides section.