How Grassroots Football Clubs Can Raise £3,000+ a Year Without a Single Committee Meeting

If you run a grassroots football club, you already know the problem. You need money for kit, pitch fees, training equipment, and coaching badges. But traditional fundraising — quiz nights, bucket collections, car boot sales — is exhausting, unpredictable, and takes your best volunteers away from the thing they actually care about: coaching football.

Here's the good news. With 80 regular supporters and a weekly lottery running on Club Fundraiser, a typical grassroots club raises over £3,700 a year — automatically, with zero volunteer time after the initial five-minute setup.

The numbers behind a club lottery

A weekly lottery is the most efficient fundraising mechanism available to a small club. Here's how the maths works for a club with 80 supporters buying a £2 ticket each week:

• Weekly ticket revenue: 80 × £2 = £160
• Club's share (45%): £72 per week
• Annual club income: £72 × 52 = £3,744
• Weekly prize pot (45%): £72 — a meaningful prize that keeps supporters engaged
• Platform fee (10%): £16 — covers payments, hosting, and the draw itself

That £3,744 is the floor, not the ceiling. Every new supporter who joins adds another £46.80 to the club's annual income. Get to 120 supporters and you're raising over £5,600 a year.

Why recurring entries change everything

The difference between a lottery that raises £500 and one that raises £3,744 isn't the prize size — it's consistency. One-off ticket buyers are unreliable. Supporters who set up a recurring entry are in every draw automatically, every week, without anyone chasing them.

“We set it up on a Tuesday evening and had 40 people playing by the weekend. The recurring entries meant we didn't have to ask people to buy tickets every week — they just stayed in.”

— Mark T., Club Secretary

When you send your lottery link to supporters, actively encourage them to set up a recurring entry rather than a one-off ticket. The difference in annual income is significant: a supporter who buys one ticket gives you £2. A supporter on a recurring entry gives you £104 a year.

Adding extra fundraising on top

The weekly lottery is the foundation. But clubs on Club Fundraiser can layer in additional fundraising to push annual income higher:

• 50/50 Draws for match days — a quick boost on top of the weekly lottery, no extra admin
• Donations with Gift Aid — some supporters just want to give. Gift Aid turns £100 in donations into £125 at no cost to them
• Event Ticketing — sell tickets for presentation nights, tournaments, or end-of-season events directly through the platform
• Last Man Standing — a paid-entry competition that builds a separate prize pot and keeps supporters engaged across the whole season

How to get 80 supporters

For most clubs, 80 supporters is very achievable. Here's where they typically come from:

• Parents of junior players — if you have 30 junior players, their parents are the most motivated supporters you have
• Former players — people who played for the club and still feel connected to it
• Local businesses — many local businesses will support a community club for £2 a week
• Current adult players — your own players are often overlooked; they have skin in the game
• Friends and family of players — the network around even a small club is usually larger than you think

Share your lottery link in your club WhatsApp groups first. That usually gets you to 30–40 supporters quickly. Post it on your club's Facebook page for another 10–20. After that, word of mouth does the rest.

The legal position in England

A weekly lottery run by a non-commercial society (such as a community amateur sports club or unincorporated association) is a 'small society lottery' under the Gambling Act 2005. You're required to register with your local authority if ticket proceeds exceed £20,000 in a 12-month period, or if the total value of prizes exceeds £250,000. Most small clubs are well under these thresholds. Club Fundraiser helps you store the registration details you'll need and displays the required legal information on your club's lottery page.