Lottery

[Guest]

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[brian]

Has anyone thought of holding a lottery?  For instance every $25 increment is one chance and you'd give away something like 2% of all donations that week.  It would skim off the top of Kiva's take, but if you had more volume, you'd make more money.

I bet people would give if there was an incentive to win something.  Everyone loves gambling.  It's just a matter of convincing people it's legit.

If a lottery system proves successful, you could try to give things away from product sponsors.  For instance, computer companies could give away a computer in exchange for their name exposure.

[AGullen]

Maybe I'm slow, but I'm slightly confused  ...

What kind of lotto did you intend?

[Spartan]

The best way to do something like that would be in an office or a bar community. I would market it as a pool to potential participants so they make the mental connection with gambling and self reward -etc..  Best of all you would have a clear advantage over other such endeavors. That is the fact that all who take a chance could get a tax credit. 

[brian]

My bad if that was unclear.  I live in Georgia and went to college in Atlanta on something called the HOPE scholarship.  This is a scholarship that pays for instate students to go to public universities for free. All of the scholarship money is derived from the Georgia Lottery.

If a trustworthy lottery system could be developed through Kiva, the money raised would be put toward the entrepreneurs.  For example, 1 ticket = $25 Kiva donation. 
Furthermore, the 'tickets' purchased, is money being put into Kiva, so it's almost as if Kiva just holds the money and launders it through the entrepreneurs.  A year later when the lender gets their money back, they could repurchase lotto tickets.

Winners would win cash or prizes that could be donated by sponsors.  Kiva asks for 10% of people's donations.  If they take, for example, half of those donations every week and put it in a big pot, that might be a nice sum of money to entice people. As it gains publicity, more people would donate to make the pot bigger and eventually end up being more cash for .

Prizes could be donated from sponsors.  Like for instance an Apple computer, or a Scion car.  Free advertising for them, more incentive to win something.  Thumbs up for Kiva.

People love to gamble.  If a trustworthy lotto system was set up, I'd bet advertisers would clamor to give stuff away and people would open their pockets. 

I was thinking to have this setup on the web to get as many people buying into the one lotto system.  interesting about the tax break...

[Spartan]

I think the easiest thing to do on a small scale would be an 80/20 raffle. Everyone donates $25 and gets a receipt as well as one chance to win 20% of the total take for the raffle. For something like this to be legit (think tax refund) however Kiva would have to authorize the activity as well as sanction each raffle based on local legal frame work. I would also think Kiva would have to publish the results for each one on its website.   

[brian]

Check this out: http://www.rafflesoft.com/demoraffle/home/index.php. 

It's a raffle site geared toward non-profits.  Participants can choose what they want to go for and how much they want to bid. The website takes care of all the logistics and fairness of the results.

It costs $600 a year, but it fits exactly what we're looking for.

Sponsors can give away stuff.  There is a project description where we could say what the Kiva Raffle is all about, where the money goes.  It even has an online profile very similar to Kiva's simple style.

We could display the results something like this: http://www.illinoislottery.com/Raffle/3-2007_raffle.htm. 

If this is marketed well, this could really turn into something.  If Kiva threw me the startup cash, I'd even volunteer myself to be the administrator.

[Henry]

Thanks Brian! for that site, not so sure i need it here (Would prefer loan insurance for my extra $1.00) but I am considering donating that software or service to a charity or two here to use.  Not sure about the legality of having a raffle here in bama.