DENVER — The home raffle that has yet to give away a home in 15 years is back.
The Boys & Girls Club of Metro Denver has never sold enough tickets to hand over the keys to a home as part of the Mile High Raffle.
But our reporting from last year appears to have changed the odds.
“This year, we are excited to offer a new structure for the raffle,” said Lauren Kamm, Vice President of Marketing and Communications for the Boys & Girls Club of Metro Denver.
A new structure that might assure a home is actually an option.
“Last year, we got some extra attention, some of that’s thanks to your team, Marshall, and we really took it upon ourselves to listen to our ticket purchasers, so this year we’ve made some adjustments,” Kamm said.
The biggest adjustment is modifying the number of tickets that need to be sold before a home can be given away.
Last year, the threshold was 80,000 tickets, but the Boys & Girls Club only sold 50,000.
“This is a fundraiser, right? We have to evaluate our process and our structure every year, to make sure that it’s engaging, and it works, especially if we get feedback from our ticket purchasers. They weren’t necessarily happy with the ticket threshold and so we took that into account,” Kamm said.
If the fundraiser sells 40,000 tickets by April 19, the winner can choose either $1.1 million in cash or a duplex currently being built near South Table Mountain in Golden.
“The 40,000-ticket threshold is something that we’ve met consistently for the past four years,” Kamm said.
If the fundraiser sells 70,000 tickets by April 19, the winner can choose either $1.1 million in cash, the duplex or a home being built in a soon-to-be-gated community near North Table Mountain in Golden.
“We have two beautiful grand prize homes available,” Kamm said. “The two homes, you know, felt really fun.”
No matter how many tickets are sold, the fundraiser will giveaway $1.1 million over 30 years or $700,000 in a lump sum.
“Last year, our raffle brought in many millions of dollars,” Kamm said.
Since it started 15 years ago, it has provided $26 million for the Boys & Girls Club.
“It’s also brought in over $22 million that’s gone back to our ticket purchasers in the form of cash and prizes,” Kamm said.
It also provided $4.7 million over 12 years to NZ Consulting and Neal Martin Zeavy, for running a home raffle that never gave away a home.
“We are not doing work with NZ Consulting,” Kamm said. “It just wasn’t a good fit anymore.”
The raffle is now primarily being run by Boys & Girls Club staff.
Another change this year is added transparency on the website showing how many tickets have been sold in real time.
“It’s a real time tracker that shows the exact number of tickets that have been sold,” Kamm said. “We heard from our ticket purchasers, and they wanted even more transparency and information, so this year we did develop that real time tracker that’s on our home page.”
There is also a new section of the website that shows pictures and stories of previous winners. Yes, even if a home was never given away, there were thousands of smaller prizes given out as part of the raffle each year.
“Yes, it’s a raffle. Yes, we want to give you a dream house as one of the prizes, but we have other prizes too. And at the end of the day, it is a fundraiser and a critical revenue stream that supports the 28,000 kids and teens that rely on Boys & Girls Clubs every day,” Kamm said.
The Mile High Raffle is also known as the Dream House Raffle, and it is not the same as the Mighty Millions Raffle that is run by Children’s Hospital Colorado Foundation and has given away a home every year it offered a home raffle.
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