Local Hospice Lottery started life in 1996 as Farleigh Hospice’s own lottery.
In 2008 other hospices were invited to join and benefit from one shared prize fund, one license and lottery system, and the team’s sales and marketing expertise.
Although originally intended to benefit hospices who did not already have their own lottery income, Local Hospice Lottery now offers hospices with their own lottery the opportunity to transfer it and earn more money from every £1 spent than they would from running their own lottery.
Today, Local Hospice Lottery has a total of 15 partner hospices, with at least one further hospice set to join early in 2017.
Since its inception, Local Hospice Lottery has raised a total of £11,150,000 towards hospice care, with £2.9 million of being raised in the last financial year – a further £3.5 million projected to be raised during 2016/2017.
Explaining why St Luke’s Hospice in Basildon joined, Marilyn Debattista, head of revenue development, PR & marketing, said: “We had wanted to include a lottery in our fundraising income stream for some while. After exploring several options with different commercial providers, as well as the possibility of developing our own exclusive lottery, we opted to partner with Local Hospice Lottery for several reasons.
“Being a dedicated hospice lottery gave us the confidence that they would understand and recognise the sensitivities of our market sector and support base. Their business model and financial return on donor investment was also impressive. Local Hospice Lottery offers flexible, central-led, bespoke brand and marketing options – allowing us to use whichever platform dovetails with our current fundraising marketing programme.
“At the time we joined, in October 2009, the Local Hospice Lottery was newly formed and to some extent it was a bit of a leap of faith for both organisations. All these years later, I think it is fair to say that it is possibly one of the best fundraising decisions we have ever made. Working with Local Hospice Lottery, using collective knowledge and experience together with cost sharing, provides St Luke’s Hospice with a regular income stream we can rely on, which to date has given us an income of almost £800,000 to support our patients and local people who use hospice services.”
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