Local lottery for Lichfield District community and voluntary sector

Lichfield District has a thriving and diverse voluntary and community sector and we recognise it is an important component of what makes Lichfield District a good place to live, work and visit.

In a time of increasing budget pressures, Lichfield District Council is looking at ways to help the Community and Voluntary Sector address funding issues so it can continue to thrive and grow.

To this end, we are considering the introduction of a weekly community lottery with tickets available for purchase online.  Tickets would cost £1 each with 50p of this going towards local community groups, 10p to a general good causes pot and the remaining 40p being used for prizes, operating costs and VAT. Lichfield District Council would not make any profit from the scheme.

Local community groups directly benefit because when somebody buys a ticket, they can select a local group that will receive 50p of the ticket price. A further 10p of the ticket price will go into a general ‘good causes’ pot which can be accessed by community and voluntary sector groups. (proposed split) If players do not specify a particular community group the whole 60p goes into the general ‘good causes’ pot.

60p allocated to good causes compares very well to the National Lottery which gives 28p in every pound to good causes and the Health Lottery which only gives 20p.

There is no cost for local voluntary or community groups to sign up to the lottery scheme. Once signed up, groups will receive a monthly payment that equals the sum of every 50p that has been allocated to them over the previous month by ticket buyers.  It is proposed that organisations will be able to bid for funding from the ‘good causes pot’ on an annual basis.