Two things decide whether a charity event is worth running, and both usually get settled too late. What it will cost you before a single donation arrives, and which permissions you need to hold it legally.
An event that raises £4,000 and costs £3,200 has raised £800. That is the number that matters, and it is rarely the number that gets reported to the board.
If fundraising activity is one of several things your charity is trying to get straight, you can book a free clarity call.
What the event will cost before anyone donates
Build the budget before choosing the format, not after. The costs that catch charities out are the ones that arrive regardless of how many people turn up.
Venue hire and any deposit. Public liability insurance, which most venues will require and some charities assume they already hold. Licences and permits, covered below. Printing, signage and tickets. Equipment hire. First aid provision. Catering, or the cost of a caterer’s pitch if you are not providing it. Card readers and their transaction fees. And a contingency, because something always costs more than quoted.
Then the cost nobody puts in the budget: staff and volunteer time. A summer fair takes weeks of somebody’s attention. If that somebody is your only fundraiser, the event has a cost measured in the grant applications they did not write.
Add it up before you commit to anything. A charity that knows its fixed costs are £2,600 can work out what it needs through the door, and can tell early whether the numbers work.
Licences and permissions you may need
Which permissions apply depends on what you are actually doing, so list every activity first: live or recorded music, food, collecting money, raffles, late finishing, use of public land, ticket sales. Each attaches to a different authority, and the responsibility sits with the charity rather than the venue or the volunteers.
Music and entertainment. Much of this is deregulated. Live or recorded music for an audience under 500, between 8 am and 11 pm, is generally exempt in a community venue such as a village hall. Outside those conditions, check with the council. Exemption from entertainment licensing does not remove the need for a music licence covering copyright.
Collections. Collecting money in the street needs a permit from the local authority. House-to-house collections need a licence. Both take time, and both are refused more often than charities expect when applications arrive late.
Food. Any food business trading at your event has to be registered with the local council, so check before you book them. The Food Standards Agency publishes guidance for community and charity events covering what applies when volunteers are preparing food rather than a business.
Public land. An event on a street, park or common needs permission from the council or landowner. Start that conversation early.
Fees and thresholds change, so confirm the current position with your council rather than relying on what applied last year.
Events tend to expose whether the fundraising has a plan behind it. A charity running the same summer fair every year because it always has, without knowing what it clears, usually has a bigger question waiting underneath. If that sounds close to home, a free 30-minute clarity call is a reasonable place to start.
Raffles, lotteries and where charities get caught
Raffles and tombolas are lotteries under the Gambling Act 2005, and this is where small charities most often break the law without knowing it.
The exemption most fetes rely on is the incidental non-commercial lottery. It needs no licence and no registration, provided you stay inside its limits. Tickets must be sold only at the event itself, though the draw can happen afterwards. No more than £500 may be taken from the proceeds to pay for prizes. No more than £100 may be taken for costs. Donated prizes sit outside the £500, because that figure limits what you deduct from what you raise.
Step outside those conditions and it becomes a small society lottery, which must be registered with the local authority where your charity’s principal office sits. Two things commonly trigger that without anyone noticing.
Selling tickets in advance. The moment tickets go out before the day – at another event, through the office, to supporters by post – the incidental exemption falls away.
Selling tickets online. Online participation does not qualify as selling at the event, whatever the software supplier implies.
A registered small society lottery brings its own rules. Registration and an annual fee. At least 20% of proceeds applied to the charity’s purposes. No single prize worth more than £25,000, even a donated one. Every ticket the same price, paid for before entry to the draw. Ticket details specified in law, including the charity’s name, the price, who is responsible for promotion and the date of the draw. Tickets cannot be sold to anyone in the street. Minimum age sixteen. And a return to the council within three months of the draw.
The practical rule: if you want to sell tickets before the day, register first. Registration is inexpensive and quick. Discovering afterwards that your raffle was unlawful is neither.
Where the fundraising rules apply
The Code of Fundraising Practice covers events as much as any other fundraising, and it applies whether or not your charity is registered with the Fundraising Regulator, since registration is voluntary and the standards are not.
The points that bite at events are about clarity. Be clear what proportion of a ticket price goes to the charity, particularly where the event has real costs behind it. Be clear about what donations will fund. Be careful with pressure, especially in auctions and around vulnerable attendees.
Two other things belong here rather than as afterthoughts. Carry out a written risk assessment and keep it, because it is your evidence that the trustees thought about safety. And where the event involves children or adults at risk, your safeguarding policies apply on the day, to volunteers as much as to staff.
Setting a target you can actually hit
Work from your costs upwards rather than from an ambition downwards.
If fixed costs are £2,600 and you expect 200 people, each attendee has to generate £13 before the event breaks even. That single figure tells you whether the ticket price works, whether you need a sponsor to cover the venue, and whether 200 is enough. It is a more useful number than a target picked because it sounds respectable.
Then decide what counts as success beyond the money. New supporters whose details you keep, with consent recorded properly. Local relationships. A trustee meeting someone useful. Those are real returns, and an event that breaks even while producing forty new supporters may be worth repeating. But name them beforehand, or they become the consolation you reach for afterwards.
When not to run the event
Some events should not happen, and saying so early is cheaper than saying it in September.
Do not run it when the volunteer capacity is not there. An event held together by two exhausted people costs more than it raises, and one of them usually leaves afterwards.
Do not run it because you ran it last year. That is the most common reason small charities keep going with events that stopped working, and nobody wants to be the trustee who suggests stopping.
Do not run it when the same effort spent asking your existing supporters directly would raise more. For many small charities it would. Events feel productive because they are visible, and visibility is not income.
And do not run it when the sums do not work at a realistic attendance. Plan against the number you actually expect, not the number you hope for. If it only breaks even at capacity in good weather, it is not a fundraising event.
This article is general information for UK charities and not advice on any specific situation. Licensing requirements, fees and thresholds vary by local authority and change over time, so confirm the current position with your council and with the Gambling Commission before you commit.
If your fundraising needs a plan rather than another event, our marketing and fundraising support covers how the pieces fit together.
