Raffles & Fundraisers Success Story

Saint Joseph Academy

The only all-female independent Catholic high school in the city of Cleveland, OH, Saint Joseph Academy was established in 1890 by the Congregation of St. Joseph. Through its educational programs, SJA seeks to empower each young woman to challenge herself to the highest potential to achieve academic excellence, and inspire a life of compassionate leadership and service in a global society.  SJA’s diversity is reflected in its student body of nearly 700, which draws from over 60 Northeast Ohio ZIP codes.

Saint Joseph Academy’s rigorous academic curriculum offers more than 100 courses, including 20 Advanced Placement (AP), 39 Honors & Independent Study classes, as well as a Health Sciences and Engineering & Design Honors and Global Scholars Programs.  Outside the classroom, SJA students can choose from 15 Varsity sports and more than 60 student clubs and organizations that align with their passions. 

The Importance of Giving

With Saint Joseph Academy’s founding more than 130 years ago, the Sisters of the Congregation of St. Joseph put forth its vision of an all-girls school to serve the young women of Cleveland through a quality education deeply rooted in the Catholic tradition. The dedicated alumnae, families, friends and foundational & corporate partners of SJA honor that vision to secure the financial resources necessary for tuition assistance, operating and educational expenses, and needed capital improvements.

Saint Joseph Academy offers its constituents various ways to support the school’s mission and close the gap between student tuition and cost to educate, including its Annual Fund campaign, Scholarship funds, Recurring donations, IRA & Planned Giving, Memorial & Honorary Gifts — and its signature annual online fundraiser, the Jaguar Jackpot Raffle.

The Jaguar Jackpot Raffle

Saint Joseph Academy has run its annual Jaguar Jackpot online Raffle fundraiser through DonorPoint’s Raffle solution since 2019. All SJA students receive a ‘virtual scholarship’ amount that represents the average gap between tuition and the actual cost of an SJA education — with the goal of the Jackpot being to fill that gap.

SJA students can sell the $10 Raffle tickets online via DonorPoint’s solution to their respective rosters of family, friends, neighbors and colleagues — and can use DonorPoint’s Email & Social Media Marketing turnkey feature which enables each student to reach out to family and friends. Other benefits:

  • Each student has a personalized URL that credits ticket sales directly to her
  • At campaign launch, each student and her parents/guardians receive an email overview of the fundraiser, as well as a separate email that can be forwarded to family and friends
  • During the campaign, students and parents are kept up-to-date on new purchase activity in their name, and their overall progress to goal
  • Supporters can quickly and easily share Raffle information from their purchase confirmation to their social circles on Facebook, LinkedIn and X

 

One (1) Grand Prize winner for each annual Raffle (held every mid-September to mid-October) receives a $20,000 cash prize, with one (1) 2nd Place prize of $5,000 and one (1) 3rd Place winner for $2,500.

 

Students Can Win Tuition, Other Prizes

However, winners of the Jaguar Jackpot Raffle aren’t limited to the three cash prize claimants. The student seller of the winning Grand Prize ticket receives a $2,000 cash prize, with the sellers of the 2nd and 3rd Place prizes netting $500 and $250 prizes respectively.  

Additionally, students who reach their individual quota of 30 online tickets sold have their names entered into a special drawing for a $2,000 tuition credit for the current school year — and the singular student who sells the most Raffle tickets overall wins a $2,000 cash prize.  

Saint Joseph supplements these drawings with other miscellaneous daily drawings for students as they sell their tickets online.

The Results

The 2023 edition of Saint Joseph Academy’s Jaguar Jackpot Raffle — the fifth such Raffle with DonorPoint as the online giving partner — was a resounding success, with $204,020 net proceeds after prizes and seller incentives from the sale of 23,827 tickets.  The 2023 Jaguar Jackpot:

  • Scored a 98.5% student participation rate (662 out of a total student body of 672)
  • Each of the four grade classes outsold their stated goal by +12 to +21% — resulting in nearly 3,200 tickets sold over goal

Melissa Murphy, Development Director at Saint Joseph Academy, expressed her exuberance with DonorPoint’s Raffle solution. “This is the smoothest Raffle we have ever run……it was just smoooooth,” boasted Mrs. Murphy. “We loved the new Dashboard setup, the ‘Print Tickets’ option, optimizations DonorPoint made to the reports that we could generate, and email template options that featured to-date progress toward quota as a ‘final nudge’ to prospective donors. We were more than ecstatic with how impeccably everything flowed.”

Mrs. Murphy also extolled DonorPoint’s guidance and round-the-clock Helpdesk presence as keys to SJA’s success. “When we needed things, you were very responsive, as always. But since your software is developed to head off any hurdle before it even happens, we didn’t need much this year.”