Managing Legal Risks: Fund-raising

State funded schools in Australia seem to be under some financial pressure. Although the state provides reasonable levels of financial support, fund-raising has become an increasingly important activity for many schools. Parents often play a critical role because they are willing to give their time for free. It is usually parents who organise and drive many of the fund-raising activities undertaken by schools. I am sure school management are grateful because an extra few thousand dollars flowing into school coffers can be useful. Involving parents probably helps build a sense of community as well. At least among the parents who are involved.

It is important, of course, that all fund-raising activities comply with the law. The reasons for compliance are obvious. It avoids the imposition of sanctions. We don’t, after all, want the efforts of parents to be wasted. Second, non-compliance sets a bad example for our children and the community-at-large.

Raffles and lotteries are an effective and commonly used method of raising funds. The thing is, lotteries are highly regulated. That means there are plenty of legal requirements that schools MUST meet. The government department that administer South Australian schools naturally require schools comply with law concerning the conduct of lotteries. It is easy to say that. But do schools know what they should do when running a lottery? Perhaps not.

I was at the local pub the other day when one of the regulars asked me if I wanted to buy a couple of raffle tickets. I often support the pub’s social club so agreed. But this time it wasn’t the social club selling the tickets. Instead, they were from a school.

Like I said before, schools have a responsibility to comply with law – especially in view of the important role they play in the community. So imagine my surprise to see the tickets offered me included very little information.

The tickets offered did not tell me which school they are from. Indeed, the only information given was attached to the front of the book of tickets – and that information was sadly lacking. Full detail of the requirements for running a range of different types of lotteries are contained in the Lottery and Gaming Regulations. I assume the lottery is a ‘minor’ one. That means the retail value of prizes is less than $2000. If so, no license is required. Nonetheless, the lottery must still comply with the regulations.

In particular, Section 19 spells out what’s important when conducting Minor Lotteries. For example:

each ticket and the butt of each ticket must have the name of the association conducting the lottery and the date, place and time for the drawing of the lottery clearly printed on it.

You will see below that in this case there was no detail at all included on the tickets.

Fund-raising committees and schools have a responsibility to be cognizant with the rules and regulations about the conduct of raffles and lotteries. Otherwise the image they present to parents, students and the community is suspect. Schools expect decent levels of behaviour from students – we should demand the same from schools.

Perhaps schools, or someone, should develop training programs and checklists to increase the chance that all of their activities comply with the law. It seems important, to me.