How Sean’s Place secures unrestricted funding through the Sefton Community Lottery

Securing an additional source of income without placing a significant demand on our resources: How Sean’s Place turned a £1 ticket into a lifeline

Sean’s Place is a mental health support charity for men across Sefton and Liverpool. Every week, their team gives more than 450 men and their families free, immediate access to life-saving support through 1-to-1 care, group programmes, and, just as importantly, a cup of tea and someone who’ll listen.

In July 2026, Sean’s Place joined the Sefton Community Lottery and are projected to raise £1,846 in their first year, selling 80+ tickets a week. What they’ve found though is something more valuable than money: a funding stream nobody has to fight for.

We spoke with Lisa – deputy CEO at Sean’s Place – who was happy to share in her own words how they did it.

The funding challenge: Securing core income for Sefton good causes

Ask anyone in the voluntary sector and they’ll tell you the same thing: grants are generous with projects, but stingy with the basics.

Funders rarely want to fund the costs of simply keeping an organisation running things like insurance, utilities and general overheads, for example.”

That’s the gap Sean’s Place needed to close. Not a one-off grant for a new programme, but something steady; unrestricted money they could pay towards rent, or insurance, or whatever needed it that month without a mountain of paperwork – or a chunk of staff time to run it.

“The main thing that attracted us to joining the lottery was that, once it is up and running, it is a very self-sufficient income stream. It requires relatively little administration time, so it provides an additional source of income without placing a significant demand on our resources.”

The opportunity: getting members involved and growing the lottery

No big campaign. Just showing up, consistently.

Here’s the part that should be reassuring to any charity nervous about launching a lottery: Sean’s Place didn’t build a marketing machine. They didn’t need one. With around 550 active members, partners and stakeholders, they just made sure the lottery kept quietly showing up wherever their community already was.

Sean’s Place, like a lot of charities, offers its services for free which means members regularly ask how they can give something back. Now there’s a ready answer.

“It’s a relatively low-cost way for people to support us while also giving them a sense of pride in contributing to the service they use.”

A weekly nudge, not a sales pitch. Every member newsletter carries a section on the lottery and deliberately, it doesn’t read like a sales pitch.

“We deliberately don’t approach it in a pushy or ‘sales’ manner. Instead, it’s more about giving people a positive reminder that by taking part, they are not only supporting the service but are also in with a chance of winning some fantastic prizes.”

Of everything they tried, this is the one Lisa comes back to:

“I think the weekly reminders to our members have been the most useful thing we have done.”

Turning £1 into something you can picture. The move that seems to land hardest is translating ticket sales into something tangible. Lisa does the maths for her members if all 550 played once a week for a year, here’s what that could fund.

“I then try to translate that figure into something tangible for example, explaining that this could fund an additional 200 counselling sessions a year, or help us provide a camping trip for a certain number of members. I think showing people what their participation could actually help us achieve makes it much more meaningful.”

To sum up, the key tactics and results:

• Email signatures: Placing the Sefton Community Lottery logo and direct support link in every staff member’s email signature, works really well to capture natural touchpoints with partners and external stakeholders.
• Member signposting: When service users ask how they could support the charity, staff direct them to the lottery as a low-cost way to give back while offering a chance to win weekly prizes.
• Weekly reminders: A dedicated section has been added to the weekly member newsletter, serving as a soft, continuous prompt for both new and existing members.
• Impact translation: Including examples of tangible outcomes in newsletters to demonstrate the potential impact. For example, showing how regular weekly participation by each member could translate directly

The impact: keeping the lights on

Funds raised via the lottery directly underpin the daily operations of Sean’s Place. The unrestricted income ensures they can cover fundamental bills – quite literally “keeping the lights on” – while preserving small but critical details, such as providing every visitor with a warm drink and a listening ear.

“It will help us with the fundamental costs of keeping the service running quite literally helping us to ‘keep the lights on’ while also allowing us to continue providing the small things that make a difference, such as being able to offer everyone who walks through our doors a cup of tea and a listening ear.”

It also funds the things that sit just outside a typical grant: day trips, group experiences, and other moments that pull members out of isolation the kind of thing that’s hard to justify on a restricted-funding application, but makes a real difference to someone’s week.

“These activities can make a huge difference to our members’ wellbeing and help to reduce isolation, but they can be difficult to fund through restricted grants.”

Above all, the lottery protects the principal Sean’s Place is built on:

“The money we raise will help us to continue providing free mental health support and maintain our ethos that somebody’s financial situation should never be a barrier to accessing support.”

Has joining the Sefton Community Lottery been worth it?

When we asked what she’d change, Lisa didn’t have much to offer beyond wishing she’d started sooner.

“Being completely honest, I can’t think of anything we would have done differently, other than perhaps joining earlier! By the time we came on board, I knew that a number of other organisations across Sefton were already registered.”

“The onboarding process was really straightforward and very quick, so we have no issues at all in that respect.”

And she’s happy to say so to other charities weighing it up:

“I think the Community Lottery is a fantastic opportunity for organisations within the voluntary sector, and I’d be very happy to share our experience and hopefully encourage other organisations to get involved.”

The lottery at a glance

Lottery launched	July 2026
Projected to raise	£1,846 in their first year
Tickets sold	80+ per week
Ticket price	£1 (60p goes directly to Sean’s Place)
Community size	~550 active members, partners & stakeholders

If you’re thinking about a Community Lottery for your own cause, get in touch. We’ll walk you through a simple process, just like we did for Sean’s Place.