MemberHub provides built-in, legally compliant official rules for your sweepstakes. The rules are customized during the experience set up answering several questions about your experience. These questions include:
- Official end date and time
- Drawing date (at least three business days after the entry deadline)
- The approximate retail value of the prizes (see below for more detail)
- A detailed description of the prize(s) offered
Think of the official rules act as a contract between the sponsor (your organization) and the person purchasing entries for the drawing.
Once a contract is signed, the terms of the agreement are final. As such, once the sweepstakes is published and entries are purchased, no changes affecting the contract should be made to your experience.
These changes might include:
- Adding or deleting prizes
- Changing dates
- Changing beneficiary
You should review the rules carefully to make sure your organization remains in compliance with the terms in your rules throughout your experience.If you would like to alter the official rules to include things like the option of a cash prize alternative or an early bird drawing, please have your legal team provide the exact text of these special terms so we can add them to your official rules.
Eligibility
Who can enter your giveaway is just as important as how they will enter. Therefore, sponsors (your organization) are required to disclose eligibility requirements and any other criteria that would make someone ineligible to enter or win.
The standard eligibility requirements you’ll need to determine are based on age and location. The rules on your sweepstakes page will contain eligibility for the US and Canada. If you would like to limit the eligibility to only certain areas (ex. US only), please contact support@memberhub.com and they can edit the rules on your sweepstakes.
Good To Know:
- If you are shipping the prize, you will want to consider the cost of shipping in your eligibility selection. For example, if you keep your fundraiser with worldwide eligibility, you may need to ship the prize overseas, which can be costly.
BEFORE YOU PUBLISH
Review the rules on your sweepstakes and let us know if you would like the eligibility section edited. This will speed up the sweepstakes approval process conducted by our approvals team. This approval process happens after the experience is published. Please reach out to us with your preference either way and include your experience title or ID in your email.
Why does my sweepstakes need to be approved?
Prize Description
Prize descriptions are part of the contract with your winners, so your objective should be to provide as much detailed information as possible. A thorough description of your prize(s) lets entrants know what they may win. Therefore, your description should include specifics of the prize like the brand, size, color, or other relevant details.
If your prize includes a trip, please provide as much detail as possible about all aspects of the trip. For example, it would help if you include:
- Whether flights are included
- Whether lodging and activities are included
- What costs the winner will be responsible for
Making the prize description as detailed as possible will help to streamline the experience approval process.
Alternate Method of Entry
Your sweepstakes official rules will also provide instruction on the alternate entry method (a free mail-in entry option), which is legally required.
What is the free entry on a sweepstakes?
Have your own rules?
If you prefer to use rules drawn up by your organization’s legal team, please contact us to provide these rules. MemberHub does not provide legal advice or guidance, but we can work with your legal team to accommodate specific requirements. Please feel free to reach out to us for more information.
If you have your own rules, please provide us with a PDF copy, and we will add these to your fundraiser page. support@memberhub.com