On February 12, 2025, Concord Academy Dean of Students Grant Hightower issued a school-wide suspension of raffles through CA’s all-school email chain. With so many of Concord Academy’s clubs and classes fundraising through raffles, they did not seem to have any negative implications toward the school community—so why the sudden ban?
“Student Life has been notified that there are legal implications to running raffles that include notifying the state,” Hightower stated in his email. Massachusetts raffle guidelines state that for-profit entities and individuals cannot host raffles. In order for a raffle to be allowed, the organization must be a nonprofit that has stayed active for a minimum of two years. Even if the proceeds were to be donated to nonprofit organizations, any club or organization that went against any of the aforementioned statements would be ineligible to host raffles. Each of the organizations must also have obtained a raffle permit, which requires multi-step verification, paperwork, and a time frame of at least two weeks. Furthermore, the complications are added on by Massachusetts requiring 5 percent of the profit made from raffles to be paid as tax and organizations having to annually renew their licenses.
In other words, as most of CA’s clubs and organizations use their profit from raffles and do not hold a raffle permit, conducting raffles is considered an illegal activity. “I’m really disappointed,” says Emilia Deng ’27, “though [Student life] said they will update us soon.” Though many of CA’s students are voicing their complaints about the sudden ban of raffles, especially with some clubs having started them right before the suspension, the legal implications are serious for the greater school administration. While raffles have been a major money-maker for CA’s numerous clubs and organizations, they have also allowed for many creative ways of fundraising. On a positive note, the ban on raffles may induce more originality among CA students in regards to making a profit.