Program

Our #1 excitement building, momentum driving program

The Ascend 50/50
Program

Capture new donors, engage your audience, and grow your monthly recurring sales with our world famous online 50/50 program

Our fastest growing program

The 600 seat small-town Imperial Theatre grew monthly 50/50 gross sales from $26,000 in month 1 to $126,000 in month 4 to over $800,000 in month 5 where it awarded a Jackpot of $400K to a lucky local donor. In 2021 they are on pace to drive over $6 million in 50/50 gross sales.

It all started with one phone call with Ascend.
Schedule a Call

A Fundraising Program Where Everybody Wins

What makes our 50/50 program one of the most fun and effective fundraising programs? Everything!

What our customers tell us they love most is:

  • Driving large jackpots and gross sales
  • Reaching new audiences with their message
  • Building and expanding their donor database
  • Measuring and optimize every campaign component
  • The natural monthly PR cadence and storytelling opportunity
  • Awarding life-changing cash prizes every month
  • How easy it is to get started and have success out of the gate
Schedule a call to learn more on how you can partner with us or have us run your 50/50 program from A to Z.

GET THAT WINNING FEELING

GEBEAUTIFULLY SIMPLE

A Simple Concept With Huge Rewards

What makes a 50/50 program so impactful? Its simplicity!
As ticket sales are made, the proceeds go into a community pot. As the pot grows, ticket sales accelerate. This cycle continues until the final weeks, days and hours as donations reach their crescendo.
When the program closes, typically after one month, a winner is selected and is awarded 50% of the total pot. The size of the pot can often be a life-changing amount. Of course the remaining 50% is retained by your charity.
The best 50/50 programs are those than run every month to leverage the momentum building nature of the program with each successive program often exceeding it’s predecessor.
Schedule a Call

Low Upfront Costs

The Ascend 50/50 Program is built for any charity. You don’t need a big investment to start out, and once you’ve finished your first program, you can use a part of the proceeds to run the next one. Most of our 50/50s become self-sufficient after the first two or three rounds.
More on Costs

SELF-SUSTAINING

How does our 50/50 program work?

Program Walkthrough and Expected Results

Plan to Succeed

Program Launch

  • Ascend's Customer Success team helps you get the necessary licenses, merchant account, and other logistics in place

  • Your 50/50 Program launches after a few weeks of pre-launch announcements and teasers

  • Your custom 50/50 landing page or URL is live and open to everyone to purchase tickets

  • Emails go out and social and partner promotions go live, as does your paid social media program

Program Launch

  • As ticket sales grow, the jackpot counter on your custom website gets larger in real-time

  • The Ascend platform manages the end-to-end ticket purchase experience from credit card processing to emailing ticket purchased info

  • Our back-end analytics systems are providing real-time data on campaigns and sales to continually optimize your program

Jackpot!

  • The jackpot gets bigger and bigger, spiking in the final days and then final hours as the program ends

  • When the 50/50 ends, you pick the winner via Ascend's random ticket generator

  • The winner is notified and is awarded 50% of the total ticket sales. The size of the winners jackpot can often be life-changing amounts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars

  • Winner photos and announcements are made and PR opportunities leveraged to tell the great stories and create a new round of excitement as the next 50/50 launches

Final Tally

  • he remaining 50% of ticket sales are your net proceeds, less credit card processing and the program fee

  • The next 50/50 is launched and leverages the excitement and momemtum built up from the first program

  • Sales from the first program can be used to test further increases in media spending and test new media opportunities to increase your donor group and overall donations

  • from the first program can be used to test further increases in media spending and test new media opportunities to increase your donor group and overall donations

Run Multiple Programs

SUSTAINABLE REVENUE GROWTH

Exceeding Expectations

Most organizations we work with set sales goals for their first 50/50 program which we often exceed. We believe that the key to success is working together, and we often operate as an extension of your team - and we win together.

Grow your Donor Base & Brand Awareness

  • Core to every Ascend 50/50 program's success is our ability to drive new donors into your database.

  • This drives the performance of your Ascend 50/50 program and these new donors become part of your core database for all other fundraising and awareness programs.

  • Ascend’s 50/50 programs are designed to build month over month with respect to totals ales and total active participants. In nearly all cases, even while month one results are strong, the sales results of successive programs get stronger and stronger.

  • The PR and awareness building that the program generates also grows as local media often picks up on the feel-good winners stories that you publish every month.

What our Customers say

Play Video

Columbus Charity Foundation

Knights of Columbus Charity Foundation achieves an amazing 1,000% Return on Actual Spend
Play Video

Columbus Charity Foundation

Knights of Columbus Charity Foundation achieves an amazing 1,000% Return on Actual Spend
Play Video

Columbus Charity Foundation

Knights of Columbus Charity Foundation achieves an amazing 1,000% Return on Actual Spend
Play Video

Columbus Charity Foundation

Knights of Columbus Charity Foundation achieves an amazing 1,000% Return on Actual Spend

Our Customers love the Results

Stephen Chenier

Ontario Curling Association

The return from this 50-50 program will be the lifesaver that each of our independently operated member clubs need and will result in a healthy return to sport for our youth participants across Ontario.

Brandon Osborne

Windsor Regional Health Foundation

Right from the start we received excellent customer service from Ascend. They have a great team that works with you not for you and we could not be happier with the results!

Robert Pye

Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters

Catch the Ace is helping the OFAH achieve two priorities: online engagement and online fundraising. The game is exciting and Ascend is so easy to work with to increase support for our conservation cause

Stephen Chenier

Ontario Curling Association

The return from this 50-50 program will be the lifesaver that each of our independently operated member clubs need and will result in a healthy return to sport for our youth participants across Ontario.

Monica Leyba

Arizona Humane Society

Working with Ascend has been a great experience. I have very high expectations for myself when it comes to building out programs and must admit I was impressed with the quality of work and effort put in by the Ascend team – especially their web designers.

Jess Rheault

Lake of the Woods Foundation

This is an exciting time for us. The program has also given us something else that we love about our jobs once a month, after each draw, we get to call someone and change their life.

Brandon Osborne

Windsor Regional Health Foundation

Right from the start we received excellent customer service from Ascend. They have a great team that works with you not for you and we could not be happier with the results!

Robert Pye

Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters

Catch the Ace is helping the OFAH achieve two priorities: online engagement and online fundraising. The game is exciting and Ascend is so easy to work with to increase support for our conservation cause

Monica Leyba

Arizona Humane Society

Working with Ascend has been a great experience. I have very high expectations for myself when it comes to building out programs and must admit I was impressed with the quality of work and effort put in by the Ascend team – especially their web designers.

Jess Rheault

Lake of the Woods Foundation

This is an exciting time for us. The program has also given us something else that we love about our jobs once a month, after each draw, we get to call someone and change their life.