I just ran a charity event for someone who had
no idea how to market and promote a game and they made enough that it was worth the afternoon, for certain.
Your biggest challenge is likely the law in your state. And although I'm likely to get another fistfight request for being a law-nit, I'll remind everyone: gambling for-profit, even if the "profit" is for a non-profit or a "real" charity, is likely illegal where most readers of this thread will live. So, OP, check your laws, and everyone else reading this thread do the same if you're thinking of doing the lord's work while running a poker tournament.
Now, as with most of these posts, I'm not saying that running a charity tournament is likely to get you arrested, as the climate in your state/country/province might be well suited to running these sorts of things -- but tread carefully. Even my tiny little event was illegal by my state's law... ...but nobody's going to break them up. Running them
every week is another story....
As to your questions:
Quote:
Basically few questions off the top are, where do we get prizes?
Are they generated via sponsors?
How do you pay the tournament staff (IE dealers/floor people/myself)
Your prizes are generally generated two ways. First, your patrons know that they're playing for a portion of the prize pool, and that the balance of said prize pool is going to your charity. Second, you hit the streets and you beat up business and corporate donors. You exchange advertising for those businesses --
"Hey, everyone, Ray's Pizza and Car Wash donated third prize tonight, a pizza party for 6 and a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax! Go visit them just off exit 112 next to the Howard Johnson's! Thanks Ray's for supporting <insert charity>!"
If you intend on running an enterprise that requires a staff that needs paid, you're looking into another beast entirely. The staff for a charity
event will donate their time. The staff for a charity room -- a poker place that you run that gives its profits to charity -- I mean, after it pays you, of course, right? That seems to be your goal. How do
I get paid for my
*cough* charitable work? ...so, in that case, now you're just running a business. And, if you're askin', you start with your gross, subtract overhead, interest and one-offs, and now you've got net profit. Give that to charity. Repeat next month.
[Hint: You're part of the overhead, so's the lawyer you're going to need.]