I’ve spoken a hundreds and hundreds of wild game dinners. Which has given me a front row seat at some amazing methodology for reaching men by watching churches host wild game banquets with incredible success.

Having that front row seat also has allowed me to see some major train wrecks at wild game dinners, too!

[you can check out this short article where I cover some of those]

The greatest mistake I see churches make is in how they give away door prizes.

I would say the greatest mistake at wild game dinners is in giving away too many prizes that it takes an hour to do it.

However, that problem comes in second to the greatest mistake I see churches make: door prizes going to people that don’t need them or don’t even want what they won.

Follow me for a second.

No true deer hunter who never goes bass fishing wants to win a Minnkota trolling motor; he’d far rather that go to a guy who has a boat.

No turkey hunter, who never deer hunts, wants to win a Summit treestand. He’d far rather a deer hunter win that awesome prize.

And you don’t want a kid, who has never been hunting, to win your custom made box call for turkey hunting that is worth $200 (saw that happen one time.) Every turkey hunter there was about to vomit. That piece of art was never going to see the light of day.

The Solution For Door Prizes At Wild Game Dinners:

The greatest method I’ve ever seen was what I call the “bucket method.”

I walked into a venue once and noticed that the greeters at the registration table asked people, “Please pick your favorite part of hunting and fishing and drop your name in the corresponding bucket.”

So … if you were a bass fisherman … you put your name in the Fishing Bucket. If you were a hunter … you put your name in the Hunting Bucket. And to really be effective, they had a 15 & Under Bucket – which keeps a kid from winning the trolling motor!

Any guest that won something now would win something they could use. It was a genius approach!

For the final giveaway of (3) gift cards to Bass Pro, everyone’s name went in the “big” bucket and everyone had a chance to win that prize.

One final tip: give away prizes all night long. Don’t wait until the end; it takes way too much time. Given them out every 5 minutes while guys are eating and then when the speaker is finished all you need to do is give away the major prizes and let them go home.