How to Host a Mahjong Fundraiser or Charity Tournament

To host a mahjong fundraiser, pick a format (a relaxed social afternoon or a scored tournament), set an entry fee that covers your costs with money left for the cause, and ask local businesses to donate prizes. Take sign-ups and payment before the day so you know your numbers. Then run check-in, seating and scoring with a plan, and finish by thanking everyone and sharing what you raised.

This guide is for the volunteer who said yes: the Friends of the Library board member, the sisterhood chair, the PTA parent, the hospital auxiliary, or the club owner who wants to give back. If you have never run a tournament, read how to run a mahjong tournament too. This post covers what changes when the goal is raising money. We make Bam Good Time, a mahjong club platform, so we point out where it helps, but everything here works with paper and a cash box.

The Short Version

1. Pick a format
2. Build a budget and set the fee
3. Find prizes and sponsors
4. Take sign-ups and payment
5. Run the day
6. Follow up
7. Check the tax and raffle rules

Pick a Format: Social Play or a Scored Tournament

A social afternoon. Tables of four play casually for a set time, with no official score. It suits beginners, mixed groups and people who came mostly for the cause, and it is the easiest to run. You can add a teaching table for new players.

A scored tournament. Players play timed rounds, scores add up, and the top finishers win prizes. It draws competitive players but takes more planning: a format, a scoring method, a clock, and someone to answer rules questions. The Harborfields Public Library's fundraiser for its Friends group on April 25, 2026, ran three 65-minute rounds with prizes for the top three, open to intermediate and advanced players only.

A round robin keeps everyone playing with different people, and Swiss pairing reseats players by score each round. Our guide to mahjong tournament formats compares them. For a first fundraiser, three or four rounds of round robin is plenty.

Plan on three to four hours in all. That is what Sharsheret's 2025 handbook for mah jongg fundraisers suggests, and the Harborfields event ran from noon to 4:30 p.m.

Build a Budget and Set the Entry Fee

List every cost first:

• Venue. Free is best. Sharsheret's handbook suggests a home or a communal space, such as a synagogue, that you can use free of charge.
• Tables and sets. One table and one set for every four players. Ask players to bring sets.
• The card. Every player needs the current National Mah Jongg League card. The League's store lists the 2026 card at $14 standard and $15 large print. Most players bring their own, so budget for a few loaners. The League also says proceeds from its card sales go to charitable organizations each year.
• Prizes. Donated prizes cost nothing. Cash prizes come straight out of the cause's share.
• Food, drinks and printing. Light refreshments or lunch, plus signs, name tags and score sheets.
• Card fees. Stripe's standard pricing lists 2.9% plus 30¢ per successful payment with a domestic card.

Add it up and divide by a headcount you are sure of, not the one you hope for. That is your break-even per player. Set the entry fee above it, and everything above break-even goes to the cause. Sharsheret's handbook suggests an entry fee to lessen the cost of the event, with additional proceeds supporting the charity.

Here is a made-up example. The venue is free, food is $300, printing is $50 and you plan $250 in cash prizes, so costs are $600. At 40 players, break-even is $15 each. A $40 fee brings in $1,600, which leaves $1,000 for the cause, or about $940 if all 40 pay by card at Stripe's listed standard rate.

Real fees vary a lot. The Board Game Vault, a board game venue in New Braunfels, Texas, charged $19 for its September 7, 2026 tournament and gave the entry fees to the Alzheimer's Association. Its page explains that the owner picked a number tied to the cause and kept it affordable. Harborfields charged $75.

Put two more things on the sign-up page before anyone pays: one sentence on where the money goes, and your refund rule. Harborfields said plainly that fees were non-refundable.

Find Donated Prizes and Sponsors

Donated prizes are the fastest way to grow what the cause receives. Ask early, and make it easy to say yes:

• Ask the businesses your players already use: restaurants, salons, bookstores, gift shops, and shops that sell mahjong sets and cards.
• Send one short paragraph: the date, the cause, how many players you expect, and what they get back (their name on the sign-up page and a thank-you at the awards).
• Plan prizes for the top three, plus a few fun ones, so more people stay in the running.
• Ask one sponsor to match what you raise. The Board Game Vault said on its fundraising page that it would match all money raised.

Sharsheret's handbook adds two ideas that keep the day about the cause: decorate in the cause's colors, and invite a cancer survivor or local expert to speak.

In Bam Good Time. A tournament's Payment & Prizes step has a Prize description box that players see on the event page, for donated prizes and trophies. Cash places get a dollar amount or a percentage of a prize pool, and print on a Payout Sheet with a signature line for each winner. To show partners how many players they brought, give each one its own discount code worth $0. It takes nothing off, and the entrants download names the code each player used. Discount codes are on every plan, but the code box only appears on a paid event, unless the club owner has switched it off in Settings.

Take Sign-Ups and Payment Before the Day

Online sign-ups give you a head count, the money and a waitlist before the day.

If your cause has its own fundraising page, use it for donations from people who cannot come. Sharsheret's handbook suggests working with Sharsheret on a registration page where participants pay, donate and sign up. The Board Game Vault's tournament had a page on the Alzheimer's Association site with a goal and a donate button.

If you run it on Bam Good Time:

• A social event works on every plan. Free covers 5 events a month and up to 50 players on your roster, with Venmo and cash tracked by hand. Starter ($19 a month) covers 12 events and 150 players and adds card payments and add-ons, so players can buy extras like lunch or a T-shirt when they sign up.
• A tournament needs Pro ($49 a month), which includes card payments. You set the entry fee, the player limit and the sign-up deadline, with an optional waitlist. A group price works too, such as $35 a seat when four book together. Tournaments have no add-ons.
• Card money goes to the Stripe account your club connects, and Bam Good Time adds no markup on Stripe's fee. If the nonprofit connects its own Stripe account, entry fees land there.
• Selling tickets somewhere else? Turn on External Registration on a tournament. Its page then shows a Register Externally button that opens your own ticket page, and you add players yourself.
• Sign-up questions collect a lunch choice, whether someone can bring a set, or a photo release that players tick to agree. At a social event, a Seat together question lets people name the friends they want at their table. Tournament seating comes from the pairings, but you can place players in set seats by hand first.
• A free social event can say "Free (donations welcome)". Tick Donations welcome on a free event (tournaments do not have the box). Nobody is charged, so put how to give in the description.

Players can sign up friends in the same checkout. To reach more players, list your tournament free in our tournament directory, whatever software you use. We review every listing and email you when it is live. For more ideas, see how to grow your mahjong event.

Run the Day: Check-In, Seating, Scoring and Standings

Give each volunteer one job: check-in, rules questions, scores, or running errands.

Check-in. Print a QR check-in poster for the door so players can check themselves in from their phones, or check them in from the roster. At a tournament, a second laptop or tablet can run as a check-in station on the web, finding players by name, number, email or phone.

Seating. At a social event, generated tables keep together the people who asked to sit together. At a tournament, each player gets a number that is their starting table and seat, like 17W. Print assignment slips for the welcome bags and a card for each table.

A clock. Set a round length on the tournament, press Start when the round begins, and put the projector timer on a wall screen. For a social afternoon, the admin Timer page is a countdown with a warning chime. Both are on the web.

Scores. The player seated East can enter her table's scores from her phone. On a score-only tournament the other three seats confirm them from their phones, and on any tournament a change to a submitted score waits for the table to agree. If you prefer paper, East keeps the sheet and types the same numbers in. A player who needs help taps a button on her phone, and your admins get a push and a text. See how to score a mahjong tournament.

Standings. Put the live standings board on a big screen or projector. It updates as scores come in, and its QR code opens a find-your-table page on each player's phone. When play ends, print the Payout Sheet and hand out prizes.

After the Event: Thank-Yous, Totals and Photos

Thank people within a day. Email everyone who came, then thank each sponsor with the number of players and what you raised. In Bam Good Time, you can email an event's attendees from the event page. On the web, Settings also has Follow Up After an Event, which sends your club's thank-you email on its own, 30 minutes to 24 hours after a tournament or social event ends.

Add up what you raised. On the web, the club owner opens Analytics and picks the dates: last 30 or 90 days, last year, all time, this month, last month, or a custom From and To. The Revenue card lists what came in, line by line:

• Through Stripe: card payments by kind, such as Tournaments, Events and Add-ons, with Refunds on their own line. Days are counted in your club's own time zone, each payment is dated by when it was paid, and the total is before Stripe's fees.
• Paid outside Stripe: the cash, Venmo and other payments you marked paid.

Open any line to see each payment, or download the card as a CSV. Under Payments, the Payment Ledger lists each payment with the member, item, amount and method, and its For your bookkeeper box (once Stripe is connected) downloads a month of transactions, Stripe fees and bank payouts included. Both are on the web, for the club owner only, on every plan.

Set the dates tightly around your event. Then do the last step yourself: money in, minus Stripe's fees, minus your costs, is what the cause receives. Bam Good Time shows the money that came in. It does not track what you spent, show a fundraising goal or send donation receipts, so keep your receipts in a simple sheet.

Share photos with permission. A photo release question at sign-up handles it. Add a few photos to your thank-you email and the nonprofit's social pages, and save the date for next year.

Tax and Raffle Rules: Check the Official Sources

We are not lawyers or accountants, so here is where to look.

Tax deductions. When someone pays a charity and gets something back, like a tournament seat with lunch, the rules differ from a plain gift. IRS Publication 1771 explains them, including when a charity must give donors a written disclosure statement. Read it, and check with your own accountant before you call any part of the fee deductible. Bam Good Time does not issue donation receipts; any acknowledgment comes from the nonprofit.

Raffles and 50/50s. Raffles and 50/50 drawings are regulated by each state. Check your state's rules before you plan one or sell a single ticket, online or at the door.

Plan Your Fundraiser

A good mahjong fundraiser is a full room, a clear fee, donated prizes and a thank-you that names the total. Start your club for free to set up the sign-up page and track who paid. Card payments start on Starter at $19 a month, and tournaments are on Pro at $49 a month. See pricing for each plan.