Democratic Lottery timeline

Running the selection for a democratic lottery is nearly instantaneous - once everything is set up, you press a button and within a few minutes, the software will give you the details of the people selected, along with the names of those who have not been selected.

Before you start

• Are there any holidays happening? That could delay things.

• How long will it take to print invites? We’ve put in two weeks, but some printers are faster, some slower.

• How long will posting invites take? The time of year, how good your postal service is, how remote your area will all affect when invites land on doorsteps.

The timeline

1. Designing the invite - you want an invitation that is easy to read, that encourages people to register, and gives all the essential information. We allow four weeks for this stage.

2. Printing and posting - from the day you send the materials to the printer, we allow two weeks before invites are posted. Then another week for them to land on doorsteps. Three weeks in total.

3. Selection and confirmation - one week for this stage.

4. Preparing materials, technology etc - facilitators and commissioning organisations need to ensure that they have translation, that participants have background materials, that any other needs are met. This stage usually needs three weeks.

While the timeline above adds up to 11 weeks, we usually try to allow 12 weeks from the start of recruitment to the first meeting - the buffer time helps to relieve some pressure!