Hosting a benefit / fundraising tournament

Ok, I found a bought a decent equalizer scale. Long story short, me and my family hosts an orphan from Ukraine two times a year. We felt led a couple of years ago to act on this and we committed to it knowing that the financial part of it is the most challenging for us (im a teacher and coach and my wife stays at home with our kids). My thought was to start hosting a somewhat informal tournament once or twice a year as one of our fundraisers.

My question is on tournaments like this, after deciding on a lake and a date (that hopefully doesnt conflict with other tournaments, especially the big ones)...Whats a wise payout amount and payout percentage of contestants?

I was thinking pay back 40% and pay the top 30%. Whats a normal/fair entry amount for a team?

Just want some feedback and would love to make this an annual thing...even if its kinda small.

When we do fundraising tournaments for our school club, we do $100 entry and $20 big bass optional. As far as payback we do 70/30 which is 70% payback and 30% to our club. Makes the payout worth the entry fee, gas, lodging (if needed) all together and we do it at PK every spring. First year we had 27 boats and with the 30% to our club we got right at $800 I believe.

This sounds like a nice fun style tournament idea for a VERY worthy cause. There are many options available to scheduling same day as a bigger tournament at a lake/ramp. I sent you a pm also. These are the type of tournaments I would be interested in volunteering to help instead of actually fishing. Ive even paid entry fees at some with the intention beforehand of not even fishing but physically helping during registration/set up/weigh in/tear down. My entry fee was helping both the cause & helping boost the pot for those fishing it. Fun & VERY worthwhile way to spend a weekend.

sent you a pm.