🛠️ How It Works
- A screening form is opened for a defined period, typically tied to a specific housing opportunity, development, or program.
- Households submit the form, self-reporting their basic eligibility and any preference criteria (used for weighted entries).
- This confirms their understanding of the lottery rules and provides a record of intent.
- All participants—including existing Prospects and Applicants—must submit the form to be included.
- Public House evaluates entries for program eligibility using configured rules.
- Once the screening form closes, staff can view the full list of entries and details on the candidate pool. When ready, they can initiate the lottery ranking.
- Lottery entry records are created, and all eligible entries are ranked randomly.
- Weighted entries are grouped by household, with the best-ranked entry used for lottery position.
- A permanent archive and an anonymous public results page are generated.
- Staff can view the lottery results before notifying participants.
- They can verify rankings and setup before releasing results.
- If needed, results can be deleted and the lottery rerun.
- Staff initiates lottery results communications, including each entry’s rank, a link to the public results page, and next steps.
- Top-ranked households are invited to apply.
- Staff initiates a final wrap-up communication, confirming that the lottery process is complete.
Note: Notifications are sent to all lottery participants.
🔍 Transparency & Fairness
- Public, anonymized results pages
- Audit-ready archives of all eligible entries, the ranking results and the ranking process accounting
| Benefit | Description |
|---|---|
| Efficient | Focus application review on top-ranked, interested households only |
| Time-bound | No ongoing list—entries close with each lottery cycle |
| Fair | Random or weighted draws remove first-come bias |
| Low document churn | Applications submitted only when needed—fewer expired documents |
If your lottery is only available to approved Applicants:
Public House is flexible enough to work for different client communications by meeting Housing Organziations where they are at.
If your lotteries are only available to approved Applicants, the recommended approach is to separate the application and lottery processes.
Applications First
If you don’t have an existing screening template and screening campaign, contact Public House to configure them. Once configured, request applications from the Screening Campaign Candidate Pool. Consider your bandwidth for processing applications when requesting applications.
Lottery Entry Screening Form
Contact Public House to configure your lottery screening form template.
Populate your Screening Campaign
Use a Service Files with Applicants report to identify approved Applicants.
- Filter on Status = Applications in Process and Application Status = Approved
Select Add to Campaign and populate the approved Applicants to your Lottery Screening Campaign. Specify the new Campaign Members to have member status = Applicant.
Now you’ll be able to send a mass email to the Campaign Members from the drop-down on the Campaign Members related list. Include the lottery details and
Campaign
- Active checked
- Start & End Date
Screening Config
- Screening Type : Waitlist