Hi Tina!
Our library doesn't do a community prize but the breakdown for youth, teens, and adults are:
Youth: our youth department does an incredible job of offering tiered prizes and we have a gumball machine that distributes colored sheets of paper so that winners get a random color. The colors are associated with one of the tiered prize offerings and these vary in size, quality and scope. The lower tier is often little gadgets and fun printed games. The next tier are things like bubble wands, little lego sets, and some other things I cannot remember! and the top tier are large items, like big board games, larger lego sets, hot-ticket items that kids absolutely want and love (and kind of saves their parents from having to get them).
Teens: get a free coupon to shop in our Friends of the Library Book Cellar and a baggie of goodies including snacks and a small craft
Adults: get a gift card to Starbucks (usually $5).
Every age group is entered into a grand prize drawing specifically for their ages and these prizes are typically fun experiences for the family for Youth, a big item that teens are interested (I think it varies each year?), and some gift cards in large amounts of money for Amazon and a few other retailers.
As far as participation, we've seen a slight increase.
Some ideas to help your library out would be, if you have time, staff, and resources:
- Do school visits (I know this is difficult)
- Ask and drop off flyers at local shops that are heavily trafficked by customers
- Do a postcard mail campaign just specifically inviting residents to participate
- If you have a local news station or paper, ask if they can advertise or take out an ad
- Do a press release and email everyone in your area (Chamber, DDA if you have one, Municipality, Non-profit orgs, Schools, Community Center, Parks and Recreation, Partners businesses in the Chamber, any local historical groups or genealogy societies, Rotary if your service area has one, any big clubs, any place that families frequent regularly, Movie Theaters (good time to ask for donations or sponsorship), Parks, etc...
- Ask your consortium to partner in getting the word out?
- Do geo-targeting ads on mobile apps or boost the event on your Facebook page but increase the audience generalization
- Ask your library board of trustees to pass the info along in person to their groups
- Invite your Friends groups to share the info
- Plan and manage a campaign to post street signs (with permission) or door knockers and have volunteers hit the pavement to hang them on doors
It depends on what you are feasibly able to do, what you're comfortable executing, and what resources you can allocate to it.
I sincerely hope this helps!