Unfortunately, donations aren't so easy to come by if you're making them
for profit. I found out the same thing when I helped to build some cat
trees as a benefit for a rescue group. Carpet places, lumberyards, and so
on, are happy to give you their scraps if you're building something to
raise money for a good cause, but they probably sell them to the general
public.

We were building ours to be sold, not raffled. But maybe we should have
chosen the latter. I seem to remember that the group had a really hard
time getting anyone to buy them. But that might also have been because
most of us doing the building were not professionals, and in fact, we
were quite inexperienced. We had one or two real carpenters show up a
couple of times to give direction and consultation, but basically we did
most of the work. It kind of showed. :)

These cat trees were made from actual boughs that we got from tree-trimmers.
We mounted them onto a square base on the floor, tacked carpet to pieces
of wood and placed those on the branches as platforms, wrapped sisal around
the "trunk", and so on. So the cat trees were a bit... unstable. Also, they
were oddly shaped, so although they looked great, they would have been hard
to fit into someone's living room, unless that person had a huge living room.

I think a raffle is better because you can easily find people to spend
a couple of dollars. But nobody wanted to sink $250 into an impractical
cat tree built by amateurs. If I ever build one again, there will be NO
tree boughs! 90-degree angles only. :)

Joyce