It doesn’t matter if the tuition is $3500 or $26,000, I hear the same points.

• “We want to be inclusive.”
• “We need to keep the gala affordable.”
• “We don’t want the auction to become a snooty event.”
• “We have all levels of parents who pay tuition at this school.”

I’ve observed enormous debates rage over a suggested hike in ticket price.  Even a suggested $5 increase will launch the opinions.

So consider this story where they increased the ticket price by ~750%.

The Catholic Schools Foundation in Boston hosted their 20th anniversary last spring.  Traditionally it was a free dinner celebration billed as a “stewardship” gala.  For their 20th anniversary last year, they decided to charge a ticket price.  They opted for $750 per person and made $2.6 million.

Wow!  Let’s re-read that.

The dinner was previously FREE and billed as a “friend-raiser.”  They changed that and charged $750.  They made $2.6 million in ticket and sponsorship sales to help kids in inner city Catholic schools.

Why did they change?  Peer pressure. (And we’ll assume money.)

The quote from the article is, “All of the other non-profits in the area have this format, where they have an annual fund-raiser.”

Here are my two take-aways:

1.  Re-evaluate your ticket price.

Look at what you’re offering compared to what’s in your neighborhood.  What does a meal cost in your town?  And beyond the food, what is the value of the “experience” you’re providing?

2.  Expand your scope of sponsorship (even if you’re a school) to companies you might not have originally thought of approaching

Schools often seem to feel “limited” in their ability to secure sponsorships.  “Only the parents care,” is a prevailing thought. Another is, “Only the parents who have a business will be a sponsor.”

Not necessarily.

This group went to a high-powered person (Patriots owner Bob Kraft) to chair the event, and honored another mogul (Fidelity’s Peter Lynch).  Those people reached out to their peers to secure sponsorships.  Maybe I’m wrong  — I haven’t researched it — but I’d bet that not every CEO of every donating company is Catholic.

(And if they were … dang!  They did their homework.)

In conclusion, let’s work on nixing those self-limiting beliefs about whether your gala is worth the price and who will or won’t donate to your school auction.

© 2011 Red Apple Auctions Co.  All Rights Reserved.

P.S. Want more good stuff?  I’m giving away the 2010 Auction Item Guide.

1. Free conference calls

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Your Auction Committee needs to touch base.  Regularly!  So use this free service to chat it up.   It has successfully managed my teleclasses when I have hundreds of people on the line, so I know it will work for your 5, 10, or 15 person committee.

One of the great capabilities is the control the moderator has.  When everyone starts speaking at the same time (which is easy to do on a conference call), you, as moderator, have the capability to mute everyone, using either your computer or your phone.  As each committee chair needs to give her status report, simply unmute her line, let her speak, and then allow questions one-by-one.

2. Free phone number

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If you’re managing multiple vendors (caterer, venue, auctioneer, event manager), this service is great for ensuring you don’t play phone tag.  When someone dials your number, it rings ALL your phones (cell, work, home).

If that makes you feel a little too accessible, program the number to ring to a particular phone.  Perhaps a call from your procurement chair rings all three phones, but a call from the production company only rings your work and cell.

Or take it one step further.  Have messages go straight to voicemail on your computer, where they will then be transcribed for you.

3. Free direct-to-voicemail connection

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Assume you need to leave the chatty Decorations Chair an an important message.  But you have no time to waste talking with her about her weekend plans with the family.

You can avoid talking with her — but still share the information she needs — by using this voice mail service.  After you listen to a short advertisement, the system will directly connect you to your Chair’s mobile voicemail.  She thinks she missed your call, but you know better.

With these three tools, staying in touch with your auction team has never been so convenient.

(c) 2010 Red Apple Auctions LLC

P.S.  Was this useful information?

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Heather Mansfield of DIOSA Communications recently conducted eleven surveys using the Twitter application TwtPoll and she posted the results online, calling it “11 TwtPoll Results Nonprofits Can Use to Plan 2010 Communications Strategies.”

One of the questions — well really, one of the responses – caught my eye.  For ease of reading, I’ve posted the entire question and the responses below:

4) ATTN Donors: Do you prefer to give $$$ to your favorite organizations via: [http://twtpoll.com/f3em80]:

71% The organization’s website
13% Check/snail mail
11% An online giving portfolio service (like Change.org)
5% A social networking site (like Facebook)

What grabbed me was that 71% — not just a majority, but a whopping majority — said they prefer to give through the Website online.

Now of course, this is just a quick survey on Twitter.  I don’t know how many respondents there were.  And because it was a Twitter-based survey, I can – with reasonably accuracy, I believe — assume that the people who responded are comfortable using the Internet in general and online tools more specifically.  (And this demographic may not be the same demographic as those people giving at charity auctions.)

But upon seeing that 71% number, it did get me to thinking about its application to my niche of fundraising auctions.  I’m wondering whether guests to a benefit auction would actually prefer registering for the event online at the organization’s website instead of mailing in their invitation and check.

Generally I recommend that clients always have an online invitation available to complement their printed materials.  The e-version is particularly useful for corporate clients.

But to date, I’ve still advocated that groups need a printed invitation.  It is my opinion that the formal printed invitation has not yet been made obsolete by the “evite.”  Many guests still expect to receive their printed, attractive invitation in the mail, especially if the event demands a more expensive ticket price.  (Even I prefer the printed version, and I’m a bit of a techy.)

But this quick poll on Twitter is an interesting data point.  Whether it’s the canary in the coal mine foreshadowing a certain death of traditional mail fundraising — or printed invitations — is yet to be seen.  But certainly as tech-savvy (or simply tech-comfortable) donors age, the electronic version of the charity auction invitation will be used more often, thereby saving planners of charity auctions the costs of printing and mailing invitations.  Those tend to be two of the traditionally more expensive areas of an auction budget, so reducing those costs is a good combination, indeed.

Usually the question goes like this, “Sherry, how many live auction items do you recommend we sell in our charity auction?”

We contemplate that question in the same way we think about prunes: “Will three get the job done?  Is eight too many?”

Here’s what I’ve learned: If the gala’s timeline has already been determined, my recommendation doesn’t matter.

A specific amount of time … 20 minutes … 45 minutes … 70 minutes … has been allotted. Now I need to work with the client to choose the items because we must match a timeframe.

So now I respond to that question with, “How much time have you set aside for the live auction?” If they haven’t yet set the timeline, we’ve got flexibility. We look at other factors (like those below).

I know how long it takes on average to sell different items. Front-row seats at a high-school graduation will take a different length of time than a private concert with Grammy award-winner Emmanuel Ax. By knowing what they have to sell and how much time they’ve allotted, I can tell whether we need to cut the number of auction items — or find more time in the program.

I’ve sold anywhere from two items to 40 items. But what’s the perfect number for your charity auction?

There is no exact number which works for everyone, but here are five points to keep in mind.

1. Are you using a professional charity auctioneer?

A professional charity auctioneer will be able to sell more items in any given timeframe than someone who is not a professional.

We’re in front of people asking for money all the time. We can read faces, and know when to push.

Second, the entire reason “the chant” (the fast talk) was developed was to sell items quickly. Although your charity auctioneer will not chant as quickly at your gala as would be heard at, say, a livestock sale, it does speed the sale along.

A good charity auctioneer will want to say a few brief remarks on stage. She’ll introduce her team; he’ll thank the committee. Trust me, you want this, even though it might take 2 or 3 minutes. This might be the first time the audience gets to experience your auctioneer’s personality. Later, when the bidding is underway, people will give more money to someone they like over someone who only asks them for money.

Isn’t the same true for you? If a development officer cold calls someone to ask for $10,000, what are the odds she’ll get the donation? Isn’t it nicer to have a warm lead? The same is true for an auctioneer, and opening remarks help.

When I was less experienced, I let a client dictate my performance on stage. Because she had scheduled the event too tightly, she didn’t want me to say anything – not even my name. “Just go on stage and say, “The first item is X” and sell it,” she said.

Ugh! That auction was such a disaster.  I eliminated all of my opening remarks, had no audience rapport, and (because there were so few items to sell) had a hard time building rapport through the sale itself. NEVER again.

In short, your charity auctioneer’s experience and chant will pay dividends when determining how many items you can sell and secure top dollar for your items!

2. Do you have good / exciting auction items?

If you’re selling exciting items with a wide-appeal, you can sell more items in the live auction.

If you are selling run-of-the-mill items … ordinary baskets, most gift certificates, generic items … you will lose your audience unless you can structure the event to keep them in their seats. (This type of challenge gets into a charity auction’s “bells & whistles“.)

3. Is the crowd standing or sitting?

This is a pretty simple concept. Seated guests will be more comfortable than standing guests, and you can sell more items in the live auction. You can even take this a step further and analyze the comfort of the chairs.

I used to do some marketing work for a church. When planning workshops, we would take into consideration the uncomfortable chairs the church had. An all-day workshop was a harder sell because those familiar with the chairs wouldn’t pay for a full-day of learning if they had to sit in those chairs.

4. What else will the crowd enjoy (or endure)?

In addition to the live auction, will your guests be seated through 30 minutes of presentations? Or a 45-minute choral concert?

Maybe you’ve heard this phrase: The mind can stand only what the butt can endure. At some point, we humans need to stand up and walk.

In my work, I’ll talk with clients about their schedule. We might move the live auction to a different part of the program once I know the other elements of the gala. I might recommend that the live auction might be the first activity of the program … the last … or somewhere in the middle.

5. What’s your financial goal for the live auction?

Whatever I sell in the live auction will bring in more money than if that same item is sold in the silent auction. It’s a fact.

So if there is a specific financial goal to hit in the live auction — and we don’t have the right items or enough items to hit that goal — we need to add auction items. Your “perfect” number may be adjusted to reach your financial goal.

Whether you sell five auction items or forty items, it might be right for your group. Your charity auctioneer will have the perfect number for you.

Our Auction Item Guide is the most requested item on our site. It lists the top100 items selling over value.  Use it at your next charity auction meeting.

© 2009 Red Apple Auctions Co.  All Rights Reserved.

But the good news is that you can receive advance notice of the next FREE teleclass by signing up with your email and name on the right.

When you sign-up, you’ll get a free bonus (the Item Guide) to get you started with procurement. Then every other week , I’ll send you information about classes, free auction tips, and other juicy information, all designed to improve the financial success of your auction.

(Oh, P.S. — I email you the item guide immediately, so check your email as soon as you sign-up.)

_______________________________________

A number of you inspired me to dig deep into how and why some auction chairs have super-successful auctions and others don’t.  After three months of research, I’ve got the goods.

In fact, depending on how long you’ve been getting my information, you might have participated in step one of this research (a
survey).

After hearing from you, talking with clients, and meeting with Auction Chairs, I’ve noticed trends.

When these women step in to work the auction … especially when it’s their first time … they have some misconceptions that often don’t get corrected until well into the planning cycle, if ever.

They’re smart women, but by the time they realize what needs to change, “the auction train has left the station.”

It’s too late.

Misconceptions about planning.
Misconceptions about items.
Misconceptions about volunteers.
Misconceptions about the silent auction.

I’m calling these misconceptions “myths.”

The auction rolls forward.
Time runs out.
Tensions run high.

The money is collected (it could have been better) but the truth is, the planning process was frustrating, overwhelming, stressful, and NO ONE WANTS TO WORK ON THE AUCTION AGAIN!

In the end, the Auction Chair knows something wasn’t right.
They’ve lived the event.
They figured some pieces out.

But had they only known THEN what they know NOW.

On Wednesday, December 2, you’re going to hear about these myths, so you can learn from experience….

Inaccurate thinking which led to problems like overestimating auction revenue, underestimating resources needed, and generally failing to prepare as well for the silent auction or live auction.

And of course, I’m going to counter this information with some new thinking and ideas.

I’ll see you there!

Love and success,
Sherry Truhlar, CMP, BAS
Red Apple Auctions LLC

P.S. I’ll also be sharing something on the call that those of you with 2010 auctions will NOT want to miss.

I heard of an older couple who opted to forego the traditional gifts at their wedding.  If any guest wanted to give a gift, the couple suggested bringing a bottle of wine so they could “stock the cellar.” (I like this idea! I’ve got enough “stuff” for my house, but the cellar can always be filled.)

Similarly, some bridal showers (co-ed) are “stock the bar” parties.  The idea is for guests to bring the happy, soon-to-be-hitched couple all the wine, spirits and related accouterments they need to stock the bar for future entertaining of friends and family.

With a benefit auction, the usual “stock the bar” party is a pre-party held a month or so before the gala.

A few of our clients host a party, which consists of heavy hors d’oeuvres and a wine tasting.  The entry fee for that event is a bottle of wine of, say, $30 or more.  The bottles of wine are then sold at the benefit auction, sometimes in one lot and other times via different auction games involving wine.

If your crowd is more of a spirits crowd than a wine crowd, you might enjoy an adaptation of this activity.   Alter the wine donations to a “Stock the Bar” party.

One way to conduct the party is to ask guests to bring whatever they want … wine, spirits, glasses, wine openers, olives, etc.  It’s their choice.  If you end up with 5 bottles of Bailey’s Irish Cream, so be it.

To ensure a wider selection, you might consider segmenting the guests in some way.  You might suggest “bring something to stock the bar that begins with the initial of your last name.”  So in my case — with the last name of Truhlar — I might bring tequila, Tennessee whiskey, Tanqueray gin, or triple sec … and some toothpicks thrown in for good measure.

By the time everyone arrives with their items, you will have a completely stocked bar, ready to sell at your benefit auction.

Ready for 100 other great auction item ideas?  Get your FREE Guide here.

© 2009 Red Apple Auctions Co.  All Rights Reserved.