Five places to cut costs in your auction fundraiser. (Spend money wisely to make money.)
One group reduced expenses by opting to make their own centerpieces. Can we say gorgeous!
How many times have we heard that adage that you must spend money to make money?
SuccessfulMeetings.com posted an article last week, “Business Travel Study: Companies That Spend More, Make More.” The study was funded by the National Business Travel Association and found that for every $1 spent on business travel, over $15 could be earned.
The report examined ten years of data, and cautioned that under-spending on travel during a recession could cause companies to lose out on profit. “Find some other area with less impressive ROI to eliminate,” the metrics seem to suggest.
Groups planning an auction fundraiser should consider this line of thinking.
Cutting some areas of your auction budget will have a more harmful effect than cutting others.
If you are conducting a charity auction and don’t care how much money it makes, how it’s represented, or how the benefit auction is conducted, you might as well eliminate paying for a professional auctioneer. (And if this is the case, why bother having an auction fundraiser at all?)
But if there is some risk riding on your auction … either financially, or in the way you present it, or because of who is attending that night … I wouldn’t eliminate the professional benefit auctioneer. That’s the one person who has experience in engaging a crowd and getting them to spend money.
In some cases — and it still surprises me, but it’s true – I seem to be the only person at the event who is asking for money. Neither the Executive Director nor the Board President feel comfortable reminding attendees that they there to donate money. By default, I become the group’s fiscal champion.
The return-on-investment is significant with a professional benefit auctioneer (conservatively, 25% higher than what an amateur would bring in) and is not just measured in dollars, but how the event is perceived. A professionally-run event means the group has its act together. Guests can freely donate, knowing their money is well-spent. A poorly-run event is a sign to guests that this ill-managed organization cannot be trusted with a big donation.
If a budget reduction is in order, reduce expenses in areas that have hard-to-prove ROI.
In their auction planning, my clients have cut expenses in the following areas over the last two years:
- Create your own floral arrangements versus using a florist
- Eliminate the auction catalog. (These groups offered it online.)
- Redesign the benefit auction catalog to get more for less.
- Use a DJ instead of a band.
- One group eliminated the entertainment entirely, mentioning (after this organization and I worked together for a year) that the benefit auctioneer was entertaining enough without the added cost of entertainment.
(c) 2009 Red Apple Auctions LLC
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