A friend from Kansas and her husband flew out to visit me last month.And this is where the story begins.My house is undergoing a renovation so they stayed in a nearby hotel.When I popped into the Hilton Garden Inn the first morning of their visit, I saw this in the lobby.A silent auction!I'd seen this type of set-up at a hotel in Ohio last year, but didn't have time to investigate.I walked over to see how it worked. First, I glanced at what they were ... Read On >
Benefit Auctions Blog
Transforming a mundane auction checkout receipt into a mission-driven missive
There was a problem at one of my spring fundraising auctions.The event was new, designed to take the place of a more traditional fundraising dinner. For many years the dinner reliably drew 400- 500 guests. The hope was that this new event would attract a similarly sized crowd.It didn't.At first the planner dropped the guest count estimate to 300. Five days prior to the auction, the count wasn't yet 100.It didn't climb much higher than that.(Not all events are stellar out ... Read On >
Raffle Cheat Sheet: A tool that helps volunteers sell more raffle tickets
Last night I worked an event that had about 1,000 guests in attendance. It was a tasting-style event ... the kind that have 50 or 60 restaurant chefs in attendance, each handing out samples of their food and cocktails.As they always do, the nonprofit did an excellent job of recruiting, organizing, and training its volunteers.For instance:All the volunteers were taken on a tour of the hotel so they knew where to direct guests. They could point out the registration and checkout ... Read On >
The 10 Latest Fundraising Auction Trends
Last week I presented at Gail Perry's (of Fired Up Fundraising) events course.My topic was "Latest Fundraising Auction Success Trends: What in-the-know Auction Planners are Buzzing About Now."I commented on 10 trends in the fundraising auction industry, providing stories, context, and additional resources so participants could do a deeper dive on subjects of interest to them.Though I'm not going to provide commentary and resources in this blog post (you had to be in the course to get ... Read On >
An auction organizational chart for your fundraiser
If you run a web search on "why volunteers quit," you'll find a string of articles, research, and posts listing common reasons volunteers leave.One of the top complaints is a lack of organization from the person in charge of the volunteers.(For a fundraising auction, we'd typically call this person the Auction Chair or Gala Chair.)Years ago I recall a committee member complaining to me about the Auction Chair. "She doesn't have her sh*t together," the woman confided. Because the ... Read On >