Fundraising gala auctioneer Sherry Truhlar

industry information

[VIDEO] Where to start your opening bids in the live auction

Every year I'll be asked by a few auction chairs, "Sherry, let's review the opening bids on these live auction items.  Where shall we start them?" In this video and the post that follows it, I've addressed why you shouldn't care about opening bids. Here's a conversation I'll have with some clients each year: "Sherry, this item is worth $2500. Where are you going to start the bidding?" "Start?" I'll counter, "It doesn’t matter where I start the bidding. It matters where I finish ... Read On >

Setting Seth Godin straight on the subject of charity auctions

I stumbled across a May 2008 post from Seth Godin called Marketing the Charity Auction. (It's short. You might want to read it first.) In the article, Godin writes that an auction fundraiser "never leads to a wildly successful auction, because the story that's told is too small." He suggests that the nature of an auction is the lure of a deal. Charities play upon this, selling the public on bargains instead of selling philanthropy. In turn, the guests become shoppers looking for a way to snag ... Read On >

THE SMURFS Movie versus THE SMERF Market

As a child of the 1980′s, I know the Smurfs.  I didn’t watch the cartoon, but the merchandising was so strong that you were bound to run into a Smurf-something.   And this Friday, Papa, Brainy, Smurfette, and the rest of the gang return when The Smurfs movie is released. As an educational post on the meetings industry and its tie-in to your auction fundraiser, today’s post teaches about SMERF:  the SMERF market. In the meetings industry, SMERF stands for Social, Military, Educational, ... Read On >

Catchy video on the size of the nonprofit sector

Although this catchy video isn’t specific to charity auctions, it is specific to the nonprofit sector. As gala auctions are part of that industry, I wanted to include it here. I think that anyone working in the nonprofit industry will be fascinated with this information. As I watched the video with an eye-towards-auctions, here are some of the facts that grabbed my attention: 83% of donations are made by individuals.  No doubt some of those individuals were auction guests who bought a ... Read On >