I'm always surprised by the number of fundraising auction committees who go to great lengths setting up displays for silent auction items, but then fail to see the importance of setting up a live auction display. I encourage teams to apply their effort towards auction activities that garner the highest returns. Most times, your live auction items will far outsell any silent auction items, so set-up the displays accordingly. Give extra attention to how your live auction items will be ... Read On >
marketing
Getting that extra bid — or 2, 3, 4 — for an auctioned trip. (Hint: Make it approachable.)
Trips and vacations are often strong sellers in a fundraising auction. To push higher sales and get even more guests to bid, I try to make a vacation sound approachable to anyone sitting in the room. Two ways I do this are: 1) sharing how to get to the destination, and 2) providing other tidbits about the area, hoping to intrigue a guest to bid. Committees can also share this type of information, plus they can add maps to slideshows and online auction sites to help guests place a ... Read On >
Buyer’s Choice: A tool used to push sales in a charity live auction
One marketing and sales strategy is known as Buyer's Choice. It can be a good tool to use in fundraising auctions. Typically this concept is something a Gala Chair should have heard of, but need not fully understand. The reason being, it's up to the auctioneer to recognize when 2 or more items should be sold in this manner. It’s not up to the volunteer Gala Chair (or Development Director); it's the responsibility of the auctioneer to know and suggest this. Here's a few bullet points to ... Read On >
What to call your special appeal (Fund a Need vs. Raise the paddle, etc.)
One way to confuse volunteers (and your guests) is to use different names for the same activities. You call it a bucket raffle. They call it a tricky tray. You call it a Last Man Standing. They call it Popcorn. You call it a silent auction. They call it an online auction. Tip: Now that many silent auctions are using mobile bidding (that is, they are now "online,"), I'm seeing a shift to calling them 'online silent auctions.' One auction activity with dozens of names is the ... Read On >
Do’s and Don’ts of live auction slideshows
Oftentimes the slideshow for the live auction is handed off to a volunteer to create at the last minute. Other times, a staff member is asked to pull one together. Send this video to them. You'll see examples of what you should NOT model, as well as an example of one you could for your fundraiser. https://youtu.be/pVgE8NDhK3Y ... Read On >