silent auction

Sep 12

Growing a public school auction

Here's an example of a public school auction that has made small changes every year to improve.Headwaters Foundation raises money for the rural Rappahannock County, VA public school system, which services fewer than 1000 students. At one time, it was one of the poorest counties in Virginia. It might still be.The county is located about 90 miles west of Washington, D.C. To arrive at the venue, you'll wind around the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains, passing a combination of roadside ... Read On >

Jun 20

New idea for your silent auction or raffle: Surprise Box

I want to share a new idea for silent auctions or raffles.Let's kick it off with a related story.============================Many years ago, one of my clients was annoyed.She oversaw the fundraising for the local chapter of a national nonprofit. The national management team had recommended she and other fundraisers working in major cities change the model of their silent auction.This new silent auction model was based on the success another major metropolitan area had ... Read On >

Jan 17

No budget? This silent auction activity is free and interactive

One of my last auctions of 2016 was in Honolulu, HI. The fundraiser coincided with two large public events -- the 75th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing, and the Honolulu Marathon, which is the 4th largest marathon in the United States.The marathon was scheduled to be run the day after I left, but a free trade show was taking place at the Hawaii Convention Center down the street from my hotel.I put on my sneakers and drove over there. (lol)One of the displays at the trade ... Read On >

Mar 15

[Video] Model this sound system for a silent auction

One of the most difficult venues to hold an auction is in a gym. Though the venue often offers adequate space, it is a difficult place to control audio. By design, gyms are noisy venues. No one wants to sit through a quiet basketball game, so gyms are designed to deflect the slightest utterance. The shape of the building and the hard surfaces reverberate the sound, bouncing it around the room to make the noise louder and less clear. This presents a problem for fundraising auctions. We ... Read On >

Nov 10

[VIDEO] Silent auction layout when using mobile bidding

I'm in the thick of the fall auction season. Last week I was working all across the country, so expect to see more videos down the road -- as I have time to organize them. :) In this first clip, you'll see an auction layout of an event I worked two weeks ago here in Washington, D.C. The organization, Chris4Life Colon Cancer Foundation, is only five years old. Yet the group has already raised a whopping $7 million dollars to fight colon cancer. (Impressive!) They have three core ... Read On >