Last year, a 2010 Harley-Davidson Sportster motorcycle was stolen. The bike was painted pink and signed by a number of country music stars, such as Dolly Parton, Tim McGraw, and Taylor Swift.

Here’s the kicker: It had been donated to be sold in a benefit auction to benefit the Lexington affiliate of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

The bike had been stored inside a trailer secured by chains in the organization’s parking lot. When employees returned to the office after the weekend, they noticed it was gone.

Sad.

The bike sounds irreplaceable, but I hope at least they had some insurance.

From my event management days, here are some types of event-specific insurance you can consider as you plan your benefit auction.

Property Damage Insurance

Covers the damage or loss of the property of the policy owner. For instance, if you have your auction set-up the night before and a thief slips in during the night and steals a registration laptop and some items, the typical Property Damage Insurance policy would cover those items.

Commercial General Liability (CGL) or Comprehensive General Liability

This is a basic business policy and covers major risks, including property damage and injury to people. Usually higher-risk activities (serving alcohol comes to mind) require an additional policy or rider.

Fire Legal Liability

I once worked at a benefit auction where a centerpiece started to burn. Thankfully, it was only starting to smoke when it was extinguished by the startled guests! A fire legal liability insurance policy is for such instances. Assume your auction volunteers accidentally bump a table and cause a can of sterno to ignite nearby curtains and burn down the venue. This is the policy to have on hand.

Event Cancellation

If you are holding a benefit auction outdoors and fear bad weather might cause the cancellation of the event, this policy protects against unforeseen circumstances such as that. It may also cover labor disputes or damage to the event facility or venue. (Imagine if you’d scheduled to hold your benefit auction in the Opryland Hotel in Nashville in late May 2010. The flood waters of May 3 would have prohibited you from holding the gala.)

About the Author
Benefit auctioneer Sherry Truhlar’s entertaining stories and advice is often picked up by publications (e.g. Town & Country, The Washington Post Magazine, AUCTIONEER, The Eleusis, The Virginia Auctioneer) and television (e.g. E! Style, TLC) where she inspires and teaches volunteers how to hit new fundraising records in their auction galas. Enjoy her FREE Auction Item Guide(listing the 100 best-selling items to sell in your benefit auction) at http://www.RedAppleAuctions.com

When it comes to incorporating a simple auction idea into your fundraising gala, don’t forget about one of the easiest ways to get feedback from your charity auction: surveying your auction guests. I was reminded of this recently while listening to the radio.

On a recent morning show, the DJ was asking his co-hosts and callers about their preferred superhero power. “If you could have one superhuman power,” he’d ask, “What would it be?”

Flying and invisibility were popular, but so was the ability to read minds.

The ability to read minds would be handy at a benefit auction. You could finally learn what guests really thought about your creation. Did they notice the theme? Did they understand where the money was going? Did they mind the cash bar? From a planner’s perspective, we want to know what the guests preferred. Knowing our guests preferences helps us plan a better event.

Some guests will comment about the gala when they check-out. Others will complain to an administrator. Some folks will make an effort to find and compliment the Auction Chair before they leave. But all three of these methods are haphazard ways to track data.

Surveys are an excellent yet underutilized charity auction tool. If you’ve collected email addresses as guests registered, it’s easy to send out an electronic survey to capture quick data about their take on the gala.

Here are some of the questions you might ask:
• Did you attend the gala as a sponsor, as a guest, or as an individual ticket holder?
• What city / suburb is most convenient for you to attend a fundraiser?
• How many fundraisers do you attend in a year?
• What night of the week are you most likely to attend a fundraiser?
• Where did the proceeds of the gala go?

You can also ask guests to rate elements of the night. For instance, on a 5-point scale, you might ask them to rate the registration, check-out, food, dress code, location, facility, benefit auctioneer, auction items, or entertainment.

For high participation in your survey, keep it short. And send your survey promptly, preferably within three to four days of the auction. That way, the gala is still easy for them to remember.

To create your survey, consider SurveyMonkey. It’s a popular service because the format is straightforward and the tool is free, as long as you work within the company’s designated parameters.

If you’ve got an event coming up, I advocate that you design and write your survey now, prior to the auction. Then the survey link will be ready to email the day after the event.

Outside of reading your guests’ minds, a survey is your best method for finding out what your guests most enjoyed about your benefit auction.

About the Author
Benefit auctioneer Sherry Truhlar’s entertaining stories and advice is often picked up by publications (e.g. Town & Country, The Washington Post Magazine, AUCTIONEER, The Eleusis, The Virginia Auctioneer) and television (e.g. E! Style, TLC) where she inspires and teaches volunteers how to hit new fundraising records in their auction galas. Enjoy her FREE Auction Item Guide(listing the 100 best-selling items to sell in your benefit auction) at http://www.RedAppleAuctions.com .

In this economy, one strategy to help you maintain a strong overall sale value of a party is by splitting up the value among many bidders. Here’s how it works.

Remember the adage, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts?” For example, a house is more valuable than the individual pieces of sheetrock, bricks, and carpeting so the whole (the house) is greater than the sum of each individual item (the construction materials). On the flipside, sometimes the parts are greater than the whole. For instance, when a corporation sells off a division of its company, perhaps that segment of business has been identified as holding more valuable to someone else than it does to the business itself.

At your annual auction, consider the potential of the latter. You may find that you are able to raise more money selling something in “parts” or “pieces” than you can if you offer the whole. For example, a common auction item is a themed party donated by a family. One of my clients has a well-known family donate a fun house party each year. Recently the theme swirled around the glamour of an Emmy party. The entire night was laid out to take advantage of the theme with a long red carpet rolled out to meet guests at the driveway, a pseudo paparazzi with press and screaming fans greeting guests as they emerged from their vehicles, and a Hollywood worthy menu complete with champagne toasts.

There were two options for selling tickets to this party. One option was to allow sell it to one person who could then invite 50 people (that is, selling it by the sum). The second option was to sell 25 couples a pair of tickets (i.e., selling it by the parts). The hosts indicated the donation value was $2000, or $40 a person for the night’s entertainment.

To earn at least the value of the party, the auction needed one bidder to pay $2000 or 25 couples to pay $80. An $80 investment per couple for this particular group seemed modest. The committee thought that a couple would easily pay $100 or $125 for that experience, but it was unlikely that any one person would pay $2000 for the entire party. That committee knew their audience. Twenty-five couples paid $100 per couple netting $2500 for the Emmy party.

For maximum revenue, the committee opted to break the party apart – selling 25 pairs of tickets to the party instead of selling one party – in order to sell it.

In your part of the world, a $10 or $20 ticket price might be more reasonable, so don’t focus on the specific pricing from my client. Ticket prices for this type of experience will vary widely depending on your location. Yet the process of “selling the parts instead of the whole” works in every location.

As your auction committee brings in donations and packages items, see where you can apply the strategy to sell parts versus the whole. You’ll find opportunities to generate more revenue while tapping more supporters to your cause!

About the Author: Sherry works with volunteer auction chairs who want to plan their most successful charity auction yet. In addition to offering the auctioneer “fast talk,” she works with clients nationally to teach them the tricks of auction procurement, audience development and marketing. She regularly provides advice and tips for charity auctions on her blog at RedAppleAuctions.com/blog.

Social media applications like blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook can be useful tools to help you publicize, gain attendees and supporters for fundraisers such as benefit auctions. Not only are these tools free to use, but they enable you to relay short, constant reminders about your  fundraiser.

Creating “something to write” can be overwhelming for some people, so here are 12 auction-related ideas on what you (or your public relations volunteer) can post on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, or other social networking sites to promote your benefit auction.

1. Announce donations: When an auction donation arrives, announce the item, thank the donor, and provide a link back to the donor’s website. Be sure to include a photo, if possible.

2. Ask for a donation to round out a package: “We need a florist to donate a bouquet to complete our Mother’s Day package at our Fabulous Fundraising Auction for Children.”

3. Testimonials: Auction fundraisers should be mission-focused. Keep your supporters updated with successes. For instance, “Peggy is off the streets, thanks to our non-profit,” or “Jeremy credits St. Stephens’s art teacher in giving him the confidence to pursue art in college.”

4. Event Preparations: Share a photo of the decor committee drawing backdrops for the auction, or the Gala Chairs meeting to send out invitations. This shows that others are involved in auction planning and preparing to attend the event.

5. Special announcements: Share news. “In just three weeks, we’ve surpassed 50 raffle ticket sales.”  Or, “Only 200 seats left before our school auction sells-out!”

6. Apply gentle pressure to past auction donors: A post such as, “We sold a lovely 2-night stay at the Fairmont last year, and are hoping they’ll donate again,” might work. Include a link to the hotel, and then contact the hotel so they see how you are treating them kindly – even before they donate.

7. Answer questions: Make the questions up, if you need to. “A new family to our school asked what was appropriate to wear to the benefit auction. Here’s our answer, and we included three photos of past guests.”

8. Create a list: You can create a list on almost anything. “Top 5 Reasons to Attend our Auction Fundraiser.”  “Three Ways You Can Volunteer That Will Take Less Than 2 Hours per Week.”

9. Seek specific volunteers: “Any math lovers out there? We need an auction clerk, and your primary job is recording numbers during the live auction. Any takers?”

10. Link to relevant websites: “In 55 days, our charity auction will be raising money for cancer research.  Here’s a link to fascinating article written by XYZ about the need for a cure.”

11.  Support your supporters: When you notice that one of your supporters (e.g. a school parent, a Board member, an auction donor) is mentioned in the paper, link to it and promote it. “Parent Joe Smith just got promoted and here’s the link. Way to go, Joe! We look forward to congratulating you in person at the gala next Saturday.”

12.  Call to action: Get your audience to act (or think about acting).  Something like, “Early-bird pricing on gala tickets ends tomorrow,” or “Get your gala dress at Lord & Taylor this weekend. The store has special occasion dresses on sale.”
These auction tips will get you started.  You’ll have fresh content in no time!

About the author: Sherry Truhlar of Red Apple Auctions LLC works with auction chairs and committees who want to plan their most successful charity auction yet.  In addition to offering the auctioneer “fast talk,” she works with clients nationally to teach them the tricks of auction procurement, audience development and marketing.  Many of the area’s most prestigious events are her returning clients, including the Washington Performing Arts Society, Larry King Cardiac Foundation, Camillus House, and the Washington Nationals Baseball Foundation.

Sherry regularly provides advice and tips for charity auctions on her blog at www.RedAppleAuctions.com/blog.  (c) 2010 Red Apple Auctions LLC. Reprinted with Permission.

Silent Auctions are great add-ons to many types of special events. You can offer a variety of auction items and your attendees can view and bid on items anytime during the event. Silent auctions are quite flexible since you can offer just a dozen high quality items up to hundreds.

Before planning your silent auction though, be sure that you have covered all five of these must-haves:

1. A Goal

There are many books related to goal setting and why it’s important for personal and professional success. Goal setting is just as important when planning a fundraiser. This includes setting goals for the number of attendees, your overall dollars raised and of course goals just for the silent auction.

Decide how many auction items that you want to put on display for bidding. Often it is best to put items into prize bundles or gift baskets, so while you may have 40 donations, those might be bundled into 25 auction items. It just depends on how many and what type of items have been received.

2. Bidders

You must have people attend the event in order to get bidders for your auction. It is best to have a whole committee or “go-to” person in charge of publicity and getting RSVPs for the event. Then the silent auction committee can focus on obtaining items and preparing for the auction.

3. Attractive Auction Items

Auction items get bids when they appeal to the interest of the attendees and the bid matches their pocketbook.

With the exception of events that are theme-based such as art auctions, the silent auction should have a wide variety of items. When there are items that appeal to a broad range of interests from wine gift baskets, to travel, sports tickets, and everything in between, there’s a better chance of attendees finding items to bid on.

You may get some donations of items that have a very limited audience. For example, gift certificates to a tanning salon only appeal to people who go to tanning salons. Consider putting something with limited interest in a bundle of items or asking the donor for an alternate item.

4. Items at Variety of Prices

Consider your audience and how much money they would likely be willing to spend on an auction item. Are they likely to bid $5,000 on a travel package? Or should most of your items be in the $25-$100 value range?

This is something that you’ll have to decide based on your demographics, the type of event, and the experience you’ve had with other fundraisers for your group.

In most cases there should be a variety of types of items that fill a range of values. Then attendees are more likely to find something they are interested in at a price they can afford.

You can also use add-on fundraisers like raffles and grab bags to appeal to all interests and give everyone a chance to take something home.

5. Volunteer Support

While silent auctions are good fundraisers because they are low cost, they do require some leg work. Getting the auction items donated, sorted, and displayed can take quite a bit of time so volunteers are essential. The actual number of volunteers needed depends on how large the auction is going to be.

It is recommended that you have at least two Auction Captains to oversee the main parts of hosting a silent auction – getting items and auction set up/operation. These Captains can be staff persons or volunteers. Then additional volunteers can report to the Captains to help them get everything done.

This article is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the Step by Step Fundraising Guide to Silent Auctions

One of the most frequent questions related to auction fundraisers is how to get auction items donated.  In the audio seminar series Secrets of the Charity Auction Experts Karin Costa gave many great ideas for auction items.

She also described in detail how to get those items donated.  This approach to getting items takes away the fear factor from asking and virtually eliminates the need to call complete strangers!

Here’s a short audio clip (5 minutes) from our interview, with transcript version below:

Sandra Sims: You have told us a little bit about how to come up with those ideas, by surveying your supporters and your board members and then sort of just brainstorming different ideas of experiences that you know your demographics may like. So you mentioned going to board members and having them make calls and look for items but what do you find is the best way to go about sourcing the items and experiences for the auction?

Practically speaking, do you have a list of volunteers who then go and make phone calls or do you do it more indirectly through sending out letters or what do you find is the most effective way to get the items in?

Karin Costa: Where we start is with an organizational meeting. Those people who are most connected within your community and with your organization should be those folks on the auction item acquisition team and I like to get those volunteers together and do just what we did, stimulate the ideas.

If Sandra Sims knows me and I am on the organizational committee, Sandra Sims knows that Karin was connected to the baseball industry. Therefore, if we contacted Karin, Karin could get us back scene work at a major league baseball stadium; she could get us on the field working as the grounds keeper or the bat boy; she could get us team merchandise; she could get somebody to come to our home and build us a ball pen or a batting cage with all the materials, the paraphernalia, the uniforms, the bats and the balls, okay. That is a connection.

So I give the group an idea like that, how they can build all different kinds of packages just by knowing me and my connections. So I tell them build a telephone tree of who you know, what they do for a living, what they do for hobbies and what their interests are and, from that telephone tree, we start building contacts and what skills, interests, hobbies, business services and products can these people offer and we specifically write down who we want to contact, what we want to ask them for and how much dollar donation we want value from them.

Sandra Sims: Oh, that is great. So you are putting it down item by item for each person ahead of time

Karin Costa: Ahead of time.

Sandra Sims: Yes, you know what you are going to ask for.

Karin Costa: Do not send your volunteers on an endless scavenger hunt because they will be worn out and that is where all of the frustration builds, where people say ‘we put all this time and effort into our event and we did not raise enough money or we did not raise any money’. If you start like a business and say: our product line is … because our market is … our target customer is … and these are the suppliers we have who are volunteers, are board members, are staff with all of these community connections, this is what we will offer and we will be different from every other organization who is holding an auction event in town.

Sandra Sims: So the members on your acquisition team, they have their phone tree, they know the people they are going to talk to and what items they are going to ask for. Are there any specific suggestions that you give them or script for them to use whenever they start calling people?

Karin Costa: I suggest that the person most connected to whomever is being solicited for that item or service donation contact the person first. So, if you knew me and you knew what my connections are, you would call me and say: Karin, we are putting together the fund raiser for XYZ organization. It is a benefit to raise money for … I know that you can support us. I am asking for a donation of your backstage connections to the local opera company so that I can learn how an opera singer is trained and actually be able to perform at my son’s birthday party. You ask me specifically because you know me; it is a friendly ask; it is a connected ask.

Sandra Sims: So during your brainstorming meeting one volunteer may come up with an idea of someone to contact but they might not be the right person to make that contact.

Karin Costa: True. Then we find out who it is – remember the movie and the play “Six Degrees of Separation”, who did they know, who did they know, who did they know, down the line. How far down the line do you have to connect in order to get to the ask? And you want the closest person to that connected ask to be the person asking. So you do not know me but you are a friend of a friend and that friend is who should be contacting me as the friendliest ask, the easiest, least fearful ask for a donation.

What a great way to go about getting items donated!  This takes out the need for cold calling all together.  It’s all about your committee working their network of contacts and making friendly asks.

You’ll get the entire one hour interview in both audio download and text transcript as part of Secrets of the Charity Auction Experts.

What would happen if you could take the benefits of instant bidding and excitement of online auctions like eBay and apply them to a live event?

That’s exactly what the wireless keypads from IML do.

The portability of the devices mean that attendees can make bids on auction items from anywhere at the event.  They don’t need to leave their seats to keep bidding.  All of this encourages more bids and can make a difference in funds raised at an event.

The technology can be used at event with an attendance of 100 to over 1000; it’s very flexible.  With this system you can forget the hassle of paper bidsheets too.

I met Ray Hansen earlier this year and got a demo of the devices.  I was instantly intrigued by what kind of impact this could have on fundraising events.  Since then the potential has been proven to me through some of the amazing charity events they’ve worked on.  Here are just a few:

• The Museum for African Art used the technology for the first time at their 25th Anniversary Gala. David Bowen, whose company produces the event every year, said, “Our guests really enjoyed the interactivity that the IML devices created, especially at dinner.  And our check-out has never been so smooth…for our guests or our staff. “
• Public radio station WFUV used the devices to run the auction at their 2nd Annual Spring Gala.  This photo shows one of the beautiful table displays along with the IML wireless devices right on the table, ready to take bids.
• The American Cancer Society in Chicago raised more this year at their Discovery Ball than last year.
• The Robin Hood Foundation used just the pledge management aspect of the technology to raise $72 million (yes, million!) to help the needy in New York City.

Recently I spoke with Ray by phone for an in-depth interview.  The complete audio with text transcript is included in Secrets of the Charity Auction Experts.  Here’s a 6 minute audio clip (with text version below) that gives you a great preview.

Sandra: Especially with your background and having that concern for non profits and the funds raised, what are some of the focus with this technology, some of the uses of it and some of the benefits?

Ray Hansen: The idea is behind the overall technology and I’ll focus it on where are we seeing successes. The idea is that you’re going to get as many people participating in the bidding process as possible. You also have the ability to extend the silent auction for a much longer period of time than you normally would, just on a logistical front. Inside the dinners, presentation you can keep that silent auction running, people can still be bidding on items. They don’t have to get up from their seats; they don’t have to leave the bar; they don’t have to leave their social area; they can still talk to people. The whole time they can be getting updates about their silent auction items and bidding and continuing to bid on them.

We’ve seen a number of areas that have benefited from this. From everyone from museums to private schools, public schools, every type of event that’s out there would benefit from using the system. It’s really a diverse group of people or silent auctions or gala events that would benefit from using our system.

Sandra: Great, so I’m just thinking about if I was at one of these events, basically it’s a hand held device and it looks a little bit bigger than a cell phone and you don’t have one per person do you? It’s maybe one per table, or how does that work?

Ray Hansen: We’re really flexible with that. Generally we say one device for every two people. Everyone who comes in will have their registration list beforehand and we will burn them a bidding card, so at registration they’ll get their bidding card and they can walk up to any device that’s set out on the dinner table; set out at the silent auction area, really anywhere and plug their bidding card into the device and really start bidding away.

Sandra: How do they know what items are up for the auction?

Ray Hansen: There’s a couple of different ways. We still encourage for table top displays of the silent auction items so that if people still want to see and touch the items and get the full descriptions; where our system plugs in similar to a PowerPoint laptop, will plug into any of the audio visual components that are in the room, whether it’s a big screen, plasma screen what have you and then we create these movies essentially that have the silent auction items scrolling through and it gives some really important information.

First it tells you how much money has currently been raised in the silent auction. It also tells you per item what’s the highest bid and who has the highest bid on that silent auction?

Sandra: Okay, so on the screen it will scroll to, say there’s a car, and so it will have the description, it will have the item number and then what the top bid is. Someone will pick up the device and put in their card and then what do they do from there?

Ray Hansen: From there they would enter the lot number and then they would press the enter key and then a brief description of the item would show up on the little LCD screen and would also tell what the highest bid is and now if there’s bidding commenced it will tell you what the next bid has to be based on those bid increments. The person will hit the enter button again and put their bid in and send the bid.

Sandra: Right and is it wireless, automatic.

Ray Hansen: Completely wireless. It’s updated instantly. Both on the device and on the display screens. I will say that on the display screen though, these screens are completely customisable, so if you wanted to display ten lot items at one time, it’s easy for us to do that and then in addition if you want to just highlight one specific lot silent auction item, it’s very easy for us to do that as well.

Sandra: Okay, so when you and I were talking earlier, you described how this automatic feature and the fact the silent auction organisers can get instant feedback, they know exactly how much has been raised. What items have gotten a bid and what items haven’t and so you told me a little bit about how that information can be used to then further more bidding. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Ray Hansen: I will. First of all, our technology it is, it’s technology right. There’s always going to be that need for…that yin and the yang between man versus machine. Our people are there watching the silent auction update live and we always encourage for there to be an open dialogue and open communication between our onsite people and those who are Mc-ing or of course the host of the evening. That way if we see a bidding war break out, we can highlight that to the MC; we can put it up on screen. He can bring attention to it and conversely if things are going bad in the silent auction or the goals aren’t being reached, we have that information right in front of us so that we can communicate that to the MC, so he can get back in front of the donors and start helping to pull some of that money out of their pockets and get it back in the silent auction or the life pledge.

Sandra: So you’re not leaving the funds raised to chance. You know minute by minute how it’s going.

Ray Hansen: Yes, literally second by second updates and there’s none of this at the end of the auction where you’re tallying up the highest bids and the disappointment. At least while you’ve invested so much money in the silent auction getting the people there; sending out all the invitations, all the effort that you’ve put into this, at least it gives you that actual item right then and there, so at least you have a chance to get an attempt to pull some more money out of people.

The complete 30 minute audio interview and transcript are included in the Secrets of the Charity Auction Experts seminar series.

Have you ever thought about a live auction as being like a circus?  It’s true!  During the auction all eyes are focused on the stage to your ringmaster, the auctioneer.  Any great circus has many other performers to make the event a success.  Your auction also needs “ring people” to help the person on stage perform at his or her best.  (That is, to get the most bids on live auction items and ultimately the most funds raised as possible!)

This concept was one of the biggest take-away lessons from my interview with Dawn Rose-Sohnly. She has been serving as an auctioneer and auction assistant (or “ring person”) for more than 15 years.  Along with her sister Karen, she has helped raise millions of dollars for charitable organizations.

Here’s a short (2 min.) excerpt from our interview:

Sandra Sims: What can a non profit do to actually make the auctioneer’s job easier?

Dawn Rose-Sohnly: I think communication is key. If the auctioneer is new to the non-profit. Definitely point out key bidders. Explain the room set up. Are there key bidders that are sitting in the front versus sitting in the back?

The non-profit organization should always hire a professional bid assistant to encourage bidding and excitement to the prospective bidders. I think ring people are a key component to an auction.

Sandra Sims: You’ve mentioned “ring people” and “auction assistants.” What are those positions and what do they do?

Dawn Rose-Sohnly: Basically, it’s the same term. Ring people are the individuals that you see in the audience that are encouraging bidders to bid. They use a lot of enthusiasm. They’re very hard workers at what they do. They’re trained, they’re professionals and I have seen people that say I’m not going to bid anymore and that ring person will get in front of them and that person will bid five times after that. It adds the excitement and enthusiasm to an auction. On all of our charity auctions we always use ring people.

Sandra Sims: Give me an example if you can of what a ring person might do to encourage that bidding?

Dawn Rose-Sohnly: A ring person might go up to him and you’re working with the public so you’ve got to realize your space in between that bidder and it’s really reading the public, but you might get in front of that person and say you may want to bid one more time. This is a great cause, it’s going to a great non-profit organization; if you bid one more time, the other person may not stop bidding and you could be the high bidder. That might be one technique of how they do it.

Sandra Sims: A lot of it like you said is reading the audience?

Dawn Rose-Sohnly: Yes, definitely. Over the years I have been able to tell which bidders are going to bid and which ones do not. It’s body language, it’s looking at their eyes. I don’t know, I guess I’ve just got that knack because I can tell when somebody is going to bid or when somebody is going to hesitate and I can have somebody tell me even as a ring person on the benefits that I’ve worked, they’re not going to bid one more time, but I know that doesn’t mean no. I can always get them to bid additionally.

Dawn went on to describe the benefits of having ring people and several successful auctions where assistants were key to driving up the fund total of the event.

During our one hour interview Dawn also shared:

How to choose a great leader for the auction committee chairperson

A success story of an auction that raised $78,000 with only 40 items!

How to divide up item acquisition & other event planning tasks amongst committee members

How to set minimum bids and bid increments

How to determine which items go in the live auction vs. the silent auction

How to add revenue to your event with a “bidding frenzy” and a special appeal

What to look for when hiring an auctioneer so that your auction is as successful as possible

Success tips from Dawn’s favorite charity auction that raises more than $100,000 every year

The complete one hour audio interview and transcript are included in the Secrets of the Charity Auction Experts seminar series.

Dear Ms. Sims,

We just finished our second annual fund-raiser to benefit our medical/dental pediatric patients at Medical College of Georgia Children’s Medical Center in Augusta, GA. I am writing to you because your newsletter has been an invaluable tool to teach me how to be more successful in raising funds for this effort. I also have learned so much by trail and error. Some of which I wanted to share, just in case it might help some of your readers.

Helen Johnson and Miss Georgia Chasity Hardmon

We raised a total of $41,000 net for the children’s hospital. The event was pretty formal, we described the attire as “Business or Better”. I am a volunteer, however my son is a student at the dental school and my daughter is a Dr. at the Children’s hospital, so that is how I got involved.

I started trying to get the dinner and silent auction costs underwritten by corporate donations both years. Then I could tell everyone that donated items for the silent auction and those who bought tickets to attend the event, that ALL money raised at the event itself would go directly to the children’s hospital. I appealed to these corporations and businesses sense of doing good for the community that they live and work in. I also thought who would not want to give to a children’s hospital?

I did pretty well the first year, but in a conversation that I had with a friend who is a newspaper writer I was asked why he should give to my cause, rather than any of the several other causes that contacted him annually.  He said “what can you give me?”, I was shocked at first and thought, how rude, but he was asking a legitimate question. What could I offer to a business that would make them give their charity funds to me?

I started calling advertising companies and asking if they would be willing to give me free or very cheap advertising that I could then offer to the companies that would support my charity event. I found that our local Lamar billboard sign company offered 8 electronic signs for $1500.00 for a month of advertising. They could put several ads on each sign every day, the only stipulation was that somewhere on the ad, the fact that these businesses were sponsoring this event would have to be evident. Lamar Signs said that they have very low prices for public service or charity events. The more money a company donated, the larger their ad, small donations had their logo on our own ad which advertised the actual event.

The next thing is I found that Comcast has a similar policy, They agreed to give me 300 FREE public service announcements, which could include a company’s logo as being a sponsor of this charity event. I also got our local newspaper to do an editorial on this event with a story line that they found interesting (Our chair for this event was a Student at the dental school, and this was a great story about a local young man giving back to the community that he will soon be a dentist in. I am sure that all fund-raisers have someone associated with the event that would make a great story for the newspaper.

I was then able to go to these corporations and companies and offer free advertising for their support. I was amazed at how well this worked. I was told that supporting an event like ours usually only gets the attention of those individuals who attend the event, but ours put their name on billboards all over town. I also was able to trade services and goods for advertising. I got a local printer to print our invitations and programs in exchange for advertising on the above mentioned areas. I got our local Fresh Market to put all of the baskets together of the items which were donated for the silent auction, in a professional manner (they provided baskets and talent) in exchange for advertising.

University of Georgia football players A.J. Green, Darrell Gamble, Sanders Commings, David Elrod-Chair of the event, and Dr. Sarah Shelton, Mistress of Ceremony

I invited the University of Georgia Football players to our event, never knowing if they would consider coming. They are in Athens, GA, which is about an hour and a half from Augusta. Several players did come, which was a selling point not only for advertisers, because the local media wanted to cover the event with the football players attending, but it was easy to sell tickets to this event.

We also invited and had in attendance, Miss Georgia, Miss Augusta, Miss Teen USA. I never knew if they would come, but they all did! We had a band for the event that agreed to perform at half price because it was a charity event. Miss Georgia and Miss Teen USA also sang as part of the entertainment.

I had the silent auction guide and it was well worth the money I spent for it. The best thing was that the silent auction was very organized, and ran so smoothly. We made about $28,000 for the silent auction portion of the fundraiser, and as your guide suggested, I made up baskets rather than just have gift certificates sitting on a clipboard, and I combined several smaller items in many cases to make beautiful baskets. I also saw from your information that we got about what was expected for the $40,000 in value of the items we had for the auction.

I found that the local merchants were more willing to give to the silent auction then the stores in the malls. Local well known artists also supported this event. All the local golf clubs gave free golf outing which included the cart for their play.

A local design company to donated their time and talent to design our theme, our invitations and our advertising logos. The only thing they asked was to be recognized at the event for two years. This was their second year, and they offered to get more involved next year for free. They said they could set up a website for our fundraiser to bring more attention to it, and people could go to the web-site to see what would be available at the silent auction, or just to donate, or to buy tickets to the event.

I did have the help of four volunteers, which was plenty.  We started early enough that we were not rushed to do anything, including picking up the auction items. I found that several area merchants hold monthly meetings to discuss things like advertising, security etc, and so I asked if I could address these meetings, and so I was able to ask several merchants at one time if they could donate something for the silent auction, I brought a sheet with each merchant listed, and passed it around so that they could each let me know if they would donate. This made it a lot easier than “cold calling” each one of them.

I guess you can tell that I am excited about everything that I learned this year, and am already planning to learn more for next years event. I really feel that I would never have been as successful without the help of your web site. I learned a lot! I hope some of what I learned will help your readers.

Kind Regards,
Helen Johnson

Silent auctions are a popular way to raise funds at a charity benefit event. You’ll find that most attendees are already familiar with how they work. But in short, at a silent auction items are placed for display and bidders sign a sheet with a name or bidder number and bidding amount. The winner of the auction item is the person with the highest bid at the predetermined end time of the auction. Here are five reasons why silent auctions can be a profitable fundraising strategy for your group.

1. Provides a Valuable Gift

Many people feel drawn to support various charities, often because of their personal experiences or interests. On the other hand, others may not have a strong reason to support your particular cause. An auction provides a way for them to support your organization and also get something valuable in return. Some people will find an auction item that they just “have to have” and bid because they want the item. For many people the combination of giving to a “good cause” and the draw of the auction item itself will convince them to bid on the auction item.

2. Easy to Add-on to Other Events

Silent auctions can easily be incorporated into a larger event. Most events that are held indoors can also have a silent auction. There simply needs to be a place for the tables to display the items, enough room for visitors to comfortably browse through the selections and space for the checkout table.

3. Great for ‘First Timers’

If this is the first time that your organization is hosting a fundraising event, a silent auction is a good auction to start with. Unlike a live auction, you do not need to hire an auctioneer or find big ticket items.

Because silent auctions are scalable you can have as few as a dozen good items and see a boost in your fundraising results. Depending on how many items you plan on getting and the overall size of the event, the silent auction can be planned and executed by just two or three people.

4. Increases Funds Raised at an Event

Most of the revenue that comes from special events is from auctions, raffles or some other fundraising vehicle rather than the ticket revenues. The silent auction can significantly increase the overall funds raised at your event.

Attendees come to an event for the dinner and entertainment and bid for silent auction items while they are there. They may have not planned on bidding, but because they either find an item they want, or desire to further support your organization, they will participate in the silent auction. Many people enjoy “winning” auction items and may look forward to this part of the event. Successful silent auctions can become an aspect of the event that your supporters look forward to each year.

5. Complements a Live Auction

To keep the interest of attendees, live auctions should be limited in time from 30 minutes to 1 hour maximum. Having the silent auction actually helps the live portion by placing lower demand/lower priced items on the Silent Auction tables. The live auction can then focus on the hottest items.

It is best to close the silent auction before the live auction begins. Then patrons can all attend the live segment. The Cashier’s Table should be open after the silent auction closes so those that don’t plan on bidding in the live segment can go ahead and checkout. The cashier will then stay open until after the live portion so you may check out all auction winners.

This article is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the Step by Step Fundraising Guide to Silent Auctions