A successful auction occurs when many things come together at the same place and at the same time. Two of these items are the right auction items and the right bidders. This package provides information to help your auction achieve that combination. Time and effort, combined with this information, can ensure that your auction will provide a venue in which auction items and bidders interact effectively, one in which attendees take auction items home, having donated the amount of money that they intended to. If you have any questions please feel free to call me up until 9:00 at night or email me.
Acquisition Rally
Great auction items are part of what make a great auction. Here are some tips to make this happen.
Work in teams. Small groups, targeting special types of items, provide added focus and creativity that can produce great results. Add some fun to the acquisition process by having competitions between teams— with prizes. Group activities can include hitting one area of town, phone banking or brain storming sessions.
Have a system for receiving and securing items with all the necessary info required…such as locked out travel dates for travel items. Try to make a live or silent auction determination when the item is received. Jack will review these items about six weeks prior to your auction.
Newsletters or other tools for communication are used by some organizations to keep excitement up. Excitement is contagious and the success of one team or individual can motivate and inspire the creativity of others.
Variety: Auctions work on the principle of scarcity. Too much of anything will kill any great idea.
A catalog that is sent out before the auction and posted on the event website gives additional leverage in soliciting donations. Prospects are more likely to help when they will receive extra publicity.
Ad space in the catalog allows merchants who don’t have viable auction items to support the event by placing an ad. Tax services are a good example here. Also, individuals may want to put a personal message in the catalog such as:
Acquire items from these 2 main categories for a successful auction:
(see attached pages for listing of ideas)
Practical Items: These include wine, home entertainment systems, laptops, etc.
Experience based Items: Consider such items as BBQ for 25 at any location, cooking class and dinner in your home with a well-known chef, sports lesson from a known athlete, and entertainment packages. The creativity of the auction committee can put together packages that will be unique to your auction and cannot be obtained anywhere else.
Give something yourself. This is an important levering point when asking others for donations. One fun way to do this is the Instant Wine Cellar: each board member brings a bottle of wine (valued at >$15.00) to each Board meeting. By the auction date, this Wine Cellar shows bidders the Board’s commitment.
Ask your spouse, friends and family. Even if they don’t have anything to contribute, they often will have a good idea or a good contact. Use this technique for audience development as well.
Get out the checkbooks. Examine the checkbooks, yours, the organization’s and key sponsors. Ask for donations from businesses that you and the organization support during the year through business dealings. Use this technique for audience development as well.
Pull in a favor. Think of people you have supported at their fundraisers and ask them to support yours. Use this technique for audience development as well.
Work towards the Catalog deadline. Making a few contacts each week is much more effective than waiting until right before a deadline.
Stress the purpose of the auction. Make sure people understand the organization’s mission. Use the word “HELP” often, and specify the people who will be helped if possible. “I’m calling to see if you could HELP the children that XZY non-profit supports.”
No cold calls. It is as simple as that. Warm up a prospect before going for the ask. A live ask is best; the telephone is the next best, and the telephone is better than a letter.
Specify what you are asking for. Help out the merchant by showing them how you envision their auction item working within the whole auction. Make the effort to do the creative work to make it easy for the merchant to contribute.
Many low dollar activities add excitement, fun and revenues. A 50/50 raffle where ½ of the proceeds are given away immediately before the live auction can increase live auction bidding. Sell Balloons with gift $50.00 certificates in them sold for $20.00. Have a few balloons with $100.00 gift certificates. The Pot of Gold can be circulated during the reception and donations (cash and hand written services) can be made to it and then it is auctioned off at the beginning of the live auction.
In many cases, asking for a year’s supply of something works well: i.e., a year of theatre passes, Queen for a year, coffee for a year, a year of oil changes, etc. It is important to explain to the merchant that one use is not enough to win a new client over but that a year’s supply is; an additional benefit for the merchant is that many extras can be sold to the customer during that year as well.
The best consignment items are highly unique and sought after (hot to market) such as the Air Combat USA and the South Africa Photo Safari that Jack Young can provide you with. The organization needs to make a conscious decision about whether they are willing to accept consignment items. If so, beware of any items you have to buy in advance or pay too much for and of items that may be stale inventory a merchant is trying to get rid of. Also beware of auctioning consigned new cars. Cars absorb too much bidding money, with very little of it actually benefiting the cause. An automotive 2-year lease is much different and actually creates more proceeds.
Used items, with very few exceptions, should not be offered at your benefit auction. Among these exceptions are rare collector items such as baseball cards or clean, highly desirable used cars such as a Cooper Mini or ’66 Mustang.
Centerpieces created for gala events are usually beautiful and functional. These items often make excellent silent auction items. Jack Young can provide these to you for a reasonable cost.
Reserves and minimum bids on donated items are highly discouraged. It is your auction and in most cases you are better off not letting the donors direct your operation.
Attendance Development Session
Getting the right people at the auction—people who will bid actively—is often one of the biggest challenges facing an auction. The trick is to make your event an important social occasion. Here are some techniques to help that happen:
Send out a save-the-date mailer that mentions an important honored guest(s). An important decision-maker or politician at your event attracts others who may want to be seen at the same event, doing social good. (Jack will announce the name of the winning bidder after each item is sold.) Other types of honored guest could be a well-known artist, athlete, writer, etc.
Who are the businesses that want to be seen doing good works in front of your audience. i.e. if you area school make sure the local dentist and orthodontist support your event. If you have a construction project, make sure that the construction company and sub-contractors are present and actively bidding.
Get a title sponsor with high level visibility that can promote your event to their constituency and their vendors.
Have your auction the same relative date every year, i.e., the first Saturday after Thanksgiving. This way people will anticipate and plan for it.
Have your catalog viewable by the public on the Web. This could give fence sitters a little nudge to come to the event or at least put in a pre-bid.
Get key supporters to sign on as table captains. Table captains agree to fill a table with people they feel will be good bidders.
As with acquisitions, open up the checkbooks, pull in personal favors and ask friends and family.
Obtain the Business Journal’s annual listing of major corporations in town. This issue usually lists the members of the board of directors for major companies in the area. Assign various people to personally call these people and ask them to HELP. Explain about the organization and what it means to the community.
Provide unique auction items that are rare and have great value.
Displays announcing the event on tabletops in key restaurants.
Pre-Selling: RSVPs and Other Considerations
Auction catalogs sent out ahead of time—with instructions to “circle the items that you want to bid on”—tend to increase bidding.
The Pre-bid system allows people who cannot attend the event to bid on items using the catalog. An absent bidder fills out the form and a volunteer from the organization bids for the person at the event. A fee is frequently charged for this service since the bidder is not paying to attend the event.
RSVPs are important for many reasons. One reason is that attendees who pay in advance for their tickets are more likely to “forget” that expense by the night of the auction and so not consider it when they determine their bidding budget. On the other hand, attendees who buy tickets the evening of the auction tend to subtract that expense from their bidding allotment.
Pre-pay discount programs motivate people to RSVP.
Auction script can encourage RSVPs while also promoting higher bidding. A person who RSVPs, for example, may be entitled to purchase $50.00 of nonrefundable auction script for $40.00. Script is transferable, but often not all auction script is redeemed, creating instant proceeds for the cause.
Works consulted: Kip Toner Benefit Auction Fundraising Auction Manual (Kip Toner, ©2000 KTBA, Inc.)
Going … Going … Gone! (Anne Connelly & Maureen Winter, ©1993 Target Funding Group, Inc.)
Other acquisition ides:
Items off the KTBA trip list
Drive a CAT D9 to demolish a building
Vacation homes- Tahoe, Coast
Airplane trip to the coast for 2 with lunch
Sailing on the Bay
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Airline miles and vouchers
Queen for a year
Homemade bread for a year
Reserved seating at high school football games
Bedtime stories read at home by the kindergarten teacher
Lunch with mayor, district representative, senator or supervisor
Orthodontia, teeth whitening
Reserved parking place
Doll houses built by local contractor
Southern CA or Las Vegas trip
2-year car lease (brings qualified buyer to dealership to purchase car after the lease is over)
Dinner for 10 in a unique public place or prestigious person’s house
Dinners and theatre for a year
BBQ for group with local entertainment talent
Entertainment talent at a party
Cooking class for a large group and dinner in your home with a well known chef
Videotaped sports lesson, game of catch, etc. with a known athlete.
Watching the World Cup with a known soccer coach
Dinner out with a celebrity, author, poet, musician, coach or other known person.
Ride with a police canine unit
Child gets driven to school in a fire truck
Horse drawn tour of wine country
Napa Wine tour in an RV
