I’ve had the chance to get involved with several charitable auctions over the past few years. I’ve seen some great ways to raise significant money with minimal procurement efforts. Here’s a list of the Top 10 auction offerings that can yield big dollars for your organization.
1. Start the live auction with a round of drinks. Have the auctioneer offer a round of Cosmopolitans for a table starting at $100. Watch the paddles fly up. I recently saw a round of drinks go for $500. Follow it up with a round of Lemon Drops. It’s a great way to get the auction started on a fun note and get the crowd engaged from the get go. Ask the facility to donate the rounds of drinks for no cost to your organization.
2. Ask each attendee to bring a bottle of wine, valued at $15-$25. This works great in a live auction. If possible, line the auction stage with the bottles so the crowd can easily see them. During the live auction, auction off the Instant Wine Cellar. At a recent auction, 200 bottles went for $2200. That’s pure profit back to your organization. Another way to insure you get the bottles donated is to have wine available for purchase at the event, in case someone forgets to bring a bottle. You can cover your costs through a small mark up.
3. You’re likely going to have table decorations or other décor at your auction. And, it’s likely that you won’t be re-using them for future events, especially if your centerpieces are flowers, so why not auction them off? You can do this during the silent auction or with a bid card at each table. This is a great way to recover some of your costs. Another great variation on this is to have a bottle of champagne and a champagne bucket as the centerpiece. Have a paper bid card at each table and have the live auctioneer talk up the champagne centerpiece. Highest bid at the table gets the champagne and bucket. Make sure the minimum bid covers your costs, plus a nice profit. The champagne can be served during dessert and shared by the whole table.
4. Key in your auction planning is minimizing your hard costs so more of your proceeds can go to your fundraising. I’ve seen some auctions eliminate or minimize dessert as a way to reduce costs. Here’s an alternative to nixing the sweet ending to the dinner – “The Dessert Dash.” Ask volunteers to make “gourmet” desserts for the auction. Have them arranged in the room so that attendees see them as they enter the room and see their options. At each table, have a paper bid card and have the auctioneer explain that, in order to get dessert, they need to bid. They are essentially bidding to be the first to select their dessert. After all the bid cards have been collected and it’s dessert time, the auctioneer reads off the table numbers in order of the highest bid amount. As your table number is called, someone from your table “dashes” to select their dessert. This is another great one to get the room energized. You can also have one less than desirable dessert that could be the gag gift for the table that bids the lowest amount. Again, another way to extract value with no cost to your organization.
5. The first year that I went to our school auction, I was flabbergasted by the amount of money raised by kid’s class projects. Literally, thousands of dollars and parents going back and forth to win their child’s class project. The hook on this one is to have the kids create more “artistic” projects than typical kid projects. And they need to be well done, meaning framed nicely, good craftsmanship, and worthy of displaying in someone’s home. Our school enlists creative, artistic parents to guide this process. Examples of high bid class projects include: an outdoor bench with painted tiles, a hope chest with mosaic tiles on the cover, a framed peace symbol made up of trinkets from each kindergartner (went for $3000!!), and a beautifully painted wooden calendar. Auction these off during the live auction; they are good for drawing the extra dollars out of the crowd so they can have bragging rights for winning their child’s project. You’ll be amazed by the dollars these raise.
6. Another successful idea for school auctions are teacher items. Each teacher donates an “item” that is typically some type of outing with the teacher. Examples include breakfast for 5 students with the kindergarten teacher, a hiking trip and lunch with your teacher, a trip to Build-A-Bear, etc. The teachers can be creative in putting together their item offering. These are typically low cost things but parents jump at the chance to have their kids spend time with their teacher outside of the normal school day. Teacher items work very well in silent auction settings.
7. Continuing on the school auction theme, auction off Principal for the Day. I’ve seen this go for over $2500! Works great in a live auction and it’s fun to see parents fighting over this exclusive right. You can extend this concept even further and auction off other school activity roles, such as conductor at an upcoming school concert, announcement reader, or assembly leader. Get creative here – you have roles or things in your school program that could be easily monetized.
8. Talk about creating something out of nothing. Auction off the best parking space in your organization’s parking lot. This costs absolutely nothing to you (assuming you have a parking lot already). Our church uses this one in our auction – front row parking reserved at all times. I’ve seen this item go for over $1000 in a live auction.
9. Inevitably, there are some auction goers that get outbid but still want to donate. I’ve seen the “Raise the Paddle” technique work effectively many times at auctions to grab those extra dollars. One of my favorite auctions supports cancer care and research. At the event, they have a cancer survivor talk about their story, their treatment, and their feelings on the need for better cancer care. These are typically very well spoken, heartfelt speeches. The live auctioneer then asks the crowd who is willing to give at a specific dollar amount, say $10,000. If they are willing to give at that rate, attendees raise their paddle. You then work down to smaller amounts, typically ending at $50. The auction I attended raised over $50,000 through their Raise the Paddle. A variation on this concept is “Fund An Item” where the organization calls out a specific item that they have determined is needed. Auction attendees are asked to raise their bid card at various giving levels, starting high and working down. Again, very effective method to create significant donations.
10. If your event includes a live auction, consider adding a raffle element to it. I call this the “Golden Ticket.” The Golden Ticket entitles the winner to select any of the live auction items. In order to make this profitable for your organization, you need sell a set number of tickets – often a pretty small number – at a price that covers what you estimate the highest live auction item would get in live bidding. This insures you aren’t cannibalizing your live auction proceeds. For example, you would sell only 100 raffle tickets at $50 each, grossing $5000. The winner is selected prior to the start of the live auction and gets to select the live auction item they want. This is a great way to get some extra dollars out of attendees who wouldn’t normally bid on the live auction items. If you have a few live auction items that are high ticket (example a cruise or something similar), you could exclude those from the Golden Ticket. A great way to sell the tickets is to have staff walk around during the cocktail hour and silent auction time and ask guests to buy a ticket. You can also have your auctioneer make announcements about it during that same time.
I hope you find these tips helpful and would love to hear additional ideas from you. One last tip – I’ve found that alcohol is a great way to enhance those bids! Best of luck with your fundraising!
