School Auction Blog

Fundraising is always something big for a school, especially when clubs and societies are looking for funding. A fundraising auction is an excellent way to do just that: make money.

Now school auction projects don’t sound like big-money events, but it all depends on how it’s done. If you know what you’re doing, it sure isn’t impossible for you to rake in $10,000 to $20,000 in one fell swoop. Your child’s club will never have problems with funding as long as you know how to raise money with a school auction:

Planning: Making or Breaking the Auction

Treat a school auction like it’s a business and it’ll be like one. How you plan carefully can turn a school auction into a mere one-time yard sale or an annual money-making event of for your school.

Elements of the planning stage include mining your group for resources and items to auction off, matching items to the audience, acquiring software and hardware for the event. And you have to begin planning for all these factors nearly a year in advance for the auction: treat it like a major event, with all the courtesies and formalities that come with it and you’re going to get one.

Finding the Items to Sell

Creativity is the name of the game here. Although you’ve got the option of asking parents to donate items to set up for auction, you may want to think up alternative options that match the resources available to you.

For example: if you’ve got a parent who owns a luxury yacht, why not auction up a romantic boat ride for two? Or if you’ve got a donator who specializes in furniture making, why not have an auction for a top-notch, hand-built dresser made of fine wood?

Check the people around you, and you’ll be surprised at the options you’ll have to offer in school auction projects.

Matching Items to the Audience

It will be impossible to sell a $10,000 item in a crowd that has only a few hundred dollars in their pockets. Thus, it is essential that your school auction committee be able to assess the financial capabilities of the attending participants.

Carefully study the population of participants that will be attending the auction and divide them into categories: low, mid and high. Make sure low-spenders will be guided to the affordable section of the auctions, while those with more clink in their pockets would be guided to the higher-cost section of the auctions. Do this, and you won’t worry about having the wrong audience for the right auction.

The Art of Auctioneering

Any good auction has to have skilled auctioneers manning it. You don’t want an auctioneer who can’t speak to save his life, and you don’t want an auctioneer who doesn’t have a clue about auctions. You’ll need an auctioneer who knows how to rouse the interest of the crowd; to timely kick in humor and wit in order to keep the crowd entertained, and to inject a certain environment of desire and competitiveness within them.

Plan ahead, be creative, do the proper matching and find a good auctioneer to man the helm. Do it properly, and your fundraising auction will rake in the dollars like no tomorrow.

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Technorati Tags: Auction, Fundraising, fundraising auction, school auction

Schneider interviews the A-Listers at Cardozo Law School’s 2007 Public Interest Auction that raised tons of money to help fund students spending their summers working for the public interest!

Duration : 0:6:59

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Technorati Tags: Auction, Cardozo, Charity, Christies, Factor, Interest, Law, Money, PILSA, public, Schneider, School, Sothebys, Yearbook

video made for the 2nd Annual Dinner Auction fundraiser for John Gill Elementary School in Redwood City, California. Voiceover by Erin Johnston.

Duration : 0:4:48

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Technorati Tags: California, dance, education, elementary, Fundraiser, garden, john gill, Kids, redwood city, School

What are some fundraising ideas that do not involve door to door sales or bothering the family with order forms. examples like, popcorn day for the kids, or white elephant bingo, or gift basket auctions. thanks alot for any input

Congratulations on being an involved parent!

Ideas:

1) One school in our area does a "new to you" sale each year. All the items are donated and they raise about 30k!

The biggest problem with this is it requires a LOT of volunteerism!

I think our school could do it by selling spaces in the playground for $20.00 and letting families/crafters/vendors come sell their own stuff. This way there is NO real work for the school…other than advertising and clean up. All vendors would be responsible for the removal of their own items at the end of the day…contact the goodwill to have a truck there at the end of the day for anyone that doesnt want to cart off their unsellables.

2) Field day!

Have some cheesy carnival games (throw the toilet paper thru the toilet seat, pie toss at the principal, find the candy in the bucket of corn kernals) and hotdog cart.

3) Contact a restaurant (like Friendly’s or Perkin’s) They will have a "family night" where your school can come and a portion (10- 25%) of their sales to your school.

4) Box tops for education

5) Money Market (many of the stores…like home depot..grocery stores) if you buy gift cards thru the school instead of thru them will give you 10-25%.

6) Bowling

Have a fun bowling day at one of the local alleys. See if you can get a reduced rate for booking so many lanes and use the extra as profit. Hold contests during the games.

7) Balloon-day

In advance the kids can order/pay for balloons to be delivered to their friends. Parents can order/pay for balloons to be delivered to their children. The cost of the balloons to purchase and fill would be pennies…but they could sell for .75-1.00 each. (or flowers/cookies/etc)

see if one of your movie theaters..(second run or a big complex) would donate an off hours special viewing of a movie and donate the proceeds to the school…or the proceeds of the snack bar!

9) AUCTION

One of the schools in our area has an annual auction. Its a dinner JUST for the parents at the school. They pay to come (contact the high school or community college to see if the culinary students will donate some of their talents) Have some older students in the school available to be servers.

Enlist the art teacher and go to the goodwill (or ask parents to rummage thru their basements for items) Find a desk or chair.. old picture frames..etc) Have the students in each class decorate the items…(kindergarten parents are the best ones to target because they aren’t jaded yet..hehehe) decorate with fingerprints..handprints…etc.

Other auction ideas:

A parking pass! A special parking spot for parents that pick up their kids that let them go to the front of the line..closest spot to their kids dorr and lets them drive right up pick up/drop off and get out of dodge!!!! (One parent paid $200.00 for this!!)

Older students can make jewelry, purses, ornaments.

Many local museums will donate memberships as will karate schools, dance classes, art schools..etc…

10) Contact your local chamber of commerce, kiwanis, rotary, masons, business counil, moms club, mops club, etc…to see if your school can be the benefactor of one of their fundraisers!!!

11) SILLY PRINCIPAL!

Have the principal offer to do something ridiculous! (Ride a donkey thru the lunchroom, shave his beard, dress up like a leprechan, make a hundred snow angels, eat a watermellon without using her hands..whatever)

In each class room have a giant jar.. the kids can bring in their pennies to vote for which ridiculous thing the principal will do….the winning class gets to choose…or..set a goal..if the kids reach $1000.00 the principal will do the silly thing.

good luck!

For an upcoming school auction, I would like to have kids do individual pieces of artwork, cut them out, and then decoupage each piece onto one piece of wood (such as a rocking chair or CD stand). I’ve had bad luck with some materials running when I go to decoupage. Any ideas as to which materials will not run? (ie. Sharpie vs. paint pen and acrylic vs. oil paints?) Thanks!

While your idea is a good one- carrying it out – not so easy!

‘Modge-Podge’ might work if you spray the artwork with an acrylic sealer first.

You might try having the kids do a collage of images on the wood piece instead of drawing their own pictures. Magazine pictures work great for this with modge-podge or Elmers Glue(watered just a bit)

good luck