By Deane Brengle
Procurement is perhaps the most important part of planning your charity fundraising auction. The success of your auction depends on the value and demand for items up for bid. Your team in charge of procurement should be looking for items, experiences, and activities that are not easily purchased. These will have greater value and will encourage people to attend the event.
When planning your auction fundraiser consider the make-up of prospective attendees, their likes and interests, and a realistic budget range for bidders. This match up of auction items to your bidders is critical.
Each charity auction fundraiser has its own unique make-up. Here are some of the hot items for a school auction that may work for you:
- Pizza a week for six months
- A day on the farm
- Roller skating party
- Family kayaking for a day (with lesson)
- Paintball for a group
- A group father/son baseball outing
- Family season pass to district sporting events
- Sunset cruise with wine & cheese for a group
- Lunch with the mayor
- Dance lessons for a group
- Job shadowing a local business leader
- Poker night for a group
- Six months of flowers from a local florist
- A chauffer for a day
- Cooking class for a group
- Karaoke party
- Catered lunch for the office
- Sommelier Class
- Appetizers and a keg of beer (wine)
- A father/son charter fishing trip
- Dinner with a local celebrity
- Museum sleepover
- Cigars & a humidor
- Mother/daughter spa day
- Police/Fireman for a day (ride in a vehicle, station tour, wear the gear, and photographs)
- Group walk in your town’s parade
- Half page ad in your local magazine/newspaper
- Beach weekend for the family/or two
- CD/DVD a week for six months
- Mothers only social gathering hosted by a well-liked parent
- Lasik eye surgery
- Tour of a local factory, newspaper, radio/TV station, or sporting arena
- Botox from a local dermatologist
- The latest computer or entertainment system & installation
- Super Bowl party
About the Author: Deane Brengle has been writing about fundraising for nonprofit groups since 1996. You can visit his website and get the latest in fundraising tips, hints, and secrets at The Fund$Raiser Cyberzine.
Technorati Tags: Entertaining, Karaoke, school auction, Super Bowl
Your school is in need of a certain amount of money for projects and special events. Your focus turns on how to accumulate that specific amount in a particular timeframe. In cases like these, when a school carnival or product sales are not the best means to raise funds, the idea of holding a school auction becomes the main solution to the need.
School auction projects are fun and exciting especially if you have done it for many times and you have already mastered the flow of events. For newbie’s however, they can be exhausting and complicated in terms of planning, organizing and executing. These steps are all important to make a school auction profitable and helpful.
Regardless if it is a small or large auction, whether you plan to do it live, silent or online, you must be well aware of the “what’s and how’s” to make it effective and worth your time. You may want to consider these tips to make it a real hit:
- Start planning ahead of time. In fact, the earlier you start, the better you can organize the details and the processes. Most private schools prefer to begin six months in advance. But if you want to take advantage of solicitation to gain more donations, you can plan several months in advance.
- Create a work plan and stay well organized. This is necessary to make the tasks a lot easier and systematized. Follow your project calendar and call for meetings if there are additional works to do.
- Recruit and delegate. The school cannot do it all alone. Gather a strong team of volunteers whom you can trust and delegate each of them a role and a responsibility they need to perform.
- Advertise and gather plenty of donations. Send out solicitations through mail or door-to-door, involve the students by making artworks and ask parents to collect items or secure at least one donation per family. You may advertise big items earlier so people can plan their bidding the earliest possible. Good advertisement is also a key to good promotions to lure as many bidders as you can.
- Make your school auction the focus of your event. Do not complicate it with other school activities such as carnival and game shows on the same day to get your bidders’ full attention.
- Hire a professional auctioneer. Especially on a live auction, a properly trained auctioneer can greatly contribute in making the event fun, lively, and moving up. He knows how to build anticipation, stimulate bidding wars, and when it is time to close bidding. He is one of the tools in making your school auction project a real standout. If possible, you can invite a local celebrity as the master of the ceremonies.
- Offer special recognition to corporate sponsors. Make table signs, ad placement in the auction catalog, online recognition through the school’s website, and/or acknowledgment during the on-going event.
When all things are said and done, you will realize that fundraising auctions profited from not just the money earned, but most importantly, the teamwork established by all who were involved.
photo credit: runneralan2004
Technorati Tags: Auction, Auction catalog, Bidding, Business, Fundraising, school auction
