If you have many auction items, close out your silent auction in three sections, not all at once. Stagger your closing times by around 15 minutes to give your staff to close out each section. For fully donated items, start the bidding at 30% of the fair market value (FMV).
Now it’s time to put them together and decide on their starting bids. This part can get a little tricky, and you’ll have to take the context of your items into consideration, but we have some tried-and-true advice on setting starting bids and bid increments. It can be helpful to gather your guests’ information before the event even begins by creating an event registration page.
And then you will need to plan, organize and execute the Silent Auction Fundraiser smoothly and effectively. Hazeltine National Golf Club is a private golf club located in Chaska, Minn., about 30 minutes southwest of downtown Minneapolis. The club opened in 1962 with a mission to build and maintain a golf course suitable for the conduct of national championships. Hazeltine is one of only two courses in the United States to have hosted the U.S. Open, PGA Championship, U.S. Senior Open, U.S. Women’s Open, U.S. Amateur, and Ryder Cup. Hazeltine’s meeting and event space, golf shop and specified services in the learning center are open to the public.
In addition to the progressive dinner, a silent auction with more the $10,000 worth of unique finds, gift certificates and local arts will be available for bids. Items include 50-yard line tickets to the LSU-Auburn game, an original H.C. Porter painting with museum-quality framing, a signed Warren Morris LSU jersey, a Steve Gleason jersey and gift certificates.
If not, be on the lookout for service fees that go by names like “performance fee” and work by taking a percentage of your auction proceeds. To be fair, this might not be a bad deal for events with a small fundraising goal. If you only aim to raise $2,000, a 6% performance fee of $120 may seem very reasonable. But if you want to raise $50,000, the resulting $3,000 fee would take a big chunk out of your bottom line. The total cost of an auction fundraiser event can vary widely depending on costs in your area, your ambitions for the event’s style, and your fundraising goals. You’ll need to do some research and careful decision-making to come up with a realistic budget for your event’s venue, meals, and decorations.
They do this by educating their website visitors about their cause and making it easy for them to donate online. Attendees at a silent auction spend the first part of the event checking out the items for auction. When they find something they’d like to place a bid on, they use their bidding number to make an anonymous bid on the bid sheet in front of the item. While silent auctions are more orderly than a traditional auction, there are still some downsides. Silent auctions usually have items spread around a small room on numerous tables. Things can often get crowded quickly, especially around items people are excited about.
For other guests, have them line up to remit payment a cashier station. Organize your registration packets by last name, not bid number, since attendees will not know their bid number. Get rid of small gift certificates by putting a slip of paper representing each in a helium balloon. Sell the balloons for $25, $50, or $100, depending on the value of the certificate within. All but one of the bags contain a cubic zirconium with the exception being a real diamond.
There’s no better way to secure donations than to simply ask for them outright. However, while they may be more difficult to plan, they can have a high return for your organization if you strategize correctly. The Silent Auction bidding feature will work on your existing WordPress site, too.
online silent auction for nonprofits , aim to provide a variety of items at different price points to accommodate all budgets. Make sure you have a clear understanding of the types of items that appeal to your donors. With the right approach, however, it can be a fun and rewarding way to raise money for a good cause. To evaluate the financial results, you should compare the total amount raised to your fundraising goals. Email invitations are a great way to target your organization’s supporters and encourage them to attend. You should also think about setting up a dedicated event page or hashtag to make it easier for people to find and share information about the auction.