To procure the item that’s most likely to please, you should start by determining which type of experience would most appeal to your donors. If you’re hosting a family-friendly auction and need items directed toward the kids in your audience, too, this is the auction item for you. As is the case for most of the procurement process, it helps if you have a personal connection to leverage. Start by seeing who among your supporters is an artist or knows someone who might be willing to donate a piece. City bar crawls include many different components, so it will likely take some mixing and matching of donations to provide this item at your auction. To make the most of your auction, here are some tips to obtaining the in-kind gifts that offer the best experience for your event attendees.
Either way, this item is a reliable choice for all types of auction events. Museums are typically nonprofits as well, so they would probably be willing to donate a membership and even create a partnership. Once you have a good idea of the items your donors want, you can put together a list.
Price too high and you won’t attract bids – too low, and you’ll lose out on critical funds. Decide beforehand how to handle situations where the person with the winning bid does not show up to pay and receive their item at the auction itself. You can choose to contact the winning bidder through their registration contact info, or offer the item to the next highest bidder. Just make sure the auction attendees know how you will be handling these situations, and whether they need to stay on hand for auction results or if they can be contacted later.
OneCause also offers convenient mobile bidding options as part of their powerful auction software. OneCause simplifies ticketing and table management, allowing auction planners to create customized ticket packages. Plus, you can keep donor management at the forefront with access to real-time donor engagement analytics.
Check out this guide to learn more about charity auctions and how you can raise more money. During crowdfunding campaigns, nonprofits aim to reach a clear-cut goal to be put toward a specific cause or project. They do so by collecting small donations from a large number of donors. At the beginning of your auction, have one of your staff or board members get up and request that the audience help you meet a fundraising goal. Being able to open up your auction to more supporters naturally results in more bids, since there are more people to provide funding. silent auction websites are, some of the items featured in your auction are large or cumbersome.
Offering camping supplies in a major city, for instance, may not get any attention from your event attendees. Large items may be unappealing because people don’t have the space. Items with a specific color scheme or theme may clash with most people’s décor.
An efficient way of allowing your guests to donate items directly to your fundraising website is by utilising the ‘Donate Item’ tab. Once your fundraising website is set up, this tab can be added where donors can fill in all the fields that you would normally complete, including uploading an image of the item. Once the donor completes the process, the item will appear as inactive within the Campaign Management System for you to review and accept / decline. At this stage you are also able to make any relevant edits before the item is launched into your auction. In many cases, more is not always merrier and from experience, you want to use the number of guests in the room/expected online reach as a guideline to how many you should include.
Have a shared spreadsheet to keep track of who’s asking who, who’s already been asked, items acquired, and next steps. Use procurement forms to capture donor information, track items, and keep everything above board. Honestly, the earlier the better—but we’d say six months before a fundraising event is the absolute latest.
Savvy changemakers need the right tools to reach their goals and make the world a better place. Assemble your toolkit with these best-in-class nonprofit software tools. Discover which free nonprofit CRM on this list will best meet your needs—and what “free” really gets you. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products or services. Try to leave the lessons as open-ended as possible to account for a range of schedules and experience levels.
To ensure your items see plenty of bid activity, it’s important to be thoughtful during the procurement process. You shouldn’t just blindly ask for and accept any type of donation; instead, you should target the kinds of items that will be most attractive to your donor base. Your organization should be able to receive many of these materials as donations, but it’s always advisable to factor in all potential costs. You don’t want to bank on a donation in your budget only to have that donation fall through—all of a sudden, your budget is busted. They have to apply a fair market value to the items, which is how much you can realistically sell the item in the market.