How to know which auction items will sell well at your fundraiser

So you are planning a fundraising auction and you want to stack your event with stellar auction items! But how do you know if anyone will buy them? I know these are the things that keep you up at night, so I’m here to help. You don’t have to go into your auction willy nilly just hoping that you picked the right items. You can be prepared and validate which items will sell at your event.

How to know which items will sell well at your fundraiser?

Look at previous data

The first and obvious thing you can do is to pull the reports from previous events. If you use a mobile bidding system, all of that data will be easily accessible. You can pull the live auction items and see which ones sold the highest and try to solicit items that are similar for this year.

What if this is our first event? Don’t worry, if this is your first event and don’t have the data to pull. This is your first year and you are just getting to know your audience. Instead focus on a varied live auction line up to ensure there is something for everyone. This will appeal to a broader audience and allow you to tap into different donors interests rather than focusing on a few specific spenders in the audience.

CHECK OUT THIS POST ON THE 5 TYPES OF LIVE AUCTION ITEMS YOU NEED FOR A VARIED LIVE AUCTION

Poll your attendees

Send out a Google Form to your past attendees and straight up ask them what items they would like to bid on this year. This is a good opportunity to get feedback and direction on your event in general. Just make sure to keep the survey short. If you have too many questions, you run the risk of people giving up and not submitting the survey. So focus on short form answers or ranking questions to help get guidance from your attendees. This is also a good opportunity to ask them if they have any good ideas or connections for auction items. I had a client do this and it turns out they had a donor on their list who was a Food Network featured chef and they offered a private dinner for their live auction! You never know what you’ll get!

Focus on items with a broad appeal

Auctions raise money by having people bid against each other and the more bidders you have, the faster those bids go up. Focus on finding items that would intrigue many people rather than focusing on niche high-end items. I’ve done events where they have a piece of art valued at well over $10K and have struggled to find even one bidder willing to raise their hand at the minimum bid, while with the same audience sell a pizza party at a brewery for several thousand dollars. Curating unique experiences that would interest many different people in your audience is important.

Consider your audience

What does YOUR audience care about? Focus on what brought your audience together: your mission. A great way to appeal to your specific audience is creating Mission-Centered Experiences. These will appeal to your audience while costing you next to nothing to curate.

Ask your auctioneer

If you are working with a professional fundraising auctioneer who does these events every weekend, they should have great insight into what people in your area are bidding on currently. Every year I put out a post updating what items are selling the best and the auction trends that are popular. They’ll have the best insight.

Questions?

Hey! What questions do you have about your live auction. Pop them in the comments below, because I’ll be checking back to answer those for you! 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

This is what happens if you have fewer items in your fundraising auction

Planning a fundraising auction or gala can take a lot of work and the idea of soliciting new items can be overwhelming. I get it! What if I told you that you don’t need as many auction items in your auction?

What if I told you having fewer auction items will actually raise you more money?

How?

Well, there are a couple reasons for this.

Supply & Demand.

Simple and straight forward. The fewer auction items available to your attendees mean that the bids will compound on the items that exists rather than being spread over hundreds of items. Not everyone will walk away with an item or spend money in the auction, but that is the magic of it. Those bidders will have more money to spend in your Fund-A-Need. So not only are your auction items raising more money, but you will begin to see more revenue in your Fund-A-Need.

Your mission matters

The second reason is that more and more, people are caring less about getting something in return for their money. When we remove distractions like hundreds of auction items, you can focus on the core of your mission which will lead to a powerful Fund-A-Need. Auctions are still a powerful for building momentum and raising literal thousands of extra dollars at your event, but a Fund-A-Need will capture donations from more of your audience and allow you to develop lasting relationships with them as donors.

CASE STUDY: Campfire MN

I had a first time client this year called Campfire MN (they provide outdoor education opportunities to underprivileged youth in our community). I do not have the official Fund-A- Need totals yet as it was very recent, but am happy to send them once I receive them.

Here is a note from their development person about the live auction,

“And in terms of revenue, our live auction did so much better than last year (6 packages gained $10,400 revenue) whereas this year 3 packages gained $13,000. Our Fund A Need was extremely successful as well! Thank you again.”

We intentionally reduced the number of live auction items to keep momentum high for the Fund-A-Need moment so we could engage more donors. In the live auction, with similar items as they had the year before, I was able to increase the average auction price item from $1733 (with another auctioneer) to $4,333 (with me as the auctioneer). The Fund-A-Need was increased from $28,860 in 2017 (with their previous auctioneer) to $38,550 in 2018 (with me as their auctioneer).

This is not an isolated experience. Time after time, I work with nonprofits who are tired of spending weeks or months soliciting items or paying out the big bucks to consignment shops who are going to take the majority of what they “raised” in the auction.

You can do this too!

How many auction items should you have?

For a Live Auction shoot for 4-6 items. This is enough to build momentum, but won’t be too long to take away from the mission of the evening or lose the interest of the non-bidders in the crowd.

For a Silent Auction try for 1 item per 5-10 guests. I can hear you sighing with relief from here. You. Are. Welcome.

Are you going to try reducing your items this year? Do it! You can thank me later.

How to Get Dining Experiences Donated for your Fundraising Auction

One of the first questions I get when I sit down for a strategy call with clients is “What are the HOT items right now that people are bidding on?” And, for the past several years the answer has remained “Focus on one-of-a-kind Experiences!” Bidders are continuing to bid on experiences over things and some of the most popular experiences are Dining Experiences! Guests love to bid on these because they are experiences they can share with friends and more people are able to go in on this donation which drives the bidding up pretty quickly.

There are so many different dining experiences you can integrate into your live auction, I have a list of them in my post about Meal/Dining Experiences, and I also cover them in my FREE Auction Item Guide. But what you are probably wondering is HOW do I event get these experiences donated?

How to get dining experiences donated to your Fundraising Auction?

1. Tap into your network

   This would be the first place to start. Brainstorm who you know in the restaurant industry and who they could connect you with. I just did an event for a male choral group and one of their supporters worked in the restaurant industry and was able to connect with some of his friends to get not one, not two, but THREE James Beard Award-winning chefs and a couple other Chefs to come together and create a once-in-a-lifetime dinner party for an auction item.

   Start with the people on your auction committee. Do you know anyone? Are you connected to any chefs or restaurant owners?

   Ask your supporters. Reach out to your donor base. Maybe you have some wonderful supporters who are well-connected and tell them you are looking for an in-home catered meal or an exclusive chef’s dinner and ask them who they know. Your supporters are so happy to help with this because it costs them nothing to make an introduction and share their passion for your organization.

   If you can’t think of anyone specific to ask, just put it out there to your donor base via an email blast, social media and word of mouth. Share some examples of meal/dining items and ask who they know that could connect you.

2. Reach out to local restaurants, chefs and cooking schools

   If you don’t have any connections (which if you start asking around, I promise you will surprise yourself), go ahead and cold call restaurants, chefs, catering companies and cooking schools to see if they ever offer experiences like this. Many do offer experiences like this for a cost. Even if you have to pay $500-600 for the chef’s time and cost of groceries, I promise it will be worth your investment. This cost could easily be underwritten by a sponsor and therefore be a full donation. A dinner party will sell for far more than the “retail value” listed because it is such a fun experience for guests.

   Tell them about your organization’s mission, who you serve and how it impacts both your and THEIR community. Share how many people attend your event and the demographic of the guests because this will help them decide if this could also be a good marketing opportunity for their restaurant, personal brand or school. Whenever soliciting auction items, always remember what THEY get out of it too!
   Let them know what kind of experience you are hoping for and ask if they would ever consider doing something like that? Remember they are busy and this is their livelihood, so if you have no connection with them, be respectful of their work and recognize that they may charge a fee. It’s important to them that you respect what they do as work because they will be more likely to offer their services for your event.

3. Get scrappy

   Maybe you don’t have connections with professional chefs and maybe your local restaurant community is stingy and doesn’t want to offer anything to your organization. Don’t fret! You have one more trick up your sleeves: you are going to get scrappy. You are going to work with what you’ve got! This means creating an experience out of what you already have. Maybe your Executive Director has a lovely home and one of the Social Worker’s on staff is known for her famous Jambalaya. You are going to host a “World Famous Jambalaya Jam” in the home of your Executive Director, who is well-loved by many of your donors. Your board of directors will cover the cost of wine and groceries for the evening and you will sell this meal experience for WAY more money than it’s worth.

   When it comes to dining experiences, it is mostly about creating community. Bringing together people who are enjoyable to be around eating food that is delicious. The good news is that you can have delicious food without having a name-brand Chef. You can create a competitive item with what you have at your disposal. You’ll be surprised how well this will go for you.

What are some of your ideas for meal items?

I’d love to hear your dream meal experience! What would you LOVE to offer your guests at your next event? How can you make it happen?