Online Charity Auctions for Nonprofits

Planning a silent auction involves many moving parts, so don’t try to go it alone. Your development team can get help from volunteers and Board members. Auctions are fun events, and many supporters will be interested in helping.

You’ll need key people in these areas when forming your auction committee:

• Event Planning: If you’re hosting a live event, several event planning tasks must be considered. Booking the venue, determining the menu or catering options, organizing auction day volunteers, and more.
• Item Procurement: You’ll need at least one individual or a small team to procure auction items. Be sure to find people who are comfortable asking for donations for this role – as this is key to your auction’s success.
• Marketing: Marketing and PR are vital to your event’s success. Be sure that your marketing team considers online promotion, like email campaigns and social media, as well as traditional and community advertising.

This is a critical step to the success of your silent auction’s bottom line. The items you secure for your auction are those people purchase, thus bringing in the money for your cause. The more unique and valuable the auction items are, the more money they will bring in. You will also want to be sure the items you choose to auction off work with the vision of your organization and the theme of your event (i.e., it would not make sense for an animal shelter fundraiser to auction off fur jackets).

First, you’ll want to reach out to the community, businesses, local celebrities, and any networks you have to receive donated items, talents, or treasures to auction. Examples of popular donated auction items include:

• Gift certificates from local businesses of all kinds
• Hotel stays or vacation packages
• Spa treatments – manicures, massages, and more
• Autographed CDs, movies, or pictures from famous people
• Sports-team memorabilia
• Antiques or unique artwork
• Dinner for two gift certificates from local restaurants
• Donations of time and talent from local community members, such as free piano or crafts lessons, handyman for a day, and more

Don’t limit your auction procurement to only in-kind donations. Consider including high-ticket items such as vacation getaways, even if you need to purchase them. Don’t worry, you often don’t have to pay for these items upfront, and they can add a lot of value to your charity auction. Check out our no risk vacation packages to find out how you can include high-ticket items that bring in large donations without taking on any risk.

The next step is effectively spreading the word about your online charity auction or silent auction event. Encourage employees, sponsors, and supporters to share information with their network of family, friends, and associates. They can easily post announcements on their social networking pages with a link to your online auction, helping drive traffic to your auction website.

Your organization will need to promote the auction with the following tasks:

• Distribute a press release to local media announcing the event and auction website where online bids can be made. Make sure to highlight any special one-of-a-kind items such as antiques, rare artwork, or celebrity-autographed merchandise.
• Post announcements on your organization’s website.
• Send email invitations to your constituents.
• Create event flyers to post on community bulletins.
• Research community calendars for opportunities to post nonprofit fundraising events.

If your silent auction is part of another fundraising event, you’ll want to promote the silent auction at the actual event as well. Consider printing a silent auction program that lists all items up for bid, including photos, descriptions, and starting bids. Distribute this at the start of your event as a quick preview of what items are available to spark attendees’ interest. This will likely send them to the display table to review the items and place bids.

After the silent auction wraps up, the first thing you’ll want to do is to review the goals and objectives you established prior to hosting your event. See if you’ve accomplished what you’d hoped and determine how to do better next time.

• What items drew the most bids?
• What procurement strategies worked?
• What marketing efforts brought in new supporters?
• How was the auction website?
• How much money did you raise?
• Was it fun, and will your bidders return?

If you did not outline metrics for success before your event, you can still use these guidelines to help you evaluate your event and plan to use these as parameters for establishing fundraising strategies and goals for future events.

The auction item procurement process is critical to your auction’s success. Keep your audience and mind, and know what you want. The most popular charity auction items include:

While most organizations start with in-kind donations, you don’t want to limit the success of your fundraiser to only what you can get donated.

We offer unique travel packages for your charity auctions. These packages will allow your organization to save valuable time procuring those much sought-after auction items. Our charity auction items are offered on consignment – if your reserve is not met, the items aren’t sold.

See Our Auction Travel Packages