Last time I counted, there are 157 factors you need to satisfy so that you can make certain your silent auction will rock. Covering all of those could make for a hideously lengthy weblog publish, so I’m going to talk approximately a trifling three factors.
I’m calling it “the best, the terrible, and the unsightly.”
The Good
One of the smaller auctions I paintings donations for silent auction items has approximately 2 hundred visitors. Year after 12 months this group has constantly managed to make their silent public sale cute. How do they do it? One factor they do fantastically properly is to offer fetching displays with clear signage.
Imagine, 12 wines, none of which might be overly high priced. Tagged as “Screw Top Elegance,” the amusing field flirts with bidders. But the nonprofit does not depend upon that on my own. They offer honestly displayed signage list the wines to make it oh-so-easy for guests to recognize the package deal.
The Bad
Two years in the past I labored a silent auction in a five-megastar assets. Many components of the night stung my heart. The committee was quick on volunteers so despite securing some nice donations, many objects by no means reached their sale ability.
Case in point: Lovely candlesticks with the bid sheet in front of them. Stop before you bid. Read that bid sheet and you will research that dance classes – no longer candlesticks – are on the market. The candlesticks have been part of the inn’s decor and befell to live on that desk.
Deceiving displays confuse visitors.
Even if you get high bids, you chance headaches at test-out when a guest says, “I didn’t bid on dance classes. I bid on candlesticks.”
The Ugly
How many objects are you able to match on an 8′ desk?
More than I ever dreamed! Yikes! I have visible a few too many gadgets for a silent public sale desk.
Crowding and doubling up objects on a desk isn’t always an awesome manner to give your applications. Sometimes our auctions are restrained via the quantity of space we’ve. Either we want to ante up and rent a larger venue, or decrease the auction. When presented with an overcrowded silent auction table, visitors can emerge as beaten. Some may not prevent to look at any of the gadgets… Others would possibly stand in a single spot for all time, stopping others from viewing.
Space it out to spiff it up. You’ll have a more potent backside line performance.
Benefit auctioneer Sherry Truhlar’s testimonies and recommendation has been published in publications (e.G. Town & Country, The Washington Post Magazine, AUCTIONEER, The Eleusis, The Virginia Auctioneer) and heard on tv (e.G. E! Style, TLC) in which she inspires and teaches volunteers the way to hit new fundraising facts in their auction galas.