A silent auction is a popular fundraising method for nonprofit and charity organizations because it can be very effective. While they may be tricky to pull off, they can produce a high return for your nonprofit when done correctly.
Silent auctions are also highly interactive, meaning they provide an excellent opportunity to engage with your donors and supporters. This leads to stronger donor relationships, which can result in more regular donations to your cause.
If you’re looking to up your fundraising game and build better relationships with your donors, here are the best strategies for running a silent auction.
One of the most important aspects of any auction is the items. It is essential to think about what your donors would want to bid on. If your items don’t appeal to your donors, you’re unlikely to see many high bids.
Choose items that line up with your supporter’s interests and make sure that they fall within their price range. To run a successful auction of any kind, you need to know your audience.
If you’re using an auction platform, do some research and find out what type of items have been performed the best in past auctions.
It’s also a good idea to auction off some items that are rare or one-of-a-kind. The scarcity of items makes them more appealing and encourages people to bid so that they don’t miss out on the opportunity. For inspiration, check out our blog on unique silent auction ideas.
The presentation of your room and items is an important consideration. Make sure that you arrange your room so that there is a good flow of movement. If the auction tables are blocked by crowds of people, bidders are going to struggle to make their bids or check on items that they want.
It’s also a good idea to arrange your room so that bidders have to walk through the silent-auction set up on the way to get drinks. People will naturally peruse the items and make more bids. Make sure to draw attention to the bidding tables with signage, visual displays, and announcements.
Displaying all the items in a catalog is a great way to spark interest and let people know exactly what items are available. Place these so that people can easily see or access them at your silent auction.
It’s important that your bid sheets are clear and have readily available pens for people to use. You don’t want to miss out on any bids because someone couldn’t find a pen!
To make things easier for everyone involved, mobile bidding is an excellent tool to utilize for silent auctions. It eliminates the need for multiple clipboards with bid sheets and pens. People can make their bids straight from their smartphones or tablets.
Mobile bidding software offers multiple benefits when running a silent auction. It makes it easy for bidders to pay, notifies them when they’ve been outbid, and automatically organizes important data for the host.
With mobile bidding, the closing of the auction is a much quicker process. You can find the highest bidder for each item easily - no more sifting through bidding sheets! This means you can leave the auction items open for longer to maximize bidding.
Motivating your supporters with simple 'gamification' tools can help you make the most of your silent auction.
By using things like an auction progress bar, digital badges, or a leaderboard, you can help your attendees feel more involved and create a sense of excitement and competition.
Usually, if a bidder really wants an item, they would need to constantly go back and forth to check on it and make sure that they outbid their competitors. To make it easier for them, you should include a Buy-It-Now option at about 150-200% of the item’s fair market value (FMV).
That way, your bidder gets what they want, and you still get more for the item. It’s a win-win situation. For this kind of strategy to be effective, make it available on unique, rare items or ones with emotional appeal. This will entice people to want to buy it immediately!
Having a live event can be quite restrictive. Not everyone who is interested in your nonprofit’s cause will be able to attend your silent auction. Things like location, date, and time can get in the way of how many people attend. Allowing for people to bid remotely can help maximize your fundraising efforts.
This broadens the reach of your silent auction. You can set it up so that remote bidding runs in real-time along with your event. Then, people from all over can bid at the same time as the silent auction attendees. Having more people able to bid will raise the number of bids, thereby increasing the funds raised.
Setting minimum bid increments is a must for any silent auction. The best way to work out the minimum bid increment for an item is to set it at 10-15% of the item's FMV. Then, start the bidding from about 50-60% of its FMV.
This will help you to set your silent auction up for success. Don’t leave it up to the bidders to put in the amounts or the bidding could go up in tiny increments and you’ll never reach your target amount.
Many bids are made within the last few minutes of an auction. Announcing the close of the auction about 10 minutes in advance and then counting it down as the end draws near is a great way to generate excitement and get people to place their last bids before it’s too late.
Running a silent auction can take a lot of planning and hard work. But, if you do it correctly and use these strategies, you can make the most out of your nonprofit’s fundraising efforts.
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