Knowing how to Showcase the Right Charity Auction Items
Planning a fundraiser for your non-profit is one thing, advertising your fundraiser can feel like a whole different animal.
But here is the secret to successful auction fundraising and planning – Are you ready for this? Your fundraising planning and advertising tasks work hand in hand.
In other words, the planning of the event should help the advertising and your advertising should help your planning. Too many small organizations wear themselves thin by thinking about event planning and advertising in two separate categories. They try to devote 100% of their attention on event planning to then turn around and attempt to give 100% to their advertising. This may cause latency in promotion. Other organizations have two separate teams for event planning and advertising, leaving their event less cohesive and less effective.
How does one find a balance between planning and advertising? And how does one find a way to make both aspects of an auction work hand in hand?
Easy – Follow these three steps:
1. Pick your Items – The best items are those with an experience or unique value.
Here at Charity Fundraising, we know the success of a nonprofit charity auction is determined by the success of the auction items. If you have good benefit auction items for your present donor base, and you sell your items for high bids, then your night is successful!
You want unique items that you can’t buy anywhere else. Items of an “experience” are far better than something with a tangible price tag.
The most successful “experience” to tap into for your audience is past experiences. People relate to the things they are interested in. And people’s prized past experiences are invaluable to them – they cannot be taken away. What does this mean? It means that they will already be excited about what you have to offer if you offer them a memento. New experiences are fun, but there are endless opportunities to “experience more.”
Autographed memorabilia, like autographed guitars from the bands your donors listened to in their glory days is insurmountable.
2. Advertise Your Auction Items Before the Event.
Picking your auction items in the very beginning is important because all planning and advertising should go around your items. Your silent auction items become the “middle man” between your event planning and your advertising. It is the preverbal glue that holds your event together. If people want to come to your event, they care about your cause and they trust the brand you have created. Your Mission Statement and your cause will be featured enough – what gets donors excited to bid is a peaked interest in the items for grabs.
Placing descriptions or a short list in the invitations or mailings before the event gives people time to see what they would want to purchase at the actual event. Waiting to showcase any of your auction items until the event takes place, no matter how great the items are, can be too spontaneous for some donors.
Using your efforts in advertising to help plan your auction items by way of catalog for your donors helps you maximize your time, stay cohesive in your planning and advertising, and it helps generate word of mouth and enthusiasm for certain items well in advance of the auction.
3. Advertise Your Auction Items At the Event.
Advertising doesn’t stop until the entire event is over. This is another reason why thinking about event planning and advertising together helps the success of your auction. It’s very important to have your auction items clearly understood and seen during your event. Detailed list or descriptions of the items being sold in the auction and on the tables at the event are necessary.
You need to take advantage of every opportunity to play up these items before a willing crowd.
Need more tips on how to make your auction fundraiser successful? Contact Charity Fundraising at https://www.cfr1.org/
