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Live Charity Auction

A charity auction is another really great fundraiser event that has the ability to be extremely profitable.

Of course, like any event, it also takes a large amount of work to make it successful! But if you handle it correctly and have enough helping hands, you'll have a rewarding fundraiser that will bring in those much needed funds.

I personally would recommend an online auction fundraiser through Bidding For Good before a live auction. This is due to quite a few benefits that an online auction has over a live one...

But obviously many people prefer to have the authenticity and experience of a live fundraiser auction. There is also a personal touch to a live auction that is missed out with an online one.

And of course, a live charity auction can fit into almost any event as well. Obviously the size of the auction will depend on the size of the event!

So where do you start?

Firstly I'd suggest you look through the Charity-how-to.com recordings to see some of the excellent webinars and videos that they have on running auctions.

Sherry Truhlar has hosted some of them and she's definitely the right person to learn about auctions from!

Charity Auction Team Or Volunteers:

Your first step will be to make sure you have a team of helpers or volunteers. If you don't, you'll need to recruit.

Don't try to run a charity auction without help. There is just way too much to do by yourself and you won't get it done successfully!

Draw up a to-do checklist and share the jobs out evenly among your team. Obviously then tick off the jobs as they are completed. This will help you keep on track with what needs to be done!

You may also want to use a professional events manager to help with the organizing. But this will obviously depend on how big your auction is going to be and how confident you are with you own organizational skills!

Find and Solicit Auction Items:

You will then need to sit down and brainstorm what items your supporters and the general public will most want. Draw up a list of items that would be most desirable for your auction.

The better and more in demand your products are, the more profitable your charity auction will be.

Then get your committee or volunteers to reach out to friends, family, supporters, local businesses, national/international businesses, shops, or to anyone able to donate something, and request donations of auction items from them.

Remember to inform possible donors that they will receive publicity by having their items auctioned at you charity fundraising auctions. This will be good encouragement for people to donate auction items.

Charity Auction Gathering

Generally items that are relevant to your cause, its supporters, the time of the year (ex. Christmas), or the auctions theme (if you have one) will be most profitable! So consider this when you are trying to find auction items.

Some of the most successful items are vacation trips, major events tickets, discount cards, limited organization apparel, gift cards and jewellery.

Professional Auctioneer:

I think that it's very important that you hire a professional auctioneer. Try get one to do it for free but if you can't, I'd suggest you still pay the fee and get one.

Having a professional auctioneer will help boost your bids and profits by a large amount. The costs of having one will be worthwhile the profits you make because of him or her!

So definitely use a professional Auctioneer.

Another way to boost publicity and profits is by getting a celebrity in to auction off a few of the items.

Advertise And Market:

The most important thing to a charity auction is the marketing and advertising of it...

Publicity is the key!

It's not good enough to just get great items that people will go mad to bid on... You actually have to let people know that they are there! You need to raise as much publicity as possible!

So, use all the usual advertising methods and a few others...

Use word of mouth.

Advertise through your website and your newsletter.

Send out press releases to local newspapers and online press release sites.

Use Facebook by announcing it on your Facebook page, setting up an event, and inviting all your Facebook contacts to take part and to forward on that invitation.

Use twitter and ask your followers to forward your tweets on about your auction.

Post adverts on high traffic classified ad sites like CraigsList.com. A definite must-do.

And of course, always be creative and look to come up with your own marketing ideas that will really boost your events publicity.

Remember that you should start your advertising ahead of time so that people are well aware of your live charity auction and when it is going to happen.

Make It Fun And Thank Everyone:

Lastly, but just as important as the other parts you need to make your charity auction event as fun as possible.

The more people enjoy the event... the more they'll bid... the more they'll spend... and the more chance that they'll come back again next time, while spreading the word to all the friends as well!!!

So having a FUN auction is a must do.

And then of course making sure that everyone is thanked properly is also very important!

Make sure that everyone who has helped out or taken part is thanked profusely and that they feel appreciated! They will be grateful for that appreciation...

And once again... grateful people are always willing to help out again!

I'd highly recommend you grab a copy of this excellent resource on running fundraising events to help with the organizing of your events.