Tips for a Successful Silent Auction

We recently attended a casual school fundraising event that was run so well it made $25k with no live auction or attendance price.  The committee behind the silent auction did an incredible job and we thought we'd share some of the tricks they used to bring in the cash.

• Publish items in advance - Creating a thorough description of the items that will be available for the auction at least one week in advance allows guests to pick out some favorites they plan to bid on
• Ask for participation - If this is a church or school fund raiser your attendees are probably happy to donate various items they own (like a vacation share, gift cards or wine).  Some really prefer to participate this way over asking retailers to donate
• Round Tables - Round tables work very well if you have more than 10 auction items.  Your guests can mill around admiring and conversing - rather than feeling crowded along a straight row of tables (often along a back wall)
• Create groups of items - Little items like a manicure at the neighborhood spot, a facial at a salon and a high end bottle of lotion make a great set - alone, not so impressive
• Stagger the Closing - Close the tables from one side of the room to the other in ten minute increments - rather than shutting down the auction all at once, you can announce, "Three minutes left to bid on the items on Table #2" and see a rush of your bidders to see what they're winning
• The Bid Paper - At each item you'll have a sheet of paper for guests to write their names and bid amount.  I found it enticing to see a detailed description of the item at the top of the sheet - not just "spa package".  Always have a pen at every item (need to make it easy, easy to participate). 
• Charitable Reminder - At some point in the evening it's helpful to have one of the leaders prod the group a bit and remind them what their contributions will provide to the community.
• Classy Raffle - Rather than walk around with the roll of tickets and try to sell these for $5, offer the opportunity to purchase a "key" to open something really high end.  In this case it was a pair of $4k earings and the "keys" were $400 (since money went to a school people were happy to donate). The audience watches at the end of the night as each buyer walks up to a box to try her key.
• Vino- Because we're in Northern California everyone has vineyards - right?  Well we do love our wine and this auction team asked everyone involved to donate 1-2 good bottles of wine which were then grouped into three baskets with a description of the wines printed in front of the basket.  The value of the baskets were $400-$700 which created an easy $2000 profit for the event right there.

Enjoy your Auction planning and please share any other silent auction tips you have on this post.