Blog — Stellar Fundraising Auctions

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Do Your Homework on Consignment Packages

Consignment companies serve a valuable role in helping round out live auctions. If your auction is in need of an exciting travel package, or something specific that you have been unable to get donated, purchasing an auction lot from a consignment company is a viable option. However, if you are going to purchase a consignment package, it is important to follow a few simple guidelines.

Only purchase from reputable consignment companies that specialize in working with non-profit auctions. Any consignment company worth dealing with will be able to provide you with references to happy clients, auctions that have sold their packages, and bidders who have taken their trips. If you are going to trust the care and handling of your bidders to a company, their partners, or representatives, you need to know they will be treated well.

Sometimes you need a tropical paradise in your live auction, and have to pay to get it.

The financial goal should be at least double your investment. If a consignment package is going to cost $1,500, your target sale price should be at least $3,000. This means you must know your audience, their desires, and their potential budget. Don’t base the decision to purchase a consignment package on what the consignment company says it is worth or on how well it has performed at other auctions.

Shop around and do your homework. Once you find a package that seems like a fit, ask the consigner if they are the provider or if they are a reseller. If they are a reseller, see if you can go directly to the company that provides the package. There are many resellers out there that simply take other consignment company’s packages, mark them up significantly, and then do their best to market them.

A client recently came to me with a consignment package that seemed familiar at first glance, except it was way more expensive than I remembered. Once I looked a little deeper, I realized it was a consignment package from a different company being offered at two times normal cost. What should have cost my client $1,800 was being “offered” at $3,600. As soon as we figured this out, my client simply switched over to the originating consignment company and purchased the package from them.

Consignment packages can be a useful tool for your live auction, raffle, last hero standing, or silent auction, but only if you do your homework, and make sure the package is going to fit your needs, and not vice versa.

Make a Lot with Sponsor a Spot

One of the most successful fundraising auction trends to emerge post-pandemic is the opportunity to sponsor an experience for someone else. Essentially, it is a lot where multiple donors can enable people served by the charity to do something cool or meaningful. We have typically seen this work well for service organizations that work directly with youth, but it is relevant to other organizations as well.

The lot usually consists of an experience such as attending a professional baseball game. Bidders pay a premium to sponsor individuals served by the charity to attend the event. The first time I encountered a lot like this was pre-pandemic, for a Boys and Girls Club. We had sixteen tickets to an A’s game, and we paired it with transportation and food for each youth, and offered bidders the opportunity to sponsor a youth to attend their first professional ballgame for $1,000 each. It sold out quickly.

Access to professional sports teams is an easy place to start, but there are many other opportunities out there.

Since then, we’ve seen similar opportunities with sailing excursions on the Bay, the SF Giants, the 49’ers, and more. At the Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bay Area event this spring, we sponsored 45 Big/Little matches (90 people total) to attend either a SF Giants or SF 49’ers game at $1,000 per match.

Best of all, this did not negatively impact the fund-a-need. We still had the same number of pledges at the $1,000 level that we had in years past. It underscores that there are different types of donors: those who want to sponsor a very specific outing and those who want to simply give to the organization.  

These examples have been very focused on sports, but there are plenty of other possibilities: a trip to the Theater to see a Broadway show, a behind the scenes visit to the zoo or a museum, private screening of a film, and more.

The intent is to offer people access to something that would be meaningful to them – both donor and recipient. If you can partner with an organization and create an event that maps well to your people and your mission, you will be tapping into new potential at your next event.

Summer Olympics in Paris, 2024: How to get the Hottest Lot in Your Auction this Year

The auction lots that sell best are those that offer access to your bidders. Access to that which they could not otherwise obtain or access to relationships they wouldn’t otherwise be able to build. Professional sports championships and – every four years – the Summer Olympics usually do exceptionally well in most auctions.

And while the Summer Olympics are always popular, in 2024 the Olympics are going to be in Paris, one of the most desirable destinations in the world. If you could acquire tickets to the Olympics now, and build a package around them for next summer, it would be a huge addition to your auction in 2023.

Obtaining tickets is always a challenge. You can register for a drawing to “win” the right to purchase tickets by registering on the Paris 2024 website. They will be drawing winners until March 15th, and offering each winner a finite amount of time to purchase tickets for various competitions.

The list of available sports and rounds of competition are varied and very few Gold Medal opportunities are going to be offered in this drawing. But you could still easily build a very compelling Summer Olympic package for as little as $30/ticket.

Tickets to the Olympics may also be available to high-level Visa card holders. It is worth exploring perks and offers to see if any of your supporters are able to get tickets for you.

Once you have the tickets, accommodations are the next obvious challenge. As of this writing (2/15/23), AirBnb had not implemented surge pricing yet for Paris. I was able to find a number of flats and apartments available in very reasonable price ranges. Hotels are currently only booking through June of 2024, so pricing remains to be seen .

Is this all a long-shot? Yes. Would it be worth it if it came through? Absolutely. The best auction lots, after all, offer access to the otherwise unobtainable, and the Olympics are the pinnacle of hard to get events.

The Most Exciting Auction Lots of 2022

After two years of pandemic, 2022 marked an almost complete return to in-person fundraising, and the re-emergence of live auction “irrational philanthropy.” Crowds were excited to be back in the room together, and auction committees pulled out all the stops to put together creative and enticing auction lots, making it the perfect time to bring back our annual tradition of recapping the most exciting auction lots of the year.

The types of lots that succeeded had varied greatly through the first two years of the pandemic. This year, trips were back in full force, as people started traveling again and pent-up demand for vacations revealed itself in bidding behavior. In-person entertainment opportunities also reclaimed a top spot in auction popularity and profitability. People really want to be social, engage and interact. It follows that buy-in lots (also known as “buy-a-spots,” “count me ins” or “pay to play parties”) have emerged as one of the most popular and exciting live auction lots in 2022.

Get creative! The most exciting auction lots don’t have to be expensive, they just need to offer exclusive access to experiences, relationships or both.

This year’s list of exciting auction lots includes a sampling of each of the above, as well as some experiences and relationship-based lots. For the purposes of this list, “exciting” is an arbitrary assignation focused on each lot’s uniqueness, creativity, and the buzz generated at the event. Sale price impacts the decision, but only relative to how other lots sold at the same event. I have, however, included some opening bids and final sale prices for the very first time in this series.

Knowing where bidding started and where it ended up can help understand how exciting the bidding was for some lots. The single most exciting and memorable auction lot of 2022 was a lot that underscores how sometimes it is not the content of the lot, but the intentions of the bidders that makes for an exciting auction.

But comparing pricing between events can become a dangerous, and ultimately unhealthy, practice. Don’t get hung up on how much other events make, and instead utilize this list to create fun and exciting lots of your own! The goal of this list is to help inspire creativity (and profitability!) at your fundraising auction.

And with no further preamble, here are the most exciting fundraising auction lots of 2022 (click on the + symbol to the right to expand each lot’s description):

I’ve included that final “bonus lot” because it was, quite honestly, the most exciting lot I sold all year. Sometimes it isn’t the value of the lot, but the commitment of the bidders that creates excitement, and it serves as a good reminder that it isn’t just what you have to sell, but who you have to bid on it. So create exciting auction lots, and bring in the bidders to make that excitement happen.