With 81% of U.S. donors attending nonprofit fundraising events, your organization needs to leverage event-style fundraisers now more than ever. As a nonprofit leader, you know that auctions are among the most engaging fundraisers, and their various formats make them flexible events for your nonprofit’s fundraising needs.
However, from event marketing to item procurement, these events can be complex fundraising ventures. That’s where this guide comes in! We’ll cover everything you need to know to plan a successful silent auction, including:
Silent auctions empower nonprofits to engage their donor communities, spread awareness of their missions, and ultimately raise more. Consider your current fundraising strategy and how a silent auction could enhance it as you read through the following topics.
Imagine this: You offer someone $5 for a book at a garage sale. The owner tells you that someone else has offered $10 for the same book, and now you feel the sudden urge to up your offer and outbid them!
This is the experience at a silent auction. Whereas live auctions offer the classic experience of an auctioneer and a loud gavel, a silent format provides the thrill of secretive, yet competitive, bidding.
A silent auction is a fundraising event in which attendees browse and place bids on auction items at their leisure through paper bid sheets or bidding software. At the end of the bidding period, the highest bid wins the item and the proceeds go to your nonprofit.
In a traditional silent auction, you’ll display items at the event’s venue with enticing descriptions and predetermined starting bids. Auction attendees compete against each other by writing their bids on a paper bid sheet and continuing to check the item and ensure they maintain the highest bid.
Now, with tools like ClickBid’s auction management platform, nonprofits can host silent auctions in a hybrid format or completely online using mobile bidding features. Bidders can fully participate in the auction virtually, completing the following activities from their mobile devices:
Because of the self-driven nature of bidding at a silent auction, you can often supplement these events with other fundraising activities, such as text-to-give campaigns or gala dinners. This means that these auctions aren’t just convenient for your donors—they also offer even more opportunities for your nonprofit to generate revenue for its mission!
Follow these ten steps to successfully plan a silent auction for your nonprofit.
Silent auction management software can streamline every step of your event planning process, which is why it should be your first consideration when you plan a silent auction! To find a solution that will work best for your nonprofit, look for the following features:
An all-inclusive event fundraising platform, like ClickBid, provides all these tools and more, simplifying silent auction planning for your team. With ClickBid’s event fundraising platform, your silent auction will see increased engagement and an improved guest experience.
Before you can host a successful auction, you must establish the milestones that mark event success. Equipped with these clear expectations, your team will be on the same page and have a solid understanding of the event’s progress. Some goals to consider include:
When setting your goals, review the timelines, sizes, and successes or failures of past fundraising events. Then, use these past insights to set reasonable goals. Approach your plans with an expectation of growth, but make sure your new goals are realistic for your team.
There are multiple elements to planning a silent auction, and delegating each of these tasks to a team or individual can help you organize the event planning process. Consider the following roles that you’ll need to fill:
Creating teams to focus on specific aspects of the event ensures each task gets individualized attention. This way, nothing is rushed through or forgotten. Plus, your staff will work together more efficiently when they each have a specific role that contributes to the event’s overall success.
Most silent auction attendees are not major donors, so it’s important to plan your auction around various items and prices to encourage higher involvement from all guests. Find items that appeal to everyone to boost participation from all types of individuals in your audience. For example, you might procure the following items:
Start your item procurement process early to give you and your team enough time to find the best items available. You should also create a wishlist of potential items you believe your donor base would be interested in. Then, send this list to your board members, major donors, corporate partners, and sponsors and encourage them to donate an item to your event.
Another helpful way to procure more items is by reaching out to local businesses. Encouraging them to donate to your fundraising event will create desirable and unique items that your donors will be interested in. If event supporters are unable to contribute specific items from your wishlist, you can also accept monetary donations to purchase items for your silent auction.
Properly pricing your silent auction items is essential to maximize revenue, but it can be a challenging task. Pricing your items too high can reduce bids and pricing them too low risks falling short of your auction fundraising goals.
To guide your item pricing, you should first establish the correct fair market value (FMV), or widely accepted monetary value, for each item. Accurate FMV estimations are crucial because any amount paid for an auction item over the FMV is tax-deductible. This means that when auction participants pay for an item, any amount more than that predetermined value will be tax-deductible, lowering their income tax expenses.Once you’ve established each item’s FMV, choose a starting price of around 30-45% of that value. This is the amount that bidding will start at, but the price will increase with each bid. The last person to place a bid uncontested by another bidder will win the item and purchase it for their final bid amount. In short, each item’s pricing should follow this model:
Depending on the FMV, you can round the starting price:
Setting the correct bid increment also plays a significant role in the success of your silent auction. We recommend the following bid increments for the corresponding FMV:
Although price-setting may seem formulaic, be sure to evaluate your items’ prices with your unique auction in mind. Your bidders’ demographics and the popularity of the item can largely impact the way you present it at your auction.
Silent auction logistics are like the catch-all task of actually running the event. It will likely be an ongoing process with a variety of tasks, such as:
Your event flow directly impacts your guests’ experience—having these details planned ahead of time will help the event go smoothly. Plus, a positive experience at this silent auction could encourage guests to attend future fundraising events, as well.
In today’s world, an online registration page is the best move to easily share your event information with a large number of people. The software that manages your silent auction should have event page capabilities. Use this software to craft event pages that include:
Creating a clear, simple website with your event information will successfully engage your existing supporters and draw in new ones. For some, this event page will be their first interaction with your nonprofit, so creating an easy-to-use, yet attractive page will have a lasting impression.
Incorporating video on your event's registration page can inspire new viewers to become committed supporters and donate to support your mission. By implementing a hybrid event structure, you can allow your entire donor database to participate in your events through video, reaching a greater audience. ClickBid's EventStream feature allows you to stream video directly on the bidding site, allowing you to engage with out-of-town guests and create a memorable experience for those at home.
At this point, you’ve procured most of your items, created your event page, and finalized your event’s logistics. Now, it’s time to spread the word and build some excitement around your silent auction.
Generating attention and steering potential attendees to your event page is one of the most vital parts of your silent auction plan. After all, your event will only be successful if people actually attend!
When it comes to marketing any initiative, we’ve noticed many organizations maximize registrations and boost overall fundraiser revenue by employing multiple outlets for event promotion.
For silent auctions in particular, we recommend leveraging these channels:
No matter what platforms you choose, include a direct link to your event page across all marketing collateral. That way, users will know exactly how to participate once they feel inspired by your messages. In no time, registrations will start rolling in.
Silent auction display sheets are physical sheets that highlight relevant details about each item.
Even if your participants are bidding from their mobile devices, display sheets are important for your bidders to quickly read more information about your items without having to look up the item details from their mobile devices. To help guests familiarize themselves with mobile bidding, you can include printed information about how to bid around your auction items. This information will help guide your bidders and reduce confusion.
With ClickBid, you can easily generate item display cards with the information already uploaded and ready to print. Including QR codes for each item might be helpful for your bidders as well.
You’ll need to follow up after your auction with prompt and genuine appreciation for everyone involved. Immediately thanking those who contributed to your silent auction shows donors, volunteers, and staff members that they made a big impact while the event is still fresh on their minds.
Double the Donation’s guide to donor recognition recommends the following strategies for acknowledging supporters’ gifts:
By preparing your follow-up during the silent auction planning process, you’ll be able to craft thoughtful appreciation efforts instead of sending out messages that feel like an afterthought. Just remember to leave room for personalization in whatever message or gift you send to each attendee.
While you may follow all the right steps to plan a silent auction, there are some additional best practices that can truly unlock auction success:
If this is your first time planning a silent auction, don’t get overwhelmed! Following the steps in this guide and leveraging these additional best practices can help to ensure you don’t miss anything.
Plus, the best practice of all when you plan a silent auction is to learn from your mistakes. If you’ve hosted an auction before, analyze the event’s performance and adjust your approach as necessary.
As with any fundraising event, thorough planning plays a significant role in meeting your fundraising goals. When you plan a silent auction early and stay organized, you’ll guarantee that you make the most of your team’s hard work!
If you’re looking for more resources to aid your auction planning, check out the following guides: