I JUST WANTED TO SAY THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP. I HAVE DECIDED I AM GOING TO DO BOTH. IT WILL BE SOMETHING DIFFERENT AND SINCE I'M THE ONE WHO ALWAYS HAS TO GET THE DONATIONS, I THINK I CAN COME UP WITH A FEW GOOD ONES AND IT WILL GIVE THE TEACHERS SOME FUN STUFF TO DO FOR FALL FESTIVAL. AGAIN I WANT TO THANK ALL OF YOU FOR ANSWERING ALL MY QUESTIONS.
We have always done a Holiday Basket Raffle where each class is given a theme to bring in products. Because of our city laws, we sell tootsie rolls for a $1 and you receive a free raffle ticket.
Recently, in our survey, we had some teachers suggest that we do the auction vs the raffle because of their religious beliefs, they do not believe in "gambling". I thought it was a great idea,however, we bring in $1100 in the raffle and we don't think we can do that well with the silent auction????
the money speaks louder than words right now so we'll have to discuss this at our first few meetings.
I think a lot of it has to do with regional cultures--around these parts people want to feel like they're getting a bargain. There's NO way they'd bid $200 on ONE item--but they'll spend that much on Tricky Tray tickets to increase their chances of winning more than one thing.
I think a lot has to do with the marketing and advertising of the event as well.
We do a combination. We usually have 50-70 or so auction items that include all the class baskets plus anything we can get donated.
From this set, we choose a few popular items for the drawing/raffle. Ours always includes either Lunch-with-the-Principal or Principal's-Helper-For-A-Day. Which ever of those we do is a 50 cent kid-only item. We also use one of the more popular baskets like bath & beauty. Then we pick 2 or 3 of the most popular items.
This year we took a bunch of the casual dining certificates and free appetize coupons and put them all together into a $100 value "dine-around" that was one of the raffle items. We also chose a bicycle and a small TV. It seems like we get $75-$100 for each raffle jar (not counting the kids only one-it makes less).
Our entire auction only raises $2000-$3000, and $400-$500 comes from the raffle items. So the mix works well.
We replaced our raffle with a silent auction this past school year. There were minimum bids for each basket(the auction committee looked at the retail value of each item and tried to determine a price that would be fair and still have the potential of giving the bidder a great deal.
Our only problem was that the baskets were all quite expensive and it eliminated the possiblilty of participation for many people. We are going to try to make some changes to eliminate that from happening next year. The lat thing you want is hurt feelings.
oh hg I like that 50% idea, we might have to add that to the end of ours this year.
I forgot to mention we raised about 1500 bucks and had 24 baskets, so we got about $62.00 a basket, and thats with a school of 593 kids.
As far as how much to put in each basket, whatever each class brings we stuff the baskets with, some classes have to have 2 baskets (raffled individually) because so much stuff is donated, parents don't mind sending in the little cost stuff so you can possibly get a lot of items, depending on that theme.
If you do decide to auction them off and you have a $50.00 basket, you have a starting bid say $15.00 or $20.00, thats how you can secure the fact you'll get possibly more then the basket is worth. For us its hard to estimate the exact worth of the basket becuase parents do not send in the cost of each item. If you requested that, then it would be easier to figure out the worth (lol yea obvious statement).
Also if you know the exact amt, again say $50.00 and it goes for over the amt its worth, the IRS requires you to give the purchaser your tax id number so they can claim the amt they paid over the retail value for their taxes. I'm not 100% thats for silent auctions AND raffles (I know for raffles) but you can go to the irs website and type in Publication 526 and that is their rules for such things.
