I think the answer depends on the folks in your community. If it is a private affluent situation you can probably get close to the value of your item (without raffeling it). Our folks are looking for a bargin. My experience leads me to believe in a starting bid value (not too high to scare off bidders but enough to keep it worth it). Some items will sell for more than their worth and others for less. If your items are donated and overhead is low it is all profit (even the $50 item that goes for $10).
Incidentally, we held a cash raffel at our silent auction where the winner took 50% of our pot. We threw in a bunch of dinners from local restaurants ,skating passes , etc to make it easier for people to hand over $10 per ticket (stuff that wouldn't make much selling on their own or bundled in a package). We also had a stack of free appetizer cards that we gave out to the first 10 people (helpful). We netted $350 without any real work. We just had a friendly and loud seller announcing the pot value. We performed the drawing at the close of the silent auction which allowed a few minutes to pull together the bid sheets. Tickets drawn for the mini-prizes were held to the side and thrown back into the pot for the grand prize drawing. This may really sound like small potatoes... but the work involved was nominal. Our resources were stretched to the max and this basically got us an additional 350 for little to no effort at all... and it was fun. Good luck.
we have each class pick a theme and have parents send in items pertaining to that theme. We raffle them off at our carnival. Each ticket is 1.00. Keep in mind your chairty gaming commission rules. I know in Indiana if you have a raffle under 1000.00 (net worth of items) you have to fill out a form, over 1000.00 you need a license. An auction, silent or live, is not regulated by them so you don't have to do anything.
I HAVE BEEN WATCHING THE BOARD AND SEVERVAL PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT DOING A SILENT AUCTION WITH BASKETS. MY QUESTION IS THIS WOULDN'T YOU MAKE MORE MONEY IF YOU RAFFLE A BASKET? FOR EXAMPLE, IF I HAVE A $50 BASKET, HOW WOULD I KEEP IT FROM SELLING FOR $10? :confused: ALSO HOW DO YOU DECIDE HOW MUCH TO PUT INTO A BASKET? WE MADE ABOUT $1,000 RAFFLEING OFF 4 ITEMS LAST YEAR AND I'M THINKING OF PITCHING THE SILENT AUCTION TO THE PTO BUT I NEED TO MAKE THE MOST MONEY FOR THE LEAST EFFORT.
