Great ideas and I will use them! Thank you so much for sharing them. Do you limit the number of items you place in a silent auction? What are good numbers? What about the number of raffle items? We had 100 people register last year. I thought we would have a bigger turn out. Made $8,000 after expenses though, very pleased. A parent donated a 2 month old 60" Big Screen TV that brought in $2 grand!! That's a once in a lifetime donation item. Can you also answer my questions here? Very grateful!!
At ours, we quickly found it just wasn't worth putting out the small items valued at $15 or less. So like the others, we had good success with combinations. We also used them for raffles, door prizes, and bingo prizes.
One of our most popular times, we put together two baskets of dining out coupons - each worth about $100. We made a festive poster for a "Dine-Around-Town" and used one basket as raffle and one as an auction.
We also combined similar services like maybe an inexpensive hair cut & manicure from another place.
Sometimes, we'd get an eatery that would give us a big stack of coupons or free-desert-with-appetizer kind of certificate. If they didn't really work for the event, we saved them for a teacher appreciation activity.
Actually, at my kids' grade school, we had parents bid more than the value of the gift certificate. i was surprised myself the first time that I saw it, but it happened a lot.
My kids have always attended parochial schools, which have a mandatory fundraising fee attached to the tuition. At the grade school, 90% of whatever you spent at the auction was credited towards your mandatory tuition fee. Since it was $150/child, with a maximum of $300, most people spent a lot at the auction in order to eliminate their fundraising obligations throughout the year. (the auction was held in the fall)
I never spent more myself. Just couldn't bring myself to do it. I know that others do it when they believe in the charity. I guess I just have never been in a place in my life where I can afford to do that.
Another option for gift ceritifcates is to make them raffle items. No body is going to bid higher than face value on a GC. And bundling them into baskets isn't always the answer, as baskets can quickly become very valuable (face value) and thus out of range for some guests. So, we put out little boxes in front of each GC and sell tickets for $1 each. Guests put their tickets in the appropriate box for a chance on the item. We almost ALWAYS collect more tickets than face value of the GC. We set up the raffle tables in their own area in the midst of the silent auction tables.
We are having the classrooms do theme baskets so including would be doable.
What do you typically bring in on a $25 GC to Michael's, for instance? What % of the value is typically brought in?
Thanks for your help!
