People have choices. People choose to participate or not. I was president of H.A.S.A. this year. In July, I started making calls to replace some chair people that were not returning. We normally have some type of dinner event. The mom that has chaired it for the past 2 years was moving. Other people that had worked with her would not step up. Finally in August, I was talking to a mom that I've known for seven years. She said she'd help out if need be, but she'd want it to be a much bigger event and adult only. She hooked up with a fairly new parent to the school (2 years). I gave them the okay to go ahead with this event. They started planning in September and we just had our first ever dinner/auction event. Our vice president and secretary were not hot on the idea. Some people from past dinners signed up to be on the committee until the first meeting and they found out how different it was going to be. The goal for our first year was $10,000. The loud auction alone made $12,758. The total event brought in $25,000. We had 53 out of 143 families attend. Many people brought extended family and friends... The funny thing is that all of those people that were so negative about the whole thing and CHOSE to exclude themselves, their children are sure going to benefit from that money just as much as the peoples children that busted butt to make this so successful.
I don’t understand what you mean by "some felt excluded". Can you give more specifics & details?
15% turnout does sound pretty low. Sounds like you need more publicity, for example, more flyers (2-4 times that are taken home by the students). Does your school have a website, if so promote all activities and events on the website. Better yet, develop an email list of all parents, and send email flyers & publicity about the auction event. What about a large poster in front of the school for say 2 weeks before the auction. Does the school have a large sign board in front of the school to announce events and activities? Take advantage of local newspapers, radio & TV to publicize (this is usually a free service).
You should also use the flyers and communications to parents to solicit more donations for items to sell. Perhaps you could organize a "calling tree" to telephone parents to both publicize the auction as well as to solicit for donations, and even for volunteers.
Don't forget to invite grandparents too. Some of them will spend higher than the parents for items the class or students make.
Hello out there I am a new board member. We just held our silent auction. However since then I have heard complaints of that many people felt excluded from participating (we had about 15% turnout, it was an adults only event) because of the organizers were viewed as part of a clique. Any advice for next year? Has anyone experienced this?
