Your 2021 Guide to a Silent Auction

Step 1: Establishing an Auction Committee

In planning or running a silent auction, having volunteers and a team is essential. This committee will handle key tasks, from planning to choosing and setting up the venue, securing donations, marketing the auction and until the actual auction event. Everything from planning to taking action will be done by the auction committee. 

When setting up this committee, it’s important to recruit only the best volunteers – excited, dedicated and strong people. With the range of activities needed to be done, the team should be powerful and organised enough to do what’s on the to-do lists. Who are these people and where can they be found? Check your email list; they can be your previous donors, past volunteers, board members and ambassadors. A group from your workplace or the neighbourhood may also be interested.

To recruit people effectively, you should well explain the event, the good cause behind it, where proceeds will go and how they can contribute to making the auction happen successfully.

Step 2: Selecting a Time and Venue for the Silent Auction

A venue space should comfortably accommodate the guests and allow them to move through the auction. It’s an appropriate and affordable place that should be planned out and booked months before the event. If it’s going to be online, the site that will host the fundraising programme should also be carefully studied prior to the auction.

For the in-person silent auction, the following factors can be taken into account when looking for a venue:

• Price
• Accessibility
• Number of attendees 
• Large space or area to display the auctions items in an organised manner
• The ambience of the place
• Internet connectivity for silent auction software or mobile bidding

Step 3: Procuring Items to Sell

Silent auction items are one key to the success of the event. Most of the fundraising comes from the highest bids on the items. Hence, one should pick out only the best, most appealing items to auction off. 

Although having a variety of items may appeal to more attendees and result in more bids, do not over-procure silent auction items. It may overwhelm the bidders and affect the profitability of the event. If it can’t be avoided, packaging them into bundles can also be enticing for bidders.

To better understand what items should you secure, reviewing the past auction history, if you have done one before, will be helpful. Look for the most popular, most profitable and top seller items. Consider also the audience and their interest, passion or hobbies. Make sure they will be excited about the items. You would also want to mind about the supporter’s or bidder’s general price range to ensure that they will have the capacity to bid.

Another kind of item that does best among the bidding crowd is those rare, unique items. Who wouldn’t want a one-of-a-kind item that is hard to find? Having these items will surely give them the urge to place a bid.

Where should you procure items? 

Helping Hand Group has access to a range of top selling auction items that can be used for your silent auction fundraiser to help you achieve the best results at your auction.

It can be a long and grueling process attempting to procure items for your auction, however we take care of each and every aspect of your fundraising event, offering everything from exciting auction items, professional charity auctioneers, and event planning staff, and you don’t pay a thing. How does that work? Our services are provided at no cost, and the framework for that is simple: we provide auction items to you on consignment, and only see a profit when those items are purchased at your event.

Step 4: Promoting the Silent Auction

No matter how good your cause is and how appealing your items are, they will be nothing if they are not advertised. Your supporters must know about the event. 

In the age of the Internet, promoting an auction event is made easy on different channels, such as social media. These platforms should all be utilised to your advantage. Promoting a silent auction through a variety of channels will encourage a wider range of audience. Nevertheless, sending physical invitations or via direct email to people is still a good way of getting the word out.

When advertising, the items to be auctioned off can also be advertised so people will be more enticed to bid. When they see what’s up for bidding, they are likely to participate in the event. In doing this, make sure to use high-quality images and good labels or descriptions on the items.

In summary, the following relevant information should be included when promoting the event:

• Details of the silent auction
• A brief description of the beneficiary or non-profit organisation
• The names and numbers of items to be auctioned off
• Descriptions of the items, including any restrictions 
• The starting bid amount and the market value of each item (for donors who will claim charitable tax deductions)
• High-quality photos of the individual item (if applicable).
• Sponsor advertising.

Step 5: Creating the Registration and Claiming Process

Procedures for checking-in and checking-out of the items should be organised to minimise guest confusion. It will also help in ensuring good traffic flow throughout the event. 

With regard to registration, attendees can pre-register and submit their payment details early. During the actual event, a booth can be set up at the venue to handle all pre-registrations, new registrations and other queries. It’s in the registration where silent auction rules are introduced before they start bidding. These rules can also be printed if fundraising software won’t be used.

Moreover, our staff are trained to handle the registration and claiming process with ease to ensure that as many items as possible are sold successfully during the event.

Step 6: Pricing and Organising the Silent Auction Items

It’s important to organise your auction items in advance of the event. They should be prepared beforehand by pricing and categorising them.

Varying the costs of starting bid for different items is a good practice. This will encourage more attendees to bid. Some may hesitate to bid if it’s out of their budget. When pricing the items, you can ask supporters to estimate the value of intangible items. Meanwhile, the prices of tangible ones can be easily researched to provide fair market value [14].

After making sure that all items are clean and in good condition, check if there are items that will appeal to men, others for women and even for children. Sort them out. Having a variety of products will increase the chance of success for the auction.

Once organised, bid sheets can be created for each of the items. This may include the name of the item, a short description of it and the name of the donor. Beneath the information, there should be a series of numbered, blank lines for people to write their bids. A clipboard to support the bid sheet and a hanging pen should be prepared for easy writing. Additional auction items may also become available at the last minute so extra blank copies of the bid sheets should be printed. 

However, bid sheets may not be necessary if mobile bidding will be used. Mobile bidding makes bidding easier; it allows guests to bid even if they are mingling with friends or eating their food.

Step 7: Determining the Rules and Procedures for Bidding

Before the auction day, bidding process rules should be clearly laid out. This will ensure a smooth bidding process flow during the auction. Some of the considerations when determining the rules and procedures for bidding are as follows:

• Duration of the auction
• Minimum bid requirements
• Minimum bid increments
• Closing or making of final bids
• Whether bids can be altered or withdrawn

Step 8: Setting Up the Venue

All the planning and preparations you made before you come to the point of setting up a venue will surely pay off. All of those will make it easier to prepare the place for the auction.

A large number of volunteers will be important when it comes to setting up the place. You will need strong hands to arrange tables and items and make sure they are presentable enough. Generally, tables of items are placed around the walls of the venues so that people can easily move around and browse on the items. Having a spacious space will be advantageous for this setup. Nevertheless, limited space can also work with staff creativity on setting up. People should also be designated to greet the guests, handle the registration, take charge of the additional logistical needs and be in the claim booth for bidding winners.

Step 9: Closing the Silent Auction

Whether it’s a pre-planned or a spontaneous ending, closing the auction is important. When it’s spontaneous, the attendees will keep on bidding as they don’t know when it will come to a close unless you announce it. When it’s pre-planned, countdown timers can be used to encourage last-minute bids. 

When it’s time to end the silent auction, bidding sheets should be collected, and the winning bidder for each item should be announced. If a mobile bidding software is used, it will automatically confirm the winning bids.

Step 10: Following Up With Attendees

Don’t forget to follow up your guests. This is a crucial action step as it will help you gain attendees in your future events. You can thank them for their support by sending thank-you notes, saying how their monetary donations will help the organisation in funding your good cause. With this seemingly small act, your donors, sponsors and other attendees may feel valued. This follow up will further strengthen your relationship with them. Also, you should not forget to thank the staff and volunteers who work hard for the event.

Every auction is different. After one is done, consider spending time to evaluate how it went and how it could be improved. You can also ask your attendees to fill out a quick survey to assess your event and help improve future auctions.