It's the final stretch and completely normal to feel nervous energy. It’s time to trust your planning, dial down the stress, and use these resources to help you maximize your fundraising.
Create great item display sheets. Your auction item display sheets should include everything someone needs to bid. Include all the details of the item – with pictures, if they’re helpful – and information on how to bid.
Ace your seating plan. Having a strategic plan in place for where and how you seat people at the event, will allow you to put the bigger donors towards the front in preparation for all their bids and paddle raises.
Open the auction early, online. If you’re having a silent auction it doesn’t hurt to start bidding early! Opening your silent auction gets guests excited for your event, familiarizes them with the mobile bidding platform, and encourages them to start spending! This allows you to start event night with money already raised. You don’t want to open the auction more than a week in advance of your event. You do want to encourage guests to share the auction with others who might be interested in supporting the organization but cannot attend.
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It is essential that you make sure everyone knows where they’re assigned, and when and how to move from one role to another during the night. Having the run-of-show for everyone will be a big help as the event goes along.
Set up your volunteers for success with specific instructions, tasks, and scheduling. Volunteers are best when they know what they are responsible to be doing and can contribute to the success of the event without learning a new skill.
Consider working with a rideshare or valet service to make for easier entrance and departure to your event.
Set up break room for vendors and volunteers
Always check your A/V and lighting
Connecting auctioneer/MC to other staff for necessary details
You’ve planned brilliantly, but anything can still happen. Give yourself the flexibility to make decisions on the fly and maximize every fundraising opportunity as it arises.
Silent auction tips: On event day you’ll need to be proactive and think on your feet. If you’re approaching the end time of your auction, but see that guests are furiously bidding, extend it! It will be your call how long, but see if you can keep up the momentum, and make a bit more money. The same can be said for an auction that maybe hasn’t quite met its goal. Extend the auction and have the host go on stage and run through great items that still need bids, while simultaneously sending that text message (with a link to those items) to guests.
Raffle tips: If you have a raffle happening and would like to see more action, again, have the host make an announcement and simultaneously send a text message with a link to the raffle tickets, or instructions to where the raffle station is located.
Anytime someone is giving instructions on stage regarding fundraising, it’s a great idea to utilize the text communication tool. Interact with guests in real-time, making it as easy as possible for them to give.
Live auction tip: If you’re having a live auction it’s a good idea to ask donors ahead of time if you can duplicate the item they’ve donated. This is a great trick to have on hand so that if a bidding war levels out on a great item, you can then ask both donors if they’d like to give $2,000 for those courtside seats. This then brings in $4,000 instead of $2,000. This isn’t always possible, but it’s good backup intel to have!
