You are already constructing an event fundraiser and that’s a lot of work. Use that as a foundation to catapult the income. Make more money for your cause using these Auctria features.
- Sponsorship sales and promotion
- Solicit auction items from your event website
- Ticket sales
- Raffle sales
- Food and drink tickets
- Dessert dash
- Wine pull, wine wall
- Text-2-give.
- a) Merchandise sales, 9. b) Merchandise Shop, 9. c) Buy-In Parties
- Giving Tuesday
- Tournaments
- Peer-2-peer
1. Sponsorship Sales and Promotion
Sponsorships for your event fundraisers can raise big money. Post on your website for sponsors, you never know who bumps into it and will make a purchase.
If you already accept sponsors but only offline consider utilizing Auctria. Advertising the sponsorship opportunities on the website adds ‘authority’ and purpose to the event. Track the sales on Auctria and then you can show when sponsorships are selling out. Nothing motivates people to make a purchase like seeing another sponsor there. Create FOMO, Fear of Missing Out, it’s true sponsors-beget-sponsors. Make your next event a sold-out one for sponsorships.
If you don’t ask for sponsorships you are leaving money on the table! Businesses may not be able to make a cash donation but they can and will purchase a sponsorship. Typically this comes from their marketing budget and is an easier sale for you.
Auctria set-up for Sponsorship Sales and Promotion:
Many sponsors include admission tickets, if that’s the case for you too you will want to make the Sponsorship a ticket. Use a nice image and create multiple levels of meaningful giving.
2. Solicit auction items from your event website
A hidden gem on the Auctria platform! Solicit for auction items directly from your event website. This works really well for schools where teachers and staff donate their time for parties or activities. Local service providers use this to make a donation and follow up with an e gift-certificate. And even if it’s a product a donor can complete the form to notify the auction team that a donation is waiting for pick-up. Pair this with the donation request letter on the page for a complete self-serve procurement.
Auctria set-up for auction item solicitation:
Use a pre-built element form and let donors provide information for a donation directly on the website. The administrator will get an email notification when the form has been completed. You will need to review the auction item and complete the details such as images, starting bid then approve the item. This page is also where you can add the solicitation letter using the PDF Document Uploader.
3. Ticket Sales
Yes, tickets are included in all Auctria licenses, no separate module to pay for or add on. There is no need to use another platform just to sell tickets.
Most frequently offered ticket options are:
- Single or double ticket
- Table of tickets
- Early bird tickets
- Sponsorships that include tickets
- VIP ticket
Use the description space to include any details for the purchaser
Within the tickets dashboard you can also include meal options, then simply run the reports and hand it over to the catering team.
Sell tickets online and at the door. Using Auctria will then allow you to send e-tickets, statements, manage tables, manage guests. As part of the ticket purchase, a bidder record will be created, again streamlining everything.
Auctria set-up for ticket sales:
Tickets quantity and description is defined by you. Selling tickets online is self-service and easy. If guests need help or show up at the door you can sell from the Sell Ticket page, this is a screenshot of the sell tickets page.
The defaults on the ticket page are probably set to what most organizations will want however you can modify to:
- Send purchaser ticket statement
- Send guests tickets
- Always create bidders for all guests
4. Raffle sales
Some people just LOVE raffles. Adding these to your event fundraiser gives people another chance to donate especially if they don’t see an auction item they love or know they are not going to win.
Bundle raffles for an upsell and larger purchase. So if you offer 1 ticket for $5 you definitely need to offer 5 tickets for $20. Find that sweet spot for your audience. Why just buy one ticket for $5 when you can buy 5 tickets for $20, people will easily peel off a twenty-dollar bill--- if you ask. There is a reason that manufacturers bundle multiples at Costco and Sam’s Club, take a page out of that playbook!
Jumbo raffle tickets are popular on the Auction team talk page. Here are a few examples that were fully sold out this past Spring.
- Win a $2000 Air B&B gift certificate, selling tix at $50 with a max quantity of 100 tickets sold = $5000 sales minus the price of the gift card = net $3000
- Win $500 Amazon gift card, selling $25 tickets, 100 tix sold, net = $2000
Both of these are real examples that sold out prior to the event fundraiser closing. Give this a try for your next event fundraiser!
Auctria set-up for the raffle:
When you set this up, it’s a For sale item. Give it a nice description and set the quantity to make sure you don’t oversell. The draw is that there is a set number of tickets sold. Again, let the system work for you! The registers are open 24/7 so anyone can buy a raffle ticket at any time that is convenient for them.
For raffle bundles create a for sale item, mark it as a basket/package then include the single ticket item and add quantity via the Contents tab. When running the individual sales report you will get multiple line items equivalent to quantity purchased. Print list, pull the raffle, upload to a wheel picker, random generator (NOT part of Auctria)
5. Food and drink tickets
For sale item, nice image, and appropriate pricing. Leave the quantity field empty if there is no limit, or include a quantity if there is one. For instance, maybe only the first 50 of the signature cocktails receive a souvenir glass. Set the quantity to 50 in this example. Make the event fun!!
Sell the drink tickets online, at the door, during the event by kiosk. Simply put it on the bidder’s tab for checkout at the end of the event.
For virtual events, meals can be sold and then delivered to enhance the experience. Working with a caterer or restaurant in advance to plan out the distribution is of utmost importance.
For non-perishables, VIP Swag boxes did well too. Essentially you can price the VIP box at 100% the value of the box, so if it costs $25 to pull it together and sell it for $50 → $25 profit, selling just 50 boxes makes $1250.
6. Dessert Dash
Who doesn’t love a dessert dash?! If you are not familiar with this it’s a blast and a great motivator for donations. At a gala, desserts are on display but it’s the table that raises the most money that gets to choose first. These get VERY competitive and that’s a good thing for your bottom line.
Dessert dash at the event operations. At an event set out a printed bid sheet and each person at the table adds in their donation to the table pool. If you want to go contactless print a Display Page with a QR code, diners can scan the code from their table and make a donation on their mobile device. Again, the table with the highest bids gets to choose first, second highest bid chooses second and so on…
Dessert dash online or virtual event. For an all online event, people like their sweets so give it to them! Dessert dash online is not quite as literal for a virtual event yet it can still be fun. During the virtual event, show the cake or pie, describe the baker or bakery. With the lag in delivery time you can even give the winner a choice of toppings or frosting.
Then bid it up!! We see these go for HUNDREDS of dollars. People want to donate to the cause, give them a SWEET reason to bid and donate! Need to plan to deliver the confectionery within a stated time frame and delivery radius.
7.Wine pull, Wine wall
Wine pull, wine wall, blind pull, they are all similar and bring in significant funds. Buy the wine bottles at retail, sell at a premium and return the unsold inventory.
We have seen not only wine walls but whisky or bourbon walls too. Display in an appealing fashion. Some groups will display the bottles, others will wrap the bottles in brown paper bags making it a blind-pull.
Sell each bottle for a flat amount, most bottles are valued below that price with a few that are premium level. It’s all in fun and everyone is a winner because they get to enjoy the bottle of wine with their meal.
Your charity is the winner too because most wine stores will give you a bulk discount and you are selling the wine above retail price. Check with your venue to be sure they are ok with this in advance!
Auctria set-up for the wine pull, wine wall:
Set-up the wine pull as a for-sale item. Supporters can pay on the website if they want to pre-purchase in advance. It’s an interesting phenomenon, if they buy in advance then when they arrive at the it has already been paid for. entally their balance is zero and they are bidding and buying on a new slate.
At the event, use the Bidding/Sales dashboard to record the purchase with the bidder number and process payment upon checkout.
Most liquor stores will allow you to return unopened bottles so there is very little risk, and more upside for sales.
8. Text-2-give
Texting within the Auctria platform has expanded use. Text-2-give,, register, bid, and now make a purchase with a For-Sale item. Purchases and text-2-donate can optionally send out a link to make an immediate payment online
Texting is great when it’s tied into an event but can also be used stand-alone or with a non-auction event. Your Auctria license is for a full 12 months so text-2-give is also available for a full 12 months! This is great to add on to other events where you have a large audience, just set up a few donations and ask your supporters to donate. Use this for an urgent fund-a-need. It’s the perfect vehicle for donors to give quickly and easily.
9a. Merchandise Sales
Merchandise sales are really broad. We see everything! These can be set up as for for-sale or buy it now. The most popular:
- Swag: T-shirts, cups, mugs, tumblers, magnets
- VIP access, pre-party, networking
- VIP boxes
Buy-in parties also do well as part of the fundraiser. For schools: pizza parties, extra recess, movie night. For community organizations buy into a tea party, private tour of a historical landmark. Anything that is unique, or special sells! Start asking amongst your network for ideas.
9b. Merchandise Shop
Selling items is a part of many types of events, and can be an event all on its own. Whether you are running a spirit store, selling swag, mulligans, games of chance, raffles, or buy-in parties, you can sell it all through Auctria; we see everything! These can be set up as for for-sale or buy it now. The most popular:
- Spirit Store: organization clothing, scarves, mugs, flags, and anything else with your branding on it
- Swag: T-shirts, cups, mugs, tumblers, magnets
- VIP access: pre-party, networking, VIP boxes
9c. Buy-in parties
Buy in parties do well as a part of fundraisers. For schools: pizza parties, extra recess, movie night. For community organizations buy into a tea party, private tour of a historical landmark. Use the Is Event option to enter the event date and have it appear on a calendar on your event catalog.
Anything that is unique, or special sells! Start asking amongst your network for ideas.
10. Giving Tuesday
Giving Tuesday 2021 is November 30th!! With your Auctria license, there is no limit on the number of events you can run. Supporters are already familiar with your website so using Auctria for Giving Tuesday again makes it easy. Auto-create the event with 3 clicks. Gives you a beautiful one-page website so you can be part of the giving. All you have to do is promote with the link.
Auctria set-up for Giving Tuesday:
With Auctria we make the set-up for Giving Tuesday really easy. From the Organization tab → Special → click Giving Tuesday and the GT event is auto set-up with a website
11. Tournaments
Run a tournament with Auctria! The most popular is a golf tournament. This too was an entire webinar. Because you can customize the website so much your golf event can look completely different than your gala.
Having sales ability on the website eliminates the need for expensive printed sales kits constantly needing to be updated and costs way too much for printing!
Selling foursomes instead of individual golfers is just like tables versus individual tickets. remember: it is a lot easier to sell 32 or 36 foursomes than 144 golfers!
Auctria set-up for golf tournament:
Create a “for sale” item for each of your sponsorships and foursome packages and set the quantity so you can track your inventory easily
Be sure to designate the number of golfers (tickets) are associated with each item/package
12. Peer-2-peer
Peer to Peer in a lite fashion. This can be used for ambassador fundraising where you have a peer asking their peers to donate to a cause they believe in.
Ambassadors do most of the campaigning, usually, there are a few to make it competitive, then at the end reveal the winners. Although they are all winners for helping!
Ambassador experience: make it easy for them to share, the top image I have of all the peer ambassadors on a catalog page. When you click through on your favorite peer page it generates a unique page. Have the ambassador share share that page to garner donations. You can connect a thermometer to each peer's donation page for some visual encouragement.
Auctria set-up for peer-2-peer:
Set up a donation item for each ambassador. Add a donation tracker or thermometer to each track of the pledges. Then share the unique ambassador’s page with them to share with their audience.
Want to make it scannable? Print a display page with a QR code. Again fast & streamlined giving. If you are running a virtual event use the QR code to display up on the screen. The faster someone can access the donation page, the faster they can donate!
Open 24 Hours a Day
Best of all, your event website is open 24/7 so bidders, donors, and supporters can contribute to your cause when it is convenient for them. Make it easy to support your organization!
Click for a video demo of website examples of each of these 12 methods