Are you thinking about running a silent auction for your nonprofit? Silent auctions are a great way to make the event engaging for your donors while still helping your nonprofit reach its fundraising goals. Auctria has the tips you need for running a successful fundraiser!
So, What IS a Silent Auction?
A silent auction is an auction, typically one for charity, in which people bid for items in writing or by electronic means rather than by calling out or raising their hands.
Each attendee is assigned a bidder number before the auction begins. Each auction item has a big sheet placed in front of it and bidders will place “silent bids” by writing their bidder number and amount bid on each sheet for a set amount of time.
This keeps the atmosphere calm and social while also providing bidders anonymity regarding what they bid on during the event. When time is called, the bid sheets are collected and the highest bidder is determined as the winner.
Why Should a Nonprofit Run a Silent Auction?
Silent auctions are a great way to engage your donors in a fun, interactive way without the stress and chaos of a vocal auction. Remember: any auction is only as good as its items! Sourcing unique experiences, one-of-a-kind items, exciting gifts from local businesses, and other enticing bidding items will up the competition at your auction - which, in turn, ups the amount of money your fundraiser will make for your nonprofit.
Silent auctions allow you to explain your mission and show off the impact your nonprofit has made while providing donors an opportunity to contribute to a cause they care about while socializing, having fun, and maybe winning a few exciting items at the same time.
With the right preparation, a silent auction can be a fun, engaging, and effective way for nonprofits to raise awareness, funds, and support for their mission!
What Makes a Successful Silent Auction?
Successful silent auctions require organization, planning, and solid execution. Once you’ve secured high-quality bidding items, you’ll still need to:
- Market your event
- Create an event and auction website
- Create a user-friendly bidding system
- Create your event management team
Thankfully, Auctria can help!
Market Your Event Fundraiser
If you’re stressed out by the idea of tackling social media and other marketing platforms to get the word out about your event, read our article on Effective Marketing for a Silent Auction Fundraiser. We cover how to best utilize social media, email, and word of mouth to ensure you host a successful event.
Create a Website
Auctria makes silent auctions powerful with our easy-to-use event and auction websites. We help you organize the entire auction process from the first day of procurement to the last bidder receipt - and everything in between. Learn more about how Auctria's tools can be used for powerful event wesbite to support your silent auction here.
Create a Bidding System
No need to start from scratch. Using a platform with extensive resources on choosing a user-friendly bidding system makes it easy to create and bidders to use. You’ll want to find a system that isn’t confusing for your guests but also isn’t an overwhelming amount of work for you and your team. Check out our article on Silent Bid Sheets here to learn more about blank bid sheets, customized bid sheets, bid sheets with display pages, and mobile bidding options.
Build Your Team
When it comes to building your team, make sure you choose reliable, detail-oriented team members who will help you pull off the best event day-of! You’ll want organized people who can help reduce the stress of planning and running the event. Define the roles and responsibilities Diverse skills of the volunteers only enhance the outcome of the fundraiser. Consider splitting or combining duties depending upon the number and type of volunteers that step forward.
Additionally, choosing team members who are passionate and knowledgeable about your nonprofits mission means they’ll be great resources during planning and when working with guests, potential donors, potential partners, and more.
They should know your supporters well enough to give you suggestions on how to craft an event tailored to your audience. They should also know the mission inside and out so that they can pitch it effectively to potential partners to convince them to provide bidding items, as well as being able to clearly explain the mission to any guests with questions during the event.
Having a team you can count on will help your event run smoothly, increasing guests' trust in you and your nonprofit - which will increase their willingness to bid on items and donate to your cause!
Here are our Three Easy Tips for a Successful Silent Auction:
- Start Planning Early
- Keep Things Running Smoothly
- Reach Out Afterwards!
1. Start Planning Early
Remember how we said any auction is only as good as its items? Sourcing high-quality items for your donors to bid on can take a long time. You’ll need to have or build relationships with other local businesses, organizations, and more before you can convince them to donate items to your fundraiser. Don’t lose out on raising more money for your nonprofit because you waited til the last minute to look for items!
The logistics of the event also take a lot of time to plan. You’ll need to form your team, set a clear goal for the fundraiser, find an event space, build a website, market your event…whew! It’s a lot! But it’s all achievable if you start well in advance, giving yourself time to get the details right and deal with any unexpected delays or complications.
2. Keep Things Running Smoothly
On the day of the event, your biggest priority should be ensuring every guest, donor, and partner has an amazing time. Even if they don’t donate or win a bid, you want them to walk away saying, “Wow, that was so fun! I can’t wait for the next auction”. This is a great opportunity to engage people and make them dedicated supporters of your nonprofit!
If you’ve put the proper amount of time into your planning and surrounded yourself with a capable team, you should be good to go. Take a deep breath, be attentive, and calmly handle any complications that arise day-of. No event goes perfectly - but a well-run event will keep guests from ever knowing what went wrong.
3. Reach Out Afterwards
Some articles recommend reaching out to winning bidders after so that you can encourage continued engagement with your nonprofit. We have to ask: why not reach out to everyone, winner or no?
Every single guest at your event is a potential life-long supporter of your nonprofit and its mission. They clearly were interested enough in your mission and event to attend - so don’t miss out on an opportunity to keep them engaged and convert them to dedicated supporters!
For winning bidders, you’ll want to reach out to thank them for their donation and to provide tax-deductible information.
For item donors, reach out to thank them for donating their item(s) - and perhaps even emphasize how popular their item may have been! Let them know if you’ll be planning more auctions in the future and that you look forward to working with them again.
For non-winning bidders, thank them for bidding and encourage them to consider a separate donation to your nonprofit if they’d still like to support you.
For guests who didn’t place a bid, reach out to thank them for attending. It may also be a good idea to send a short survey gathering data on why they didn’t bid - were the bids too expensive for their taste? Were the items not of interest? This is valuable data for future auctions!
For all of your attendees, add them to your email list and encourage them to follow you on social media if they don’t already. This will keep them engaged with your nonprofit, let them know about future events, and increase the chances that you’ll receive further donations from them.
Examples of Successful Silent Auctions (and Why):
We’ve helped many organizations plan, organize, and run successful auction events. Read about all our successful events on our Spotlight page! Let’s take a look at a few of our favorites.
Church of the Rock’s Pie Auction
Church of the Rock has raised millions of dollars auctioning pies - although they started small, making just $800 in their first auction in 1997. If there’s one thing they’ve learned, it’s that being organized and having a solid plan leads to success! They have their auctions down to a precise process.
One tip you can use in your planning: start promoting the next auction as soon as the first one is complete! As soon as the auction finishes, make sure to reach out to all attendees, bidders, donors, and partners with details about how much was raised, what the most popular items were, and how the funds will be utilized.
In between the events, keep everyone updated on how the funds are being used: if you buy supplies, fund a trip, or build something, make sure to share that with everyone!
Make sure details about the next auction are easy to find on your organization’s website, including details about where the funds are going and any important sign up dates for the next event.
Learn more about the Pie Auction here.
The Bangor Symphony Orchestra Soiree Fundraiser
When the Bangor Symphony Orchestra moved their auction from in-person to online, they knew it was a great opportunity to compare the results to previous years.
They provided a similar number of auction items for bidding but the winning bids were much higher and engaged a broader audience. The differences included providing thank you gifts, adding Bid Extensions (to prevent sniping), and offering multiples of popular auction items.
Bid Extension (previously known as anti-sniping) means that auction items that receive last minute bids have the bidding time extended automatically. This gives the previous bidder more time to re-bid. Bid extension notification is unique to online bidding because the bidders receive immediate outbid notifications.
At an in-person silent auction, bidders would have to hover over their most wanted bid sheets instead of being able to enjoy the social activities, making it a less satisfying experience. With Bangor’s shift to an online auction, this conflict was removed, bids went up, and attendee satisfaction increased.
Bids increase over the course of the auction. However, only the highest bid wins and is awarded the auction item. Some people who were outbid might be willing to pay the winning bid amount. Additionally, some donors may be willing to donate multiple items. How do you capitalize on that? Offer multiples!
See what else Bangor Symphony Orchestra learned about their event in the full write-up here.
Want to see how other organizations are using Auctria to power their fundraisers? Check out our Public Auction and Fundraising Events page! This page features live updates with currently active events so you can see exactly how other nonprofits are running their events.
Curious to see how Auctria can help your nonprofit successfully execute your next event? Try Auctria for free today to run an example event, explore the guest experience, and more. Click here to learn more!