How a fundraising auction is introduced tells the crowd a lot about what is to come. Successful events carefully map out the transition to the auction, ensuring that we’re building momentum to an important moment for the evening and the organization.

Occasionally, however, instead of setting the stage for success the person who introduces the auction (and auctioneer) sends a completely different message. Here, then, are the top 5 least successful ways to introduce a fundraising auction (all of which we’ve experienced at real galas):

1. “I hate to interrupt your dinner, but it’s time to do the auction.”
2. “I know everyone is having a good time, but…”
3. “Boy, has anyone else’s 401k/portfolio taken as brutal a hit as mine did this last week? Seriously. I’m glad to see so many people given how bad the economy is…”
4. “There’s going to be some dancing later, we’ve got a great band, so just sit through this and we’ll get to the fun part.”
5. “I know we all go to a ton of these auctions, but we really need your money tonight.”

And while a bad introduction for the auction and auctioneer isn’t the end of the world, it certainly doesn’t set the right tone from the onset. Of course, nothing will ever match the angry volunteer who hid the microphones for a full 40 minutes so that we couldn’t even start a particular auction, but that is another story altogether.

A successful fund a need builds on itself, creating a momentum that sweeps up the whole audience and brings them together in the act of making something good happen in the world. Every pledge in a successful fund a need begets more pledges, which in turn beget even more pledges, and so on. This momentum builds on itself, becoming autocatalytic.

The momentum of fund a needs can seem easy to create or sustain, especially if you’ve been part of a truly successful fund a need as an audience participant. But to make it happen, three key components need to be in place.

1. There needs to be an honest and emotionally engaging need that challenges the crowd to rise to an appropriate level.
2. The crowd needs to buy-in to the fund a need, literally and figuratively.
3. The fund a need must be delivered and administered properly.

We always work hard with our clients to make sure we are developing an appeal that is going to best serve the event. Finding needs that help tell a slightly different story about the organization - but are still true to the mission of the organization - and challenging with an appropriately set “bar” are both crucial components.

If your crowd is capable of raising $100,000 but you only challenge them to raise $60,000 you are leaving money on the table, and under-estimating their compassion. On the other side, if you have the same crowd but announce that you want to raise $175,000 they will think you are crazy…or greedy (which is worse).

Getting the audience to buy-in requires determining if your need is the right one through pre-planning conversations with donors, and obtaining lead donors in advance. If table hosts and table captains have all been tasked with “setting an example” during the fund a need, their guests will take notice and join in.

Finally, there is the delivery of the fund a need. Until recently I always took for granted the feeling of a successful fund a need in the middle of a good auction. We work hard to build momentum to the point where we can then turn to the crowd and simply ask them to do good by making pledges. Recently, however, I was witness to a fund a need done by someone who was not a professional fundraiser - and the results were less than I would have expected if I was on the stage running that portion of the show.

Without the right agent on stage helping the process along, the autocatalytic nature of the fund a need fails. The momentum slows, the crowd loses interest, and worse yet - they stop making pledges. Philanthropic goodwill is a finite resource that exists at your event for only the briefest moment of time; fail to capture it, and it disappears. Get everyone on board with your cause but fail to fuel the fire and build momentum, and the money you save from not hiring a professional will seem paltry compared to the money you let walk out the door when an amateur bumbles his way through it.

2011 is starting auspiciously. The auction season began in mid-January, and the first month has shown very promising returns. The most prominent, of course, was the Naples Wine Auction, which raised over $12 million for local charities. This is a return to pre-recession numbers, having fallen to a low of approx. $5 million in 2008.

Things are looking up! This is not surprising. For those whose wealth is dependent more on stocks than salary, this has been a wonderful couple of years. The Dow is in spitting distance of its all-time highs.

Even though times are improving, they have not returned to the Halcyon days of 2006 – 2007, and it may be many years before they do. While the wealthy are making donations approaching those they made in times past, their attitude to their donations has changed. The days when an auctioneer could say to the audience that they should raise their bid because “It’s ONLY money” are over. Everyone is taking their donations more seriously.

I have a couple of hypothesis for this:

1) Even though the stock market has return to its previous heights, many people are still in shock about the speed and steepness of the drop. As anyone who has lived through a major earthquake knows, you never look at “Solid Earth” the same way again.

2) The well-heeled know that there are going to be even greater demands on their generosity in the next few years. There is no major area of Philanthropy that is not going to adversely affected by the new economic realities of both the Federal and State budget cuts.

One way this appears at auction is the continued absence of “What the Heck” money. It was common at auction to have a regular group of bidders who were prepared to bid virtually any auction lot up to a set level. They came to make a donation and did not seem to care that much about what they won. This meant that there was plenty of activity at the opening bids for each lot. Now the initial two bidders are often the only bidders for the lot. This has kept auctions at the “three minute a lot” pace.

More importantly bidders are insisting on “better” events. Frequently, the only contact many of the audience have with your organization is the event they are attending. The event becomes the only way for them to judge whether you have earned their donation. If you cannot throw a successful special event then they will not trust you with their valued philanthropic dollars

Being “better” does necessarily mean being more elaborate, in fact he crowd will react negatively if the event appears to wasting money, rather I would suggest that they want the event to provide “emotional satisfaction” more than “performance overload”.

Your supporters will reward your efforts but this is no time for complacency.

Making Waves: An Alternative View of Fundraising Auctions

Reynolds & Buckley is offering a series of workshops throughout the United States. Our next will be in Miami on Thursday, February 3, 2011, at Jungle Island in the Arboretum Ballroom.

At this workshop, fundraising event experts from Reynolds & Buckley and Greater Giving (formerly Auctionpay) will share insights gained during almost 30 years on the auction circuit, address the fundraising challenges facing non-profits in 2011, and offer valuable ways to help improve your current auction or successfully launch a new one.

“The workshop yesterday was fantastic!!  My husband & I both walked out of there feeling really excited & rejuvenated with many great new ideas!”

Auction and Special Events Coordinator, Make-A-Wish Foundation

While attending this interactive gathering, you will learn about the “fundraising wave” concept, including how to enhance:

•     The clarity and force of your message
•     The commitment and loyalty of your audience
•     The philanthropic potential of that audience
•     The excitement generated by the auction lots
•     The sense of community at the event
•     The pleasure the audience derives from the event

In addition, the workshop will cover the practical details that are essential to supporting your event and sustaining momentum, including:

•     Interactive marketing and social media to drive donor engagement
•     Fundraising software
•     Check-in and check-out
•     Sound and light
•     Catalog options
•     Presentation choices
•     Food and beverage decisions

The afternoon portion of the workshop will be devoted to round-table discussions addressing specific challenges faced by attendees.  The deadline to sign up for this workshop is Monday, January 31st, 2011, and you can register here.

“David Reynolds has auctioneered 4 consecutive successful events for us, each time out-performing the last, and leaving our guests wanting for more.  We wouldn’t consider doing Off the Vine without the team from Reynolds & Buckley!”

Auction Chair, All Saints Episcopal School, Tyler, TX

Thursday, February 3, 2011 - Miami, FL
10:00 am - 3:00 pm, Check-in begins at 9:30 am.
Location: Jungle Island, Arboretum Ballroom
1111 Parrot Jungle Trail
Miami, FL 33132
Cost: $75.00
Fee includes parking and luncheon. To register, click here.

Morning coffee and lunch will be provided at both workshops. Contact Jacquelyn Wells at 707.953.2834 or by email at jacquelyn@reynolds-buckley.com.

Reynolds & Buckley, LLC is licensed to conduct fundraising auctions in Florida.

Fundraising auctions are like theater productions in many ways, especially in the amount of forgiveness the audience will show for transgressions large or small. “One of the great things about audiences,” says writer Jack Hitt, “especially in a live theater production, is they are very forgiving, they want the show to work. ”

Like theater attendees, your audience arrives wanting you to succeed, and will forgive many errors in the course of an evening before even considering turning on you. But when a fundraising crowd does turn on an event or organization the results are devastating, especially for the organization depending upon raising money that evening.

When a crowd turns on an event it becomes a fiasco, and there is nothing more brutal, humiliating, or disappointing than to be involved in putting on a fiasco. Years ago NPR’s This American Life did an entire show dedicated to fiascos. The podcast of Fiasco is available online here, and worth listening to: no matter how badly any event you’ve ever done, odds are it does not compare to the fiasco they highlight.

In the 300+ auctions I’ve done in the past seven years, I’ve been lucky to only be involved in one true fiasco; it was painful. I can pinpoint the exact moment that the crowd finally gave up on supporting the cause, and opted simply to party on. It was at the fund a need, and it was a case where the organization made many small mistakes that culminated in a complete tune-out on the part of the audience.

The video presentation for the fund a need was off-message at best, and offensive at worst. In the video pitch to raise money to serve a minority population of latin children in the community, we featured a comedic clip of an age-old Latin stereotype: Ricky Ricardo. I’m sure the clip was hilarious in the editing room, but it had no place in a fund a need pitch and marked the final error that turned that crowd against us.

Instead of going into all of the gory details of that event, let’s focus on some key lessons from that event that can help make sure your event succeeds:

• Use your audience’s time efficiently: give them time to network, but then get to the heart of your program. Limit speakers to a few minutes each, eliminate unnecessary talking heads, do your auction during dinner.
• Stick to your timeline: altering your timeline to serve some emergency need will only disrupt the flow of the event, and possibly cost you your audience. Asking your audience to sit down 30 minutes early, for example, without discussing it with your caterer first will only ensure that your crowd gets to sit an extra 30 minutes without food.
• Be respectful of your audience’s attention: constantly interrupting your crowd’s networking time to make minor announcements (”The silent auction is closing in 25 minutes”) will only irritate the audience and make them less inclined to pay attention when you need it most.
• Figure out who your speakers are going to be in advance, and make sure they know that they will be speaking to the crowd that night. If this sounds silly to you, good. But I’ve encountered situations where the person introducing the auction (a VERY important job, mind you) found out a few minutes before they were meant to go on stage. And they weren’t good at public speaking. And they didn’t know what to say.
• Craft a consistent message for your event, and ensure all speakers are in tune with that message.
• Preview any and all media, videos, presentations, etc. before showing them to your audience. If, for example, you are going to show a video for your fund a need pitch, make sure it is on-message and not offensive.

As NPR said in the story, “Audiences are forgiving. One or two mistakes, even big ones, like this, they are going to let that ride.” And a fiasco might not even feel like such to the audience, they might simply tune out and party throughout your auction and fund a need. But the last thing you want is to feel like your event is a fiasco when you calculate the bottom line.

When thinking about the list of potential lots for your live auction, there are many ways to lay out your data. Some people work in spreadsheets, others like to use Greater Giving’s software. Whatever methodology you choose, the goal is to be able to see in an instant what your live auction looks like.

A great example of this is the live auction “mood board,” a wonderfully simple way to break down an auction in its entirety. Every auction lot is written down on a 3×5 card, and the colors of each card correspond to a particular category of auction item. Yellow = trips, green = adventures, pink = special access and so on.

The event chair who introduced me to this concept carried her mood board with her to every meeting she had on the auction. The photo to the left was taken in a booth at Rosso Pizza & Wine Bar in Santa Rosa, which had the added benefit of making for a great reminder to the restaurant owner that he hadn’t gotten his auction lot in yet.

The mood board is especially useful for ensuring you don’t overload your event on any one type of auction lot. The above board is very balanced, with a few more trips than other types of lots - but in planning we knew that and knew that the crowd would support it. If, however, more than half of the board was yellow, we would have known we were in trouble.

The goal is simply to make sure that in a snapshot you can see and communicate exactly where your auction is, and what your auction needs. What tactics do you use for managing your potential auction lots?

What does surfing a 25-foot wave have to do with active bidding at your fundraising auction? How is event planning like a storm over the Pacific? Join Reynolds & Buckley Fundraising Auctions, along with Greater Giving (formerly AuctionPay) for a seminar entitled Making Waves: An Alternative View of Fundraising Auctions at the new Pavilion By the Bay on Treasure Island.

Click here to register for this four-hour workshop featuring nationally acclaimed auctioneer and consultant David Reynolds and his dynamic auctioneer teammates Greg Quiroga and Ed Gold as well as company mainstays Colleen Buckley and Jacquelyn Wells. Together, we will share insights gained on the auction circuit and address the challenges faced in 2010 for non-profit fundraising.

We will also highlight the parallels between the work you put into your fundraising event and the energy harnessed by surfers in the ocean. The result? A unique new lens for re-examining your current event or for preparing to launch a new auction.

In our seminar we will thoroughly explore the concept of the “fundraising wave,” and look closely at the elements that give it power:
• The clarity and force of your message.
• The commitment of your attendees.
• The loyalty of the audience.
• The giving potential in the room.
• The excitement generated by the auction lots.
• The sense of community at the event.
• The pleasure derived from the event.

We’ll also look at the “shoals” of an event, or the accumulation of all the practical decisions made prior to it:
• Computer software.
• Check-in and checkout.
• Sound and light.
• Catalog options.
• PowerPoint choices.
• Food and beverage decisions.

Click here to register for the workshop, there is a $30 registration fee, which includes a buffet lunch provided by Wine Valley Catering. Registration deadline is February 16, 2010!

Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Time: 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Place: Pavilion By the Bay on Treasure Island
For: Executive directors, board members, development staff and other volunteers involved with fundraising auctions.

Click here to register online for this Reynolds & Buckley workshop, or for more information contact Jacquelyn Wells at (707) 953-2834, or via email at jacquelyn@reynolds-buckley.com

All of the fees associated with this workshop cover costs for the hosting the workshop. Reynolds & Buckley receives no compensation for its participation in this event. All supplies and equipment donated by Classic Party Rentals.

Almost every event has a series of speakers who make their way to the podium pull out a crumpled sheet of paper and “make a speech.” Some are dynamic presenters and some…not so much. Sometimes the flow of the evening is determined by these people, instead of the other way around. And what your speakers say is critical to the success of the evening.

At an event last year three people - a CEO, a board member, and a celebrity - got up before the auction and proceeded to hammer out a message of “the economy sucks…..we’re all broke….we need to tighten our belts, etc. etc.” As I stood off to the side of the stage, I could feel the energy in the room drain and actually saw people put their paddles on the floor. I do not suggest that anybody pretend that things are peachy keen, but there’s no need for three consecutive speakers to take the wind out of anybody’s philanthropic sail.  A message of needed support and acknowledgment of difficult times can both be addressed.

Along with content, length is also a concern. One painfully long thankyou speech by an honoree at a large event in San Francisco actually delayed the evening by 30 minutes! The following year the organization video-taped the acceptance speech for that year’s recipient. Then they projected it on the large screens and let the honoree come up on stage, get the award, say thank you and return to his seat.

It’s obviously a tricky matter when it comes to editing or controlling people’s speeches. But your guests will appreciate it if you take the time to offer your speakers a well placed word about brevity when discussing their speeches.  Everyone’s goal should be for the audience to still have plenty of energy and enthusiasm left by the time the auction starts to keep those paddles waving.

As a profession, auctioneering has long had performance tied to compensation. Auctioneers have based their worth, literally, on their ability to market and sell assets for their clients. This makes complete sense in the world of antiquities, fine art, liquidations, estate sales, vehicle auctions, real estate auctions and the like, but it is unconscionable in the world of charity fundraising auctions.

A good collectibles auctioneer, for example, has an established system of creating a market for the extremely niche goods they bring to auction, and it is the capability of the auction house to create that market that earns them a commission. Sellers take their high-end antiques, art and collectibles to Bonhams and Butterfields because Bonhams has an established reputation and client base. Bonhams earns their commission on each and every piece they sell because they create a market within which they can sell each and every piece for top dollar.

The logic of paying a commission breaks down, however, with fundraising auctions. Fundraising auctioneers don’t single-handedly create the market at charity events. We don’t advertise the sale, nor pretend to be able to bring the bidders to the table. As fundraising consultants we work with clients to help hone best practices of bidder and donor development, and we put on an engaging show that raises top dollar at the event. But we would never attempt to claim that we are solely responsible for the bidders who come, or the attitude they bring with them.

Bidders at charity events support causes: they overpay for things they don’t need because the money is serving the greater good. Consider the bidder we frequently see at Bay Area events who will often indicate that he wants to pay more than the final sale price on an item, because he didn’t think it sold for high enough. As we’re announcing his paddle number and the amount he bought the item for he will shake his head and indicate that he wants to pay more than that, often jumping his own bid up a thousand dollars or more.

No auctioneer deserves to earn more because of a bidder’s commitment to an organization.

Charging a commission also muddles the motivation of the auctioneer. My goal at each and every event I do is to make as much money as possible for the charity, while maintaining a sense of goodwill with the bidders. That last part is crucial, because for an event to be successful the big bidders have to want to come back and do the event again next year. I could easily get more money out of each crowd I work with, but any crowd that felt as if they’d been bled dry would never want to come back and support that organization again.

Furthermore, there is no way of knowing when two big bidders are going to show up and battle it out over a particular auction lot. There are a few philanthropists in the world who are prone to showing up at various fundraising auctions willing to bid heavily through the auction, often spending more than $25,000 on  single lots.

If one such philanthropist happened to show up at an event I was doing and drove the overall price of the auction up $100,000 it does not mean I am inherently worth $10,000 more that particular evening (But it would be awesome for the charity!). Perhaps the greatest affront of all is the fact that there are auctioneers out there who charge commissions on the “Fund a Need” portion of an auction, but that topic alone is worth its own post, coming soon.