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.

When the economy took a nose-dive in 2008 it made fundraising an even greater challenge. In 2009, it was clear that message that was king. As donors began making choices between potential events, cutting back on the number of auctions they attended, it was the events that effectively communicated their message in advance of the auction succeeded.

Successful events in 2009 were able to empower an audience to make a difference in the world by attending their event. Highly effective messaging led to highly motivated crowds who came prepared to help change the world, one bid at a time. But any event that took its audience for granted last year suffered dire consequences.

2010 is barely underway and the spring fundraising auction season has yet to arrive, but it is obvious that  organizations are going to have to work harder than ever to create meaningful and profitable fundraising events. Message will be important this year, but it will no longer be enough just to get a solid message together and use it to bring potential donors to your event. Successful events will need to create and celebrate a community that comes together to make something positive happen in the world.

Schools have an advantage in this respect because they have a built-in community, and they make the easiest example upon which to draw. Parents have a deep-rooted belief in the value of their children’s school, and most understand how important the auction is to the school. Successful school auctions are a chance for the parent-body to come together, party, and make something good happen for the school. At successful school auctions the big bidders are celebrated and the fund a need is the emotional high-point of the evening.

If your event doesn’t have a built-in community it simply means that you have to work harder to create a community. Community can exist year-round, it can come together for one night or an extended event. We’ll drill down into more specifics on how to succesfully create community at an event in upcoming posts, but the grand overview is that you have to find a way to bring people together to help you.

You have to make your attendees feel that they are an important part of your “family”, no matter what size check they write that night (the power of the fund a need is its ability to turn a mass of small pledges into incredible change, after all). You have to make attendees want to come back and do it again every year, and hopefully bring more friends. They need to look forward to the event, the gathering of people it represents, and the difference it enables them to make in the world.

In other words, donors not only want to make a difference, they want to surround themselves with people who are committed to making that same difference - at least once a year.

At a recent planning meeting where we were discussing repeat auction lots for an event, it came out that one of the donors felt seriously slighted because their lot was never redeemed. A buyer had paid top-dollar for the lot at the auction, and had yet to cash it in with the expiration date looming. The donor felt slighted, and was inclined not to make the donation again.

According to our calculations, as many as 40% of all auction lots purchased at fundraising auctions go unredeemed. This isn’t a function of the desirability of the lots being offered at fundraising events, but a reflection of the nature of supporting causes through auction purchases. People who make a purchase at a fundraising auction do so first and foremost because they believe in the cause; the desirability of the lot simply justifies getting caught up in the heat of the moment and (hopefully) overpaying.

Buyers assume that 100% of the money is going to the organization putting on the auction: if they don’t redeem the lot they will have still made a good donation to the cause. Most buyers also support more than just one cause, and often have shoeboxes full of certificates they keep meaning to redeem. Buyers aren’t trying to slight donors, they simply lead busy lives and have scheduling conflicts.

It is understandable that some who donate lots to an auction most often do so because they really were looking forward to making their event happen. There are a lot of possible solutions, such as putting the donor in direct contact with the buyer to coordinate the event, but they are all fraught with potential for disaster.

The simple solutions is to assure donors that their donation is loved: by you and the people who bought it. Their donation helped raise significant amounts of money for a cause they believe in. If the buyers haven’t taken them up on their generosity yet, it is not a reflection of how wonderful their lot is. It’s just more proof that we all lead insanely busy lives, and sometimes making time to show up and buy the lot is a major accomplishment, let alone making the lot happen.

Obviously messaging matters!  The trouble is that at times you have no control over what is going to be said.  Two examples spring to mind:

In the last couple of weeks we have done fundraisers for three different enviromental groups.  Each event was introduced by a great speaker.  Two of the speakers worked for the organizations and were conscious that we would be moving from their speech into a fundraiser.  The third speaker has a national reputation and gave a condensed version of a speech he gives around the country.

I want to stress that all three speeches were riveting.  The difference was that at two of them, the two where the speaker was conscious that this was a fundraiser,  their presentation ended with an achievable call to action.  The national speaker, who was the scariest of the three, made the case that to save the environment requires a techtonic shift in our political consciousness and the commitment trillions of dollars.  While that may well be true, it reduces the audience to ineffective bystanders.

A very different example occurred several years ago.  We were doing a fundraiser for an arts organization, and before the auction they wanted to honor a very significant donor.  Whether it was from a fear of public speaking or from a natural proclivity, the significant donor had been hitting the cocktails.  He was also there without his wife who was, I suspect, the true supporter of this organization.  Upon being given his plaque, and the chance to address the audience, the donor took the microphone and started with the immortal words “I hate this **$$%&$%% organization”.  It went downhill from there.

There have been other incidents over the years. Performers who insist on performing a complete set when they have been specifically requested to keep it to 20 minutes.  Others have used obscenity on stage, told inappropriate jokes, or, and this is particularly insidious, just assumed that the audience had the same political sensibilities as themselves.

It’s your event.  The audience is going to assume that whatever is said from the stage has your tacit approval. The more formal or famous the speaker, the more importance will be attached to what is said.  To work effectively for your organization the speech or the presentation must end with a call to action that empowers the audience.  As we say to all our clients, part of their mission is to inform the donors how their donation has “moved the needle”.  you must insist on this.  If the speaker does not explicitly agree DO NOT LET THEM ON STAGE.

Earlier this year at an East Bay Auction an interesting thing happened.  The event included about three hundred people at a beautiful Country Club.  Everybody was enthusiastic and came ready to spend and support and enjoy the evening.

After doing my  normal “can everybody hear me clearly” announcement, I felt confident that everybody could. So I started the 43 lot auction and paddles were going up everywhere. The lot descriptions and numbers were being projected on a large screen behind me and and bids were coming from every corner of the room.

Then, about halfway through the auction the laptop sending the PowerPoint slides to the projector failed and the large screen behind me went black. Oddly enough, people started telling the spotters that they couldn’t hear me! The only thing that had changed was the screen going black.  The sound was exactly as it was for the first twenty lots, no levels were changed, no microphones replaced, nothing changed except… the big black screen,  and now they couldn’t hear me.

So what caused this sudden loss of hearing?  Their eyes!  Having the lot numbers displayed near the stage gives your audience a chance to “track” where the auction is. When a lot that is of interest gets close, the interested parties can stop their socializing and get ready to bid.  Most people have already perused the catalog and know which lots they are going to bid on.  But when you take away their visual reference system, they need to “hear” when a lot of interest is coming up.

“Which lot are we on” and “I wanted to bid on that” is not something you want to hear from the crowd.

I have never had the feed to a projector go out in the past and hopefully will never have one go out again in the future.  I do however, wonder if one of those large pads and a Magic Marker tucked away behind the stage is a ”sound” investment.

The experience attendees have at your event is based upon each and every interaction they have.  From the moment they arrive until the moment they checkout, every volunteer and staff member at your fundraising event is helping set the tone for the evening and shaping your guests’ perceptions of how things went.

And while it is nearly impossible to make everyone in a 300-person crowd happy, it is possible to set an event-wide tone of customer service and success. Good customer service can make people forget the most egregious of errors, while bad customer service can turn the most innocuous of molehills into mountains.

Take, for example, the experience my wife, Michele, and I had on our honeymoon at an eco-resort on the Riviera Maya in Mexico. We knew in advance that our villa came with a CD player and surround-sound system, so we brought a sleeve of CDs to listen to on the trip. One night, well into our trip, we were blasting music and dancing around the main room of our villa.

There was a knock at the door, and when we opened it we found one of the resort staff members flanked by security personnel. He cocked his ear to one side, and then said to one of his compatriots, “Really? This is the right room? Well, I can hardly believe it myself, but one of your neighbors has complained about your music being too loud. I hate to trouble you, but would you mind turning it down a bit?”

Brilliant! I’d never felt so good about being asked to turn my stereo down, and I’d never heard anyone else make such an ask so artfully. I only wish I’d had his example to draw upon back when I was an R.A. in the dorms at U.C. Berkeley.

Contrast that with the sound guy I saw at a recent event. He hadn’t brought adequate equipment to cover the needs of the event, and was forced to crank up the volume on the only two speakers he had. Furthermore, he’d set up his speakers so they were aiming right at the tables in front of them. At head level. And these were potential big bidders.

As soon as one table realized that the speakers were going to be aimed at their heads all night long, they got up and redirected the speaker so that it no longer aimed at them - or anyone else in the audience, for that matter. When the sound guy realized this, he went over and turned the speaker back towards the table without saying a word.

As he was passing their table, someone at the table asked the sound guy if he could turn it down a bit. Without breaking stride, he turned his head and sneered, “No!” and went back to his mixing board. Everyone at the table was shocked. I was shocked. It was a level of rude that no one expected, especially in an event setting like that.

I tried to smooth things over with the table by offering a solution of moving their table away from the speaker and closer to the dance floor. It helped, but it didn’t fix things one-hundred percent. It certainly didn’t change the tone the sound guy had set when he snapped at them.

The screaming sound guy may be an extreme example, but it doesn’t take much to impact a guest’s mood at an event. All it takes is one rude waiter, a volunteer who is too focused on their assigned task to answer a quick question, or bartenders who spend more time chatting with themselves than interacting with attendees to turn one person off. And at an auction, the way people vote is with their paddle - or by withholding use of it.

Empower you staff, volunteers and vendors to create an atmosphere of positive customer service at your event. Each of them has the potential to make your event great for each and every attendee; especially if something goes wrong. The customer service they provide will define attendees’ experience. It will also impact the amount of money you raise, either the night-of, or at future events.

The 2009 Spring Season, which we arbitrarily assign from February to the beginning of June was bookended by two events that were visibly and dramatically down.  With those two glaring exceptions, most events with which we are familiar equalled or surpassed previous years.

The two events that tanked were the Naples Wine Auction and Auction Napa Valley.  Both of these events had raised millions of dollars in previous years and “tanked” is a relative term.  They both made $5 million in 2009. Still and amaxing return.

Naples was down because everyone was still tring to grasp the extent of the financial downturn and they are also located near the heart of Bernie Madoff country.

Auction Napa Valley shot itself in the foot.  Attempting to manage expectations they announced in advance that they would be happy with 50% less than the previous year.  Talk about a self-fulfilling prophesy!

The lesson everyone in fundraising needs to keep to the fore is that audiences are less forgiving.  If you give them an excuse NOT to give you money they will take it.  The well-to-do are being hit up for donations more than ever.  If they don’t make a donation to you, they are not going to keep the money, there is a whole list of potential charities out there waiting to earn that donation.

I BELIEVE THAT, TO A GREATER EXTENT THAN EVER BEFORE, YOUR EVENT HAS BECOME THE AUDITION THAT PROVES THE EFFICACY OF YOUR ORGANIZATION.

If you fail the audition they will find another cause.

I mentioned that most of our events this spring have equaled or surpassed last year.  This is bucking the National trend.  As far as I can tell most fundraising auctions are reporting a decline of 20-30%,  with the exception of school auctions which seem to be holding their own.

One reason our events are doing better than average is simple evolution.  We have been in this business for many years working with every concievable type and size of fundraising auction.  Every year over 80% of our events are repeat business (It would be even high except for bringing in new auctioneers).  If a charity has a problem with their event, bad sound for example, and hasn’t fixed it in two years, we will probably stop working with that event.  It turns out that we have been in the excuse reduction business all these years.

Do not be afraid of putting on your event.  It has all the potential it ever had.  It will just take hard work.  On the other hand it was never easy.