Andy Sarouhan Joins Stellar Fundraising Auctions

Stellar Fundraising Auctions is pleased to announce the latest performer to join our team, Andy Sarouhan. Andy is an experienced professional improviser and facilitator, who has been performing onstage since 1992.

Andy’s improvisation career began on his high school improvisation team and led him to obtaining a BA in Theatre from UC San Diego and an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside. He has improvised professionally and led theater and performance courses through ImprovWorks, UC Riverside, American Conservatory Theater, California Shakespeare Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and BATS Improv.

“I have unending gratitude for arts-based nonprofits,” said Andy, “I have taught numerous classes and seen the impact these organizations can have on their communities. I am excited to be take the stage to help them raise much needed funds.”

“Improvisation skills translate incredibly well to performing fundraising auctions,” says Greg Quiroga, founder of Stellar Fundraising Auctions. “Andy’s onstage performances, coupled with his commitment to the arts, are going to make him a valuable partner for any organization looking to spice up their fundraising auction.”

When he is not performing or teaching, Andy and his partner are helping their young daughter develop new life skills. Andy is immediately available to help liven up your auction.

Do Your Homework on Consignment Packages

Consignment companies serve a valuable role in helping round out live auctions. If your auction is in need of an exciting travel package, or something specific that you have been unable to get donated, purchasing an auction lot from a consignment company is a viable option. However, if you are going to purchase a consignment package, it is important to follow a few simple guidelines.

Only purchase from reputable consignment companies that specialize in working with non-profit auctions. Any consignment company worth dealing with will be able to provide you with references to happy clients, auctions that have sold their packages, and bidders who have taken their trips. If you are going to trust the care and handling of your bidders to a company, their partners, or representatives, you need to know they will be treated well.

Sometimes you need a tropical paradise in your live auction, and have to pay to get it.

The financial goal should be at least double your investment. If a consignment package is going to cost $1,500, your target sale price should be at least $3,000. This means you must know your audience, their desires, and their potential budget. Don’t base the decision to purchase a consignment package on what the consignment company says it is worth or on how well it has performed at other auctions.

Shop around and do your homework. Once you find a package that seems like a fit, ask the consigner if they are the provider or if they are a reseller. If they are a reseller, see if you can go directly to the company that provides the package. There are many resellers out there that simply take other consignment company’s packages, mark them up significantly, and then do their best to market them.

A client recently came to me with a consignment package that seemed familiar at first glance, except it was way more expensive than I remembered. Once I looked a little deeper, I realized it was a consignment package from a different company being offered at two times normal cost. What should have cost my client $1,800 was being “offered” at $3,600. As soon as we figured this out, my client simply switched over to the originating consignment company and purchased the package from them.

Consignment packages can be a useful tool for your live auction, raffle, last hero standing, or silent auction, but only if you do your homework, and make sure the package is going to fit your needs, and not vice versa.

Spring 2023 Wrap-up

The year is halfway over and the spring fundraising season is coming to a close. It is a good time to identify the fundraising auctions trends that have emerged, how they have impacted events, and how best to work with them to create successful event. First and foremost, we are seeing continuation of trends that started last year.

One of the most promising trends of 2023 is the younger generation stepping up and supporting charities at a high level

People are still waiting until much later in the planning process to purchase their tickets than they would have done pre-pandemic. This spring we saw a number of events come up against their deadline to confirm the catering order while attendees were still continuing to purchase tickets.

Check with your event venue and/or caterer to see how they’ve been addressing this issue. Unless your event is known for selling out quickly, be prepared to work to motivate ticket buyers as you come down the home stretch. And most importantly, know that this behavior is the norm these days.

Another part of the new normal is the volume of crowds remains louder than ever. Setting aside all attempts to analyze why this is true, the simple fact is once people are at an event together, they tend to be extremely loud. Crowds that are usually staid or reserved are loud, and crowds that are known for being loud are cacophonous.

Work with your A/V partner to ensure the sound system you have in place is designed to address this. Specifically, you need more coverage with more power – not just more power (think “auction surround sound”). Craft your timeline to ensure you are giving your crowd the time they need to blow off steam. Fine-tune your program so that everything that happens onstage is meaningful and engaging.

Auctions are getting shorter. When I first started doing fundraising auctions in 2004, the average auction length was 25 - 30 lots. That number has shrunk to about 12 lots, with many events strategically opting to do a fund-a-need only. Shorter auctions means fewer lots to generate the money, obviously, but it does not mean you have to restrict your auction to fewer bidders.

Buy-in-lots have surged post-pandemic and continue to be extremely popular, as I documented in an earlier blog post. As events opt to hold shorter and shorter auctions, buy-ins have become an integral way to engage more bidders *and* raise more money.

Another trend this year is the rise of the “sponsor a spot” auction lot. Similar to a buy-in, but instead of securing an opportunity for oneself, we ask bidders to sponsor beneficiaries of the event to participate in an experience (read a more detailed blog post here).

Crowds are also getting younger, and I’m not just saying that because I’m feeling older these days. We are definitely seeing a new demographic emerge at fundraising events, and the late 30’s to early 40’s set is starting to have an impact.This means you have to keep your program fresh and utilize forms of marketing that meet this market where it lives and plays. It also means that you need to develop a couple of fun and creative auction lots that appeal to this demographic – buy-ins usually fit the bill.

We are seeing events trend upwards again. Most events – not all, but most – are making more money than last year. Many are setting new records, after setting new records last year. This is partially the work of expectation management, of crowds expecting to raise more money each year. But it is also the work of development teams, boards, and committees who do a great job of setting individual attendees’ expectations for their participation in the event.

One disturbing trend we’ve seen emerge this year is fake bids: people making a bid and then either denying they made the bid or outright refusing to pay. This has happened at numerous events this spring, including at some of our biggest events. At one event, a bidder obviously and repeatedly bid on a lot until the lot sold to them for $36,000 – at which point they simply refused to acknowledge their winning bid and insisted they had not been bidding. Utilizing a payment processing system that enables you to tie bidder numbers directly to credit cards will help prevent this, but it will not make it completely go away.

Another great solution for this is to utilize professional bid spotters. You may already pay a premium for your fundraising auctioneer, but the additional cost of professional bid spotters will more than pay for itself, especially if you have a crowd of more than 350 people. Professional spotters help make the auction livelier and more engaging for the whole crowd, but especially those last few rows of tables.

Without professional spotters, we often do not know a bid was false until the lot has already been sold to that false bid. Then we have to re-open the lot, find the last bidder, re-engage them, and so on. Professional bid spotters can help verify bidder behavior and alert the auctioneer to false bids before they become problematic. They can directly engage with bidders and confirm a bidder’s intent (or lack thereof) while the auctioneer is still actively selling an auction lot. As few as one or two professionals “on the ground” in an auction can make everything go more smoothly.

To summarize: what we are seeing so far in 2023 are crowds that wait longer to buy their tickets, are louder than ever when they get to the event, and spend more in support of their chosen charities than ever before. These crowds are getting younger and require both programming and auction lots that map to their demographic. If your event has more than 350 attendees, consider using professional bid spotters to help make your event more successful.

Make a Lot with Sponsor a Spot

One of the most successful fundraising auction trends to emerge post-pandemic is the opportunity to sponsor an experience for someone else. Essentially, it is a lot where multiple donors can enable people served by the charity to do something cool or meaningful. We have typically seen this work well for service organizations that work directly with youth, but it is relevant to other organizations as well.

The lot usually consists of an experience such as attending a professional baseball game. Bidders pay a premium to sponsor individuals served by the charity to attend the event. The first time I encountered a lot like this was pre-pandemic, for a Boys and Girls Club. We had sixteen tickets to an A’s game, and we paired it with transportation and food for each youth, and offered bidders the opportunity to sponsor a youth to attend their first professional ballgame for $1,000 each. It sold out quickly.

Access to professional sports teams is an easy place to start, but there are many other opportunities out there.

Since then, we’ve seen similar opportunities with sailing excursions on the Bay, the SF Giants, the 49’ers, and more. At the Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bay Area event this spring, we sponsored 45 Big/Little matches (90 people total) to attend either a SF Giants or SF 49’ers game at $1,000 per match.

Best of all, this did not negatively impact the fund-a-need. We still had the same number of pledges at the $1,000 level that we had in years past. It underscores that there are different types of donors: those who want to sponsor a very specific outing and those who want to simply give to the organization.  

These examples have been very focused on sports, but there are plenty of other possibilities: a trip to the Theater to see a Broadway show, a behind the scenes visit to the zoo or a museum, private screening of a film, and more.

The intent is to offer people access to something that would be meaningful to them – both donor and recipient. If you can partner with an organization and create an event that maps well to your people and your mission, you will be tapping into new potential at your next event.

Check Out This Amazing Event Recap Video

By The Bay Health’s 2023 gala was a phenomenal success, and their videographer did an amazing job of capturing the spirit and generosity of the evening. Most impressive is the way they connected the motivations of donors with the gifts they made.

Watch the full video below:

And we are totally flattered that the videographer managed to make Greg’s fund-a-need cadence seem like it was part of the band’s performance.