Use a chair to make your fund-a-need more successful

The fund-a-need is the single most important element of the majority of fundraising auctions we conduct. The fund-a-need usually makes as much as or more than the combined total of the rest of the auction lots. In many cases, the fund-a-need generates three to five times more than the rest of the auction as a whole.

Statistically speaking, more people participate in the fund-a-need than the rest of your auction combined.

An item this integral to the success of your event and your organization deserves its own committee chair.

Typically, the fund-a-need falls within the purview of the live auction chairs. However, these are the people who have been tasked with soliciting auction lots, creating packages out of them, writing up their descriptions and then marketing them. They have a lot on their plate, and often they simply want to know what the staff has decided to do the fund-a-need for, and where to put it in the auction.

Make one person the chair of the fund-a-need, and enable them to focus on all of the small details that will help make the appeal more successful. The fund-a-need chair can:

• Work directly with staff to determine and define the fund-a-need;
• Identify ways to quantify the need so that it maps to every pledging level;
• Write the description for the catalog;
• Coordinate the testimonial for the night-of the event, including either the creation of a video or working to identify appropriate speakers; and
• Identify and solicit lead donors for each level of the fund-a-need.

With or without a fund-a-need chair, each of these steps is integral to the ongoing success of your fund-a-need. Putting one person in charge of all of them ensures consistency across the myriad tasks' timeline to help make it successful. Creating a fund-a-need chair also elevates the importance of the fund-a-need among those planning your event and auction.

A successful fund-a-need takes work, it seldom “just happens.” Getting other committee members to recognize that will change the perspective of the fund-a-need within your community, all of which will help make it more successful

It is the single biggest moment of your event, work to make it so.

Auction sponsorship to drive bids: "Bidder Bucks"

There are many ways to offer event sponsors benefits in exchange for their sponsorship and participation. Almost every sponsorship solicitation packet I see offers a similar list: logo placement in the program, an ad onscreen during dinner, and prominent table placement the night of the event.

Give a sponsor prominent placement in your bidder's eyes and try to drive up bids at the same time.

One idea to give a sponsor lots of marketing traction at your event, and hopefully drive up prices on either live or silent auction items, is to get a sponsor for “Bidder Bucks” (see photo). Bidder Bucks are essentially a currency that you hand out the night of the event that are good only in the live or silent auction.

Every couple receives their allocated Bidder Bucks, and can use them as part of their bid on an auction item. The Bucks are non-transferable, and only good the night of the event. In the example at right, every attendee got $40 in bidder bucks that were good only in the silent auction that night.

Ironically, this particular sponsor wanted to remain anonymous, so they missed out on the branding opportunity. But you can see the branding potential here, especially if the bucks are of a high enough value.

The value of the Bidder Bucks is determined by dividing the sponsorship by the number of auction items. $2,000 in a 50-lot silent auction would result in $40 Bidder Bucks. $10,000 in a 20-lot live auction would give everyone an additional $500 to spend in the live auction and so on. The value of the Bidder Bucks has to be high enough to be meaningful to people, otherwise it lacks impact. $10 Bidder Bucks aren’t going to change people’s behavior.

This type of sponsorship works best in an environment where people are value-minded, people are of potentially limited capabilities, or participation in the auction has been lackluster. Bidder Bucks are ready-made for school events, for example, or a fledgling event in the sub-$200,000 range.

The goal is to use the sponsorship as a lever to get people to spend more than they would have. Once someone bids on an auction lot they are committed and far more likely to bid again. And when people start with “free money” the natural tendency is to spend it…and then some.

How the Napa quake will impact your charity event

Charity events nationwide are lubricated with the generosity of vintners and winemakers. Whether we’re talking about a single bottle or a wine country experience, wineries often provide the foundation upon which successful fundraising events are built. So it is natural to wonder what is going to happen to your fundraising event in the wake of the 6.0 earthquake that struck Napa and Sonoma counties on Sunday, August 24th.

We should start by doing an honest assessment of the damage to the Napa Valley. The vast majority of Napa came out relatively unscathed. Most wineries had little to no damage, including wineries whose storage facilities were at the epicenter of the quake.

“We lost a total of about six bottles,” said Stuart Bryan of Pride Mountain Vineyards, even though their storage facility is less than a quarter mile from the epicenter. “We palletize all of our boxes of wine, and then shrink-wrap each pallet. Everything was fine.

“But if the building had collapsed,” continued Stuart, “we’d have lost everything.”

A small minority of wineries got hit exceptionally hard, and they have been getting the most news coverage. Trefethen Family Vineyards, for example, has been one of the unfortunate poster children for damage done by this quake. Their historic Eshcol Winery building, built in 1886, buckled during the quake and its fate is being decided by structural engineers.

Trefethen is visible from highway 29, and the sight of their three-story winery buckled and leaning is a moving one. But if there is good news it is the fact that Trefethen was between bottling their last vintage and harvesting this one: their winery was essentially empty. They may be looking at a loss of their building, but their wine remained intact.

The same cannot be said for The Hess Collection. Situated on Mount Veeder, Hess sustained some of the most graphic, and costly damage in the quake. “Mount Veeder is the mountain closest to the epicenter,” says Samuel J. Peters, the Executive Director of the Mount Veeder Appellation Council, “but that’s not the reason it took such a hit. All of the other mountains in Napa have volcanic soil, and their terrain is much firmer. Mount Veeder was seafloor, and didn’t fare well.”

Hess, specifically, lost over $4 million in wine when their pressure-sealed, full-of-wine storage tanks were crushed like so many empty aluminum cans  sending a flood of wine out onto their wine tasting patio. A few rows of their barrels also collapsed, making for stunning photos and video – and sending the erroneous message that Napa had been shut down.

The majority of Napa is open for business. As of this writing there are 58 red-tagged businesses. Hess isn’t one of them – in fact, Hess has been actively campaigning to get people to come to Napa, and making the most of the situation with humor and aplomb. Their Labor Day Weekend Tasting Menu included a selection between the "Summer Shakes," "Triumphant Tremor" or the "Falling Rock Collection."

So how does this all impact you and your charity event?

I don’t know for sure, and it is going to be up to you to find out. You’re going to have to do some legwork, strengthening your vintner relationships, and checking in with your contacts to see where they are at.

Reach Out

If you have existing relationships with wine producers in Napa, or Sonoma for that matter, who donate to your event you need to reach out to them to see how they fared. Do a quick search online to discover what you can first, in case they are one of the wineries that took a major hit. Odds are they came through mostly unscathed. Either way, they will appreciate you reaching out.

Calibrate your Own Expectations

If a winery that you depend on did take a significant hit in the quake, offer them a year off from participating in your event. If they need a break, they will appreciate it – and if they don’t need a break, they will appreciate the thought.

Make No Assumptions

Even if one of your vintner partners did take a significant hit, reach out to them and find out how best you can work together on your upcoming event. They may need the time off, but they may need the marketing your event provides even more. Have conversations with people: it is the best way to build and strengthen relationships.

Vintners and winemakers are, as a whole, one of the most generous groups of business people in the United States. They consistently use their powers for the greater good, contributing to fundraising events all over the nation. The damage caused by this one earthquake isn’t going to change that commitment overnight. In fact, it will probably only make it stronger.

An Unredeemed Lot is an Excellent Donation

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.

Over the past decade, we've consistently seen an average of 45% of 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.

The Top 5 Worst Ways to Introduce an Auction

The way in which 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 hate auctions, but ours is short.”

That last one is, if you can believe it, verbatim from an event Ed did last fall - I was there, and saw the whole thing. And while a bad introduction for the auction and auctioneer isn’t the end of the world, it certainly didn’t set the right tone from the onset.

A bad introduction is also a sign of a lack of clear messaging across the entire event. If just one of your representatives onstage isn't tuned-in to your message, how off is the rest of your event? The lesson isn't simply to write a good introduction for your auction, the lesson is to do a message audit for your entire event, and make sure everyone is focused on your ultimate goal.

When Surprises and Fundraising Do Mix

One of my long-held tenets is that surprises in a fundraising auction seldom succeed. Many times have I stood onstage with a donor who midway through the bidding decided to "spice up the lot" and add to it in an attempt to raise more money. Usually their efforts generate exactly zero more bids.

But for every "rule" in fundraising, there is an exception to it, and this year I've been surprised by a few onstage surprises that worked.  While it is never possible to predict when a donor will pull an impromptu add-on, knowing these will help guide you when a donor gives you advance warning of their plan.

Radical Upgrade: The change being made to the lot was a major one, radically increasing the value of the lot. This isn't about simply "adding two more seats to the dinner" here. We're talking about adding 18 onfield-passes to the 18-person luxury suite at a Raiders game, so the winning bidder and all of their friends can go down on field and meet the players before the game.

Other major upgrade examples include a donor throwing in first-class airfare on the spur of the moment, or a vintner agreeing to show up in person to do the wine-pairing for a dinner instead of just donating the wine.

Donor Celebrity: It is also imperative that the person making the changes to the auction lot has celebrity status within the crowd. The guy who jumped up at his table and announced that he'd add 18 onfield-passes to the Raiders game was a high-level executive within the Raiders organization. People were as interested in impressing him as they were getting the additional benefits he was adding to the lot.

Lots of times someone will make a change to a lot believing they have major celebrity status with the crowd, only to find out otherwise. It's a painful moment onstage, one that usually gets blamed on the crowd, not the would-be celebrity.

Easy to Understand Changes: It is hard for an audience to hear what is going on at an auction, it's the simple truth. Making changes to an auction lot mid-auction are difficult, because people simply cannot hear the changes - and even if they can hear, they have to be able to process them.

If a donor is going to change a lot on the fly, try to make sure it is a simple, easy to understand change, such as adding more seats to the dinner or doubling the number of people who can go on the trip. Finer points, such as, "we'll be having the '72 Y'Quem instead of the '84" will get lost in the shuffle.

Generally speaking, surprises in a fundraising auction aren't a good idea. But if a donor insists, do your best to guide them to a surprise that is going to work for everyone - but especially you.