How will the election impact your fundraising auction?

Arguably, 2016 is the most contentious presidential election in my lifetime. The emotional impact is extremely high, and very few people in my network are unaffected by it.

Charitable giving infographic created by Beth Sandefur.

The majority of the spring fundraising season was complete before either party had finalized its candidate. We didn’t see events suffer negative impacts that we could attribute to directly the presidential campaign. But now that the candidates are set, the conventions are over and the fur is starting to fly, how will the election impact events in the fall?

The commonly held “wisdom” is that charitable fundraising falters in an election year, for a variety of reasons. The predominant theories being that donors give to campaigns instead of charities, or donors are scared away by uncertainty or fear. A recently released study by Blackbaud sheds interesting light on both of these theories.

The report is based on data from the 2012 election, and focused on 143 national 501(c)(3) organizations. Blackbaud found that donors who contributed to political campaigns also increased their 2012 charitable contributions 0.9% compared to the previous year. Donors who were engaged in the political process increased their donations to charities.

Donors who did not make a political contribution in 2012, however, gave 2.1% less to charitable causes than in 2011. Donors who were not engaged in the political process decreased their donations to charities.

Charitable fundraising as a whole was up 1.7% in 2012, but mainly because contributions to religious organizations was up 6.1% and contributions to education was up 1.6%. If you take those two categories out of the mix, charitable giving as a whole was down 1.7%. Individuals donated an estimated $258.51 billion to charitable organizations in 2014 (results for 2015 have not yet been reported). So a 1.7% swing at that level could wipe out numerous organizations.  Unless you were a school or a church, your category of charity saw a decline in charitable giving during the last presidential election.

Blackbaud doesn’t offer any deeper insight into their numbers, but we can draw a few conclusions. Obviously, unless you are a religious organization or a school, you are going to have to work harder to make the same amount of money as you did last year.

If your support base is energized by this election, it is a good sign for your event. People who are engaged in the process are more likely to engage with your cause. I would theorize that this is because people who engage in the political process believe in it and believe that they can make a difference in the process; and then that “actionable optimism” carries over to their charitable beliefs. 

According to the statistics, the potential problem for charities is the donors who are not contributing to politics at all this year – because they’ll be contributing less to charity as well. There is a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt surrounding this election, and it is easy to imagine people cocooning until Thanksgiving. If your donor base buries their collective head in the sand, you and your clients will wind up paying the price. But only if you can’t effectively communicate you and your clients’ needs.

It always comes back to messaging, communication, and conversations: Establish why you are asking for money and empower people to help change the world by supporting your cause. You always have to compete with a lot of external noise to get the attention of your donors. This year that noise is much louder than usual, and you’ll have to work harder than usual to make your case.

Cultivation is a conversation, not a one-off ask that happens only at your event. Engage your donors. If you are worried about the election, discuss it with them. Work with your biggest supporters to formulate strategies specifically for your donor base. Engage, engage, engage. This year and every year.

Statistically speaking, the election is bound to have little impact on your event. But from a practical standpoint, it is best to assume the election will impact your donors, and then work hard to make sure it doesn’t. 

The pre-event marketing that will change your event’s bottom line

If you want your fundraising auction to succeed, you have to market your auction lots in advance of the event. Pre-event marketing can make the difference between an average and a spectacular auction, and different forms of marketing yield varied results.

We often see events focus on methods of broadcasting instead of leveraging individual relationships. For example, we see lots of events focus on publishing the live auction catalog on the Internet or sending it out via hotsheets, email, and social media.

These all have value and are a valid component of any pre-event marketing campaign. However, the most important element of an auction’s success is much more direct: reaching out to individual bidders in person, by phone, or email.

The most successful auction chairs and committees invest time and energy identifying potential bidders for specific auction lots and contacting them in advance to interest them. The most successful auctions have at least two individuals committed to bidding on specific lots in advance.

It is incredibly valuable if you can line up two bidders for each and every lot in advance of your auction – but it’s also an unreasonable amount of work to demand for a longer auction. The truth is it doesn’t have to be done on every lot in an auction, but should be done on a few select lots, including:

• The first two lots in the auction; they set the tone for the rest of the auction. 
• Any lot that has an exceptionally high value; or is more valuable than any lot sold at your auction in the past. 
• Trips with set dates or extended trips that require air travel. 
• Buy-in parties/events.
• Art and jewelry
• Unique access that pertains to the tastes of someone you or the committee knows.

In each case, we are aiming to create momentum, avoid dead-air, and insure that challenging lots are successful in the heat of the moment. The first two lots, for example, set the pace and tone for the rest of the auction. Art and jewelry are the most challenging items to include in most any fundraising auction, and if we must have a certain piece or art or jewelry in the auction, it is important to make sure it succeeds.

The expectation put on these bidders isn’t necessarily that they must commit to bidding until they buy. We are looking to them to get the bidding going; and hopefully drive up the price. If your pre-committed bidders wind up becoming so interested in a lot that they vigorously bid on it and win, fantastic! But it’s not the expectation. At a certain point, we have to trust the process of an auction, and any momentum boost makes that process more successful.

Do you need more than just an "auctioneer"?

Many of our new clients are pleasantly surprised after our second or third meeting about how we have offered many new suggestions and ideas about ways to grow their events. "Our last Auctioneer never mentioned any of this stuff, we talked a couple of times and then he/she showed up at the event, read our catalog to the crowd, and left!" 

We believe that the best way to have a great idea is to have a lot of ideas, ideas that are based on what has worked at hundreds and hundreds of events nationwide and what might work at yours.  Would you welcome suggestions and new approaches about:

• Getting your board on-board
• Getting everybody on your committee on the same page
• Timelines
• Messaging
• Silent auction strategies
• Unique new live auction lots and their ordering
• Crafted appeals
• Changing the mindset of your attendees from "They do the same thing every year" to "I wonder what they're going to do this year?"

As far as I know, the only way to accomplish this is to engage a CONSULTING FUNDRAISING AUCTIONEER, who will work with your team.  Just a few questions during the interview about what kind of participation to expect from a prospective Auctioneer should let you know whether you're getting a bid caller or a game changer!

Philanthropic potential is fleeting

The lights are low and the buzz is high. Silverware is clinking, people are happily chatting over some light background music while wait staff deftly move throughout the room. The energy is slowly building, and everyone at your event is having a great time.

You can see the energy in this room as people start to network other tables. Time to start the auction!

That buzz permeating your event is philanthropic potential. It is the result of months of planning and preparation, an ephemeral “vibe” that you and your committee work so hard to create. It is fleeting, it is delicate, and if you wait too long, it will dissipate into the ether, unused. Wasted.

It is up to you to capitalize on the philanthropic potential of your event, and make the most of your potential while it is at its peak. This often means cutting your guests’ “social time” short, and asking them to focus on the needs you have asked them to help you meet.

Efficiently utilizing your attendees’ time and attention to help you achieve your mission is your right. If you have properly communicated the message of your event beforehand, your guests will be ready to help your fundraising efforts succeed. Instead of putting your fundraising auction off until the very end of the evening, conduct your auction and fund-a-need while your potential is at its peak.

In many cases, this means conducting your auction and fund-a-need during dinner, not after it. Dessert is the turning point, when people start to get up and leave. If you haven’t done the most important element of your fundraising (for most of our events, this is the fund-a-need) before dessert is served, you’re losing money.

Efficient time management will help you raise more money and will ensure your event ends on time. It will also help attendees form an emotionally-charged long-term memory that they associate with your event. Long-term memories are formed when an experience is paired with an emotion.

No offense to your caterer, but few people will remember the food at your event, unless it is ridiculously good or bad. Everyone, however, will remember the way they felt when your event transcended a mere “gala” and became a life-changing experience. 

This only happens if you capitalize on the potential you’ve worked so hard to create while it is at its max. Because the philanthropic potential of your event is ephemeral, once it is gone it is gone. If you don’t take advantage of it while you can, you’ll never get it back.

Write Up the Fund-a-Need In Your Catalog

The fund-a-need is the most crucial component of almost every fundraising auction. The fund-a-need raises more money than any single auction lot and often raises more money than the rest of the auction lots combined.

All of which underscores why the fund-a-need deserves prominent placement in your auction catalog or your written program for the evening.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that everyone attending your event knows what you are raising money for. Take advantage of the opportunity to market your mission in a heartfelt manner, and encourage newcomers to become supporters by enabling a very specific component of your mission. The fund-a-need is your chance to tell your story in a more focused way to engage existing donors and potential new donors alike on a meaningful, empowering level.

A successful fund-a-need doesn't just happen, it is the result of well-orchestrated marketing, reinforced at every opportunity - including in the written catalog.

The catalog provides you with a means for educating people about your fund-a-need: laying out the case for supporting you and quantifying how they can help you change the world. Even if you have a spectacular speaker, or an incredible video, you should still make an engaging case for your fund-a-need in your catalog.

Spell out exactly what the fund-a-need will help you do, and quantify your ask in very specific ways. It always helps to quantify your need in increments that map directly to the levels you will be asking for in the fund-a-need. For example, if you know you’ll be asking for $5,000, $2,500, $1,000, $500, $250 and $100, tell people exactly what a donation at each of those increments will help you do.

And make sure your quantifications carry heft. People are more likely to respond emotionally if they have already arrived at a logical conclusion. Guide them to that logical conclusion in the catalog, so they can get emotional with their paddles when the time comes to make pledges in your auction.

Revenue enhancer: the golden paddle

One of our favorite revenue enhancement additions to fundraising auction events is the Golden Paddle. Simply put, the Golden Paddle is a chance drawing to win a credit that is good only in the live auction. The credit is represented by a golden paddle that the winner uses to bid with in the auction – letting the auctioneer and everyone else in the crowd know who they are and what they are up to.

Make sure your Golden Paddle stands out in the crowd. The brighter and louder, the better.

I’ll try to make this more clear by way of an example: sell 100 tickets for $100 each, generating $10,000 for your event. Take $5,000 immediately off of the top, and apply it towards your proceeds for the evening – that’s pure profit. Take the other $5,000 and apply it to the Golden Paddle – you aren’t losing this money, you’re just making sure it is spent in the auction.

This doesn’t just generate $5,000 for your event, it has the potential to generate a new bidder who can help drive the prices up on lots of other items. At the very least, it adds to the amount an existing bidder is willing to spend. We’ve seen lots of people who won the Golden Paddle immediately “get it” and use their windfall to bid lots of other people up in the live auction. When this happens, you wind up making a lot more than just the $5,000 they have to spend – because they increase the price on multiple items.

You shouldn’t set the Golden Paddle amount to be higher than the amount typically spent on any one item in your event. You don’t want your big bidders to be priced out by someone who spent $100 and got lucky. You also don’t want your Golden Paddle winner to dominate the auction and buy a large percentage of the items. You want someone to be able to push your big bidders up to their limits, and possibly buy one high-end item or two low-level ones.

So crunch the numbers and alter the metrics to work best with your event. We’ve seen Golden Paddles raffles where 100 tickets were sold at $50 each and the paddle had a credit of $2,500 on it. Alter the numbers to best fit the culture of your event.

There are just a few things to note. The winner must be present to win. The paddle is only good in the live auction – and sometimes the fund-a-need, depending on whether or not you want to funnel the money towards that restricted bucket of funds.

And finally, make sure the actual Golden Paddle is very flashy. Have your craftiest volunteer or staff member create it, challenge them to come up with something so over the top that it can’t be ignored. We advocate LED lights, sequins, glitter, gold paint – whatever they can come up. So that way, every time your Golden Paddle winner bids the whole crowd knows – and thinks to themselves, “Next year, I’m going to win that Golden Paddle!”

Save the date for our upcoming workshop: Auction 101: The Top 10 Ways to Make Your Next Auction More Successful

Stellar Fundraising Auctions presents, in conjunction with Greater Giving, Beth Sandefur Events and Sound Expressions, Auction 101: The Top 10 Ways to Make Your Next Auction More Successful.   Auction 101 is interactive workshop is designed to give your auction team useful tools to help with your next fundraising event.

The workshop will take place from 9am – 3pm on Wednesday, January 28th, 2015 at the David Brower Center in Berkeley.  Online registration will be available through Greater Giving soon.

Whether your event is in two weeks or twenty, this highly interactive workshop will provide you with proven strategies that will help you maximize the philanthropic potential of your crowd.

Session topics will include:
Fine tuning your fund-a-need pitch
Finding hidden lessons in your auction data
Brainstorming ways to enhance your auction lots
Messaging: sell the cause, not the party
Streamlining check-in and check-out
Making your auction sound great

We will also offer a hands-on session for organizations looking for information about the most buzzed about trend in events: going mobile. This workshop session will include an overview of Greater Giving’s Mobile Bidding and Storefront functions. We’ll discuss how mobile bidding impacts your event and how you can incorporate raffle and other multi-item sales into your event using Storefront.

The day will conclude with expert roundtables: we'll break into groups by organization type, and then each of our experts will rotate through each group, focusing on the topics that matter to you most. This is the chance for you to ask questions and get answers that are relevant to the needs of your specific event with experts in the field of fundraising auction planning, implementation and performance.

Save the date for Wednesday, January 28th, 2015, and stay tuned for more information on registration.

Identify the celebrity in your crowd

The best things to sell in a fundraising auction aren’t things at all, but experiences. Unique, one-of-a-kind packages that offer “insider’s access” always outsell any item that has a clear-cut retail value. And the truly most desirable type of access we can sell is access to a relationship.

Access to celebrity always sells well in a fundraising auction. But the definition of celebrity varies from event to event. Sure, it would be nice if everyone could get access to A-list Hollywood movie stars, but the truth is you probably don’t need it.

There are people in your community or event who have their own celebrity, who can be tapped to help make your auction more successful. You simply need to identify them, and find a way that they can help out.

For years I conducted both of the fundraising auctions for the National Pain Foundation. We did one event in San Francisco and one event in Philadelphia each year. At each auction every year the highest selling auction lot was dinner with Dr. Elliott Krames and his wife at their San Francisco home. The package consisted of a 3-course meal prepared by Mrs. Krames, paired with wines from Dr. Krames’ extensive cellar, all served in their lovely Victorian home.

And at this point you are thinking, “Who the heck is Dr. Elliott Krames?” along with everyone else who’s ever heard this story. Dr. Krames was the founder of the National Pain Foundation. At those events he was a celebrity. Outside of those events, he’s “just some doctor from San Francisco.” But in that room, he’s a best-seller.

Why is Greg onstage with a pirate and a woman with a crab for a crown? And why is the crowd bidding like mad on their auction lot? Chuck Huggins, CEO of Sees Candy for 54 years, was always a celebrity to those who knew him.

We see examples of this crowd-specific type of celebrity at a variety of events, crossing all types of organizations. At schools there is almost always the “principal for a day” auction lot, but we also see lots of buy-in parties leveraging the popularity of a few key parents. Other organizations utilize the celebrity of their leaders, be they the executive director or a well-known board member. Some people simply have a popular or well-liked home, that is its own sort of celebrity.

The key is to take a step back and look over your organization’s closest supporters with an objective eye. Ask yourself, “who could I sell in my auction?” (in the most loving of ways, of course). I guarantee that you have an extremely potential-filled auction lot within a degree of separation. All you have to do is identify the celebrity in your crowd and ask.

The scientific case for hiring a professional fundraising auctioneer

One of the challenges of being a fundraising auctioneer is the number of amateurs who think they could do my job – and number of seemingly otherwise intelligent event chairs willing to believe them. I don’t know what it is about being an auctioneer that makes so many people think they could simply jump onstage and do it. Maybe it’s the fact that we all learn how to say numbers in sequence in elementary school.

When the stage has been set for success, don't leave it up to an amateur to maximize the potential of your crowd.

We are professionals who have focused on fundraising auctions as a craft so that we can hone and perfect that craft. I’ve long argued that anyone can look brilliant when an auction is going swimmingly well, but it is a true professional who can handle an onstage challenge with aplomb. And now I have scientific proof to back me up.

A fundraising auction is a high-intensity affair, a continual stream of in-the-moment decisions being made that range from the mundane to the extraordinary, and sometimes extreme. Most of the obvious decisions seem easy enough to make, especially to the untrained eye. But when an extraordinary situation arises, the person onstage has microseconds to respond before the crowd starts forming an opinion – good or bad. And it is when the time pressure is greatest that the amateur is most likely to mess things up.

Law and Finance expert Frank Partnoy, in his book Wait: The Art and Science of Delay, uses chess as the example of how novices cannot cope with time-sensitive pressure. Most of us novice chess players can muddle through a game of chess well enough to present ourselves as competent. But add a timed element, such as in blitz chess where you only have 30 seconds per move, and the difference between novice and expert becomes profound.

“Expert chess players cope well with this kind of intense time pressure,” writes Partnoy. “When grand masters play blitz chess, the quality of their moves hardly deteriorates at all. They instinctively pick the best move, right away. But when novices play blitz chess, it is a disaster. Either they tap their conscious system and use up too much time thinking about the next move, or they make quick, bad moves. Either way, their systems overload and they lose.”

In the real world and on the chess board, Portnoy argues, “The message is clear: if you only have a few seconds to make a decision, you had better be an expert.”

Why then, with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, would anyone risk giving the reigns of their auction to an amateur who is, statistically speaking, prone to messing it up when it matters most? The amount of money one “saves” in such a situation is outweighed by the performance a professional will bring to your stage.

And this isn’t just me saying this, it’s science.

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.