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.

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.

Marketing not charity

When you start on the solicitation trail for silent and live auction items, you can use the incentive of your attendees demographics to help you get a "yes" by having the person you're asking  take off their charity hat and put on their marketing hat!  Most of the businesses that you approach have gone through their "charity' budget long before you got there, but there's always marketing funds in reserve throughout the year.  Have a breakdown of your demographics handy and emphasize that the couple of hundred people who attend your event consist of those who are already customers and those who may be, after seeing your support for their organization.  I also suggest that "who" asks will certainly make the difference in how the ask is received.  If one of your solicitation team members has a personal or customer based relationship with a prospective donor they should be the one to ask.

It's also important that you try and target the ask by knowing what you actually would like from the donor, so that you don't get into the "what do you want"...."what do you got"  conversation. If you need the donor to contribute something that's part of a great auction lot, let them know that.  A well thought out ask shows a lot more respect for the donors time and resources than "gimme something"

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.

And now I’d like to introduce…

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 thank you 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.

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.

Eye Can’t Hear You

A few years ago 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 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.

Why No Fundraising Auctioneer Should Charge a Commission

No benefit auctioneer's compensation should be tied to the generosity of an organization's supporters.

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.

If the auctioneer you are working with insists on charging a commission, renegotiate your contract or find a new auctioneer. Because you and your attendees are getting taken advantage of.