Charity Auction Help please

geniusmum

I am trying to organise a charity auction so that my daughter can go to Sri Lanka to help in the tsunami disaster area, with i-to-i (https://www.i-to-i.com)for 3 months next January.
She needs to raise £3000 and we are organising various events including a charity auction.
We are writing to all the businesses in our area asking for donations and have booked the local hall for an evening in September.
I have never been to one so I don't know the procedure.
What happens next please? Do I get people to register to bid? Do I ask for names & addresses? Do I give them a number so we can note the winner's number? How do they pay? Do I let them take the goods on the night or wait until their cheque has cleared?
Please would someone tell me how to organise it. All suggestions would be much appreciated.

novelli

We have done a few of these, and they have all been good events.

You could also write to local sports clubs, footie etc and ask if they will dontate signed stuff, also some of the bigger clubs are always willing to dontate signed things for these events. Bigger stores will often donate vouchers etc to be either auctioned or raffled.

What we do i get everything together, make a small A5 booklet listing all lots and we also have it displayed on the night. these are placed on the tables and people can put bids in during the evening in writing, then towards to mid/end of eve we have an auction master run the auction, with people bidding against eachother. We also accept telephone bids and often people will ask their mates who r at the event to ring when a certain items being bid for, and they take part over the phone.
We genrally took cash, there were the odd few cheques, but never had any probs with them clearing, just take there address etc just in case. If they want to pay later thats fine, we just keep the item until they do.

We also get local press and radio to list the lots in the run up to the event as well to get more interest.

The list is endless of the things u can auction, but we always found the best items were the signed memorabilia.

Good luck with it all, im sure it will be a great success, damn hard work tho!!

geniusmum

Thank you very much for your reply. We were wondering whether to approach sports people etc and see if they would donate, now we will.

novelli

Yes its definently worth doing, also some of the soaps and TV programs etc, they are generally pretty good at supporting such things

Sallys_Savings

Good luck Geniusmum..... .we have found that auctions go really well.

Don't just stop at items..how about auction for promises/experiences?.....These are a few of the ones that people have donated to help our cause after the Tsunami, some are from professional people and others are from "ordinary" folk.....
So not only ask businesses, but try professions and friends too

A hair cut
An hours with a financial adviser
A decorator for a day
Indian Head massage
A gardener for a day
A Mot
A Service for a central heating boiler
Day out at the races
flight in a helicopter
Veg from my allottment for the next two months
Cook and supply a bbq for up to 12 people in your own garden
Plan and organise a party for up to six children under 8
Have a homemade cake made for you once a week for a month
A dustbin bag of ironing
Manicure
Four hand knitted baby cardigans of your choice
Car Wash (my daughters donated this and made up a certificate and to their delight a man bid £500)
A ride in a limo
A meal in a pub for two
A late night pick up from your night out for four (state max distance)
Help tidy up your computer..one evening
Roast dinner for four delivered to your door on a Sunday
Free passes for gyms/swimming pool
Morning of Private squash coaching
Help with your spring cleaning - a cleaner for the day
Make up curtains if you supply the fabric
Photography portrait
Flower arrangement every week for a month
Clean all the carpets in your home
A Small pet sitting service for up to two weeks.



Try to put in a couple of "silly" auctions in too....we had (my daughter is in a girls football team but you could perhaps talk to your local team?)..sorry but i can't remember the actual wording but it was something like below:
A vip seat in your own box at the semi final with full refreshments and a chance to have your photograph with the winning team.

A deckchair in your own cardboard box at the local league semi final with flask of coffee and packet of crisps and a chance to have your photograph with a top team.


Hope this gives you a few ideas....Good Luck!!!

Sallys_Savings

oops ....forgot to say that we did explain what they were bidding on before the auction began for the football vip seat.

Sallys_Savings

Just a little note:..
we've been fundraising/visiting an orphanage in Sri Lanka for the last 4 years and love it over there. I really hope your daughter has a great time helping these lovely people.

We have held lots of fund raising events...if you need any other ideas that have gone well please feel free to send me a private message.

If your daughter intends taking anything over with her for the local children...Apart from the obvious pens, please make room for lots and lots of balloons (buy in bulk from ebay?) and string/wool to tie onto the balloon(they love them :smileyhea ) and bubbles, the sort you put in party bags (they weigh heavy though ) On our last visit we were donated hundreds of the minature bottles that are used for weddings (worth asking for donations from companies). We take photographs of the children (they love it, especially when they can see their picture on a digital camera) with anything that has been donated and on our return send the company/individual a piece of card folded with the photograph glued to the front and a message of thanks inside. One elderly lady knitted little teddies for all of the orphans (35) and she cried buckets when I gave her the card and photograph.

I've rambled again...sorry

mintymoneysaver

If you write to Tony Blair he'll send you a House of commons pen! I love charity auctions...I've organised a few for school.We send a list out earlier, and then on the night have a small booklet.I give each person a large number as they go in.We have 2 people writing bids down, one writes down the number of the bidder and the amount next to the item (so we have a running total), the other uses one of those duplicate books and for each bidder writes down anything they have bid on. e.g bidder number 5 bids on lot 7 and spends £20, in my book number 5 will have 'lot7 £20' written on it.At the end of the night they get a duplicate copy of what they have bid on, then go to another person to pay and collect their prize.I collect all money on the night, but cheques are acceptable.
Hope that helps...

black-saturn

Could anything you dont sell be sold on ebays charity auction section?

Good luck anyway.

I have auctioned an item for charity before but it was only an antique rocking horse at a race night

iian

I have to agree with the experiances suggested above, I am a photographer and have donated prizes for auctions and they have done quite well (about £50-£60), I am sure a local photographer would be more than willing to help.

At one auction we were at they had 2 tickets for the Jonathan Ross show and if I remember rightly they went for about £300, so could be worth trying something like that.

Ian

beautifulgorgeous_2

Family tickets for local theme parks or farms go well and cost the doner very little. We have a duo who do thse charity auctions and can sell the wierest things for loads. If we had duplicates of say vouchers for mc d`s then they really sent them up. You nnd someone to warm the audience up and also some generous punters and some booze!