Auctions are a popular way for nonprofit organizations to raise money and engage their supporters. Fundraising is a critical component of any nonprofit’s operations, and auctions offer a unique opportunity to not only generate revenue but also to build relationships with donors. By creating an engaging auction experience, nonprofits can attract new supporters, deepen relationships with existing donors, and raise funds for their cause.
In this blog post, we’ll share tips on how to make your auction a success and explore how auctions can be a powerful tool to broaden your fundraising efforts. Any nonprofit can host an auction. All you need is the right technology to support your efforts.
Tips for nonprofits to hold successful auctions:
1. Set clear fundraising goals:
Define your fundraising goals and what you hope to achieve through the auction. Having clear objectives will help you focus your efforts and measure the success of the auction.
2. Choose the right items:
Select items that are relevant to your audience and that will generate excitement and interest in your nonprofit auction. Consider offering unique and exclusive items that cannot be found elsewhere. Also, consider grouping items together as a larger auction package. For example, if one donated auction item is a hair blowout and another auction item is dinner for two. Package the two items together as a “Date Night” to increase the amount couples may bid.
3. Make it easy to bid:
Use an online platform such as Giveffect to make bidding easy and accessible to a wide audience. Provide clear instructions on how to bid and make sure the process is user-friendly. With Giveffect, you can easily add an auction to any campaign page.
4. Promote your auction:
Use social media, email, and other marketing channels to promote your auction to your existing supporters and reach new audiences. Make sure to highlight the items up for bid and the impact the proceeds will have on your organization’s mission. Giveffect is a nonprofit management software that not only includes auction features but also marketing and communications tools to easily and efficiently promote your nonprofit auction.
5. Create an engaging fundraising experience:
Make the auction experience enjoyable and engaging by incorporating elements such as a live auctioneer, entertainment, and interactive activities. Consider offering food and drinks to create a social atmosphere.
6. Express gratitude to your donors and supporters:
Don’t forget to thank your donors and supporters for their participation and generosity. Follow up with a personalized thank-you message to show your appreciation. With Giveffect, for example, you can both personalize and automate your thank you notes to ensure that every single one of your supporters is properly thanked in a timely manner. Additionally, each supporter’s actions, including bidding in your nonprofit auction, are automatically recorded in their supporter profile in your CRM so that you can refer back to this interest and involvement at a later date.
The Giveffect Difference
As stated earlier in this article, online auctions do require the right technology to support your efforts.
Giveffect makes online auctions easy for any nonprofit. Create your auction webpage and share your cause. You can enter your biddable items using Giveffect’s friendly interface and set all the details, from buy-it-now to reserve pricing. Silent auctions are also an option!
For example, make an auction a part of your live event broadcast. Perhaps it’s a gala. A Giveffect scoreboard will show who the leading bidder is for each item, in real-time. People can also place bids on their mobile devices using text-to-bid functionality.
The entire auction can be managed in one place, from attendees to items, to the full bidding process. And all of the information that is gathered, like the registration of the bidders, is stored automatically in the Giveffect CRM, allowing anyone in the system to review the auction data later. If needed, it can be further cross-referenced with any other trackable data points, such as other event attendance, donations, or volunteering the individual has done.
Beyond data aggregation, Giveffect even automates bidding notifications, bid extensions, winner confirmation, payout fulfillment, a thank you letter, and tax receipts.
You can also host branded auction pages or third-party auctions.
Check out this auction that was held in Giveffect to see how the functionality works: https://app.giveffect.com/campaigns/16040-arts-with-heart-an-art-full-online-auction
Why It Matters
With Giveffect taking care of a lot of the busy work of creating an auction, this allows you to dedicate your time to promoting the auction and obtaining items for the auction.
And when someone registers for your auction in Giveffect, their information will be automatically added to the CRM. So now you can create campaigns to build a new relationships with new contacts. Or a campaign to re-engage with contacts who attend an auction and haven’t been active lately otherwise.
Online nonprofit auctions are a great way to reach out and expand your contact list with individuals who may not attend other awareness events. Giveffect can give you the tools to make that outreach as varied as possible, with the least amount of busy work. Let us answer your questions and show you how in a demo:
