Question: Controls on Silent Auction Fundraiser s

Hello, I recently joined our school's Silent Auction Fundraiser volunteer group. What sort of controls should we place on auction item donations? I am worried that there is no way to be sure that all donations made make their way to the auction list. Is this just a chance you take when asking the entire school to gather donations or does your school manage donations in some way?

Asked by Anonymous

Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Rose H writes:
The key to a successful Silent Auction (and I guess to most things!) is in good planning. One idea is to appoint someone as the donations manager, and this person may want to have a helper or two, depending on how big of an auction you have planned. This donation team keeps track of requests that are out and items that are coming in. You don't have to be super fancy with your tracking, but you do need some kind of system to keep track of what's in and what's pending. We have an article that has some good tips on managing an auction. Good luck and here's the link: http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/478-auction-planning-faqs

Community Advice

tamogene writes:
WE DID A SILENT AUCTION AT Elk Grove Elementary, I am the Box Top Coordinator at Sierra Enterprise Elementary in Sacramento and I was wondering how do you set up this and where do the prized come from? tamogenesilva@comcast.net 916-710-6532

Community Advice

Martha writes:
We did a silent Auction for years at Mary Silveira CA. We used Pearl Bids Silent Auction managers, which makes managing the bid sheets easy. https://silent.auction.pearlbids.com . THe program let you sort the items by tables (spa table, travel table, kids table etc) . I recall it was not expensive.