Hi there. I was a kindergarten mom last year and suddenly found myself in charge of procurement for our school auction. And, as is often the case, we had so few volunteers that I had to handle it mostly on my own.

We raised about $38,000, so I felt pretty good about my tactics. I wrote up a letter on school letterhead explaining why the auction was so important and where the money goes. I let them know the donations were tax deductible. We mailed about 100 letters. Because of postage, that was our limit by mail. I emailed hundreds more. This was my own choice and was very time consuming. I created a template email and I personalized it for each business. I added their business name and made suggestions of what they could donate. This often helps. Some don't know what they could or should donate and if you make a suggestion, they might be more likely to offer it. I also went door to door in my home town with copies of the letter and donation forms and just asked. This gets easier the more you do it.
You want to go to EVERY business.

The mailed letters went to huge corporations and provided little return. The emails went to mostly fun places like cabin rentals, rafting trips, campgrounds, salons, etc. This was a good return for me. Then the places I went to in person had a pretty good return as well. We went to restaurants, car dealers, lube shops, grocery stores, kids gyms, salons, coffee shops (Starbucks are good about giving), tattoo parlors, gyms, pet stores, karate lessons, and everything else! The key to a very successful auction is to have lots of items.

Our biggest money producers are always the class projects. They are amazing and go for hundreds, sometimes over a thousand dollars. The projects from last year included a quilt, a fused glass chess set where each student made one chess piece, a beautifully hand painted rocking chair with a basket of books and a painted toy box and many others. Another big money maker for us are the special days with teachers. We have a few popular teachers who offered to take 2 or 4 kids out bowling or mini golfing with lunch and this brought in a few thousand dollars! We try to encourage all the teachers to offer something for the auction. The kids love it and the parents will spend big to buy it. We also have the grade level theme baskets. Families donate items to their theme baskets and we put them together in several little auction baskets.

There is one thing that is very important. The first year our school had an auction, they just laid out individual items and it looked more like a garage sale than an auction. You want to package items together in gift baskets. People will pay much more for a package than if the items are broken down individually. I could go on and on with advice, but I'm sure you're tired of reading. But if you do want more advice or to see a copy of our letter or anything at all...please feel free to email me. Just make sure you write school auction in the subject line so I know it's not a junk email. My email address is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Good luck!!
Sunshine N.

Another big hit is kid-decorated craft projects -- class does a bench, planter, coatrack, etc. I'm actually a little sad I let the tray get away, it had cute little thumbprint critters for everyone in my daughter's class, but the price got too high. (Maybe you're already on that; you asked about corp donations.)

Thank you all for your advice. I at least have a place to start now. This site has been tremendously helpful.

Thanks again,
Beth

Each large corporation has a different method of how to ask. Go to their website information is usually listed under "community relations", "corporate giving", "sponsorship" or a similar name. Some of them will want you to apply online only, some want a letter sent to corporate and some want a letter sent to the local store. Most of them state "do not make follow up calls".

Local places to ask are the local banks, realtors, lawyers (free will writing up to a certain amount), the local fire department (engine ride to and from school), accountants, dentists, doctors and insurance companies. Local stores will often give an item that you could put in a basket or by itself.

Any minor or major league ball teams that are close. Minor leagure will give either tickets or team merchandise. Major league will give merchandise. Any local theatre, museum, mini golf, regular golf, paintball, activity center.

Send a note home to your parents asking for ideas of places/businesses/people to contact - they may even help do some of your contacting. Local artists are also good contacts to ask. Also ask your parents if they have a business they want to donate an item from or just put an item together themselves.

We also offer ads for sale in our auction program for our parents. We start these prices at $10 for a business card size ad.

We do a combination of sending out faxes, letters (with follow up phone calls) to the "big guys", but we also get great things from small local companies by going to visit them personally (you still need to take them printed donation request letters stating what you're needing and the PTOs Tax ID number).

Think of some big businesses in your area and type up a nice letter on letter head. There are some good example letters in the file exchange and send them off. We send request to all over the place including places like Disney Land. We normally send out over 100 auction request of course we get no where near that back. Another good place to hit up right now is the politicians. They want our votes so most would be happy to send over dinner or show tickets of some sort. We always get a good return from them. Found out if any of your families own their own business. We have a family that has a cleaning & lawn care service and they always give us gift certificates for free cleaning and lawn care service.

Not sure if this is something you already thought of but we also have each grade think of a theme and then make a basket. The teachers ask parents to donate items to put in the basket and then that basket would be auctioned off. It blows me away but those parents come in and bid 400.00 on those things cause they know its for a good cause. Hope those ideas help!