You might enjoy this video of a new web series launching. The subject is the PTO.

Thanks for the responses regarding the EIN. I appreciate it. I'm still pushing, but getting no where.

Thanks again.

Hi Susan118,

When I receive an item under consignment I always place the starting bid higher then my cost for the item. This way if it sells or even receives one bid I still am able to make a profit off the item. For example, I have a consignment sports item in my auction today that retails for $1000. My cost is $350. I am placing it at starting bid $500. If I don't receive a bid, I will return it to my consignment company. I have also placed reserves on items in the past where if the reserve is not met the item does not get sold. Reserves can be tricky, but can work to your benefit if the item starts off as a silent auction item and goes to live auction. Reserves are also more difficult to manage so I would not recommend them unless you have a lot of auction experience.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Sherry for the great post!

Susan118, if you are running a one-time auction, you are correct. A one-time auction that opted for that type of a service MAY raise more money or MAY not. If the investment only pays for itself in the end, at least the guests enjoyed more interesting items to buy. But once that auction was over, you'd pitch your paperwork and go on with life.

However, most of my clients run auctions annually. They are looking ahead to determine how they can grow the event ... what image they are projecting ... how they can keep their event fresh for guests. It's a long-term approach.

In the worst case, they invest and don't make more money. But EVEN then, they've won. Why? Because they now have new donors. They have names of hotel managers who donated ... they have addresses of new resorts who have donated ... they have a bunch of new people to add to their annual procurement database. They've grown their database, which they add to and refine every year.

This listserve is a wonderful resource if you're trying to find some relatively inexpensive items to fill out gift bags or round out some silent auction item packages. Occasionally, they'll be a nice gem, too! But it would be rare for someone to post, for instance, their personal contact to secure a 4-night stay at a top resort ...or $500 MAC cosmetic basket. But you could easily get those things from renting a procurement database.

My clients invested because 1) it uplevels their items, 2) positions them for further growth and 3) helps when procurement volunteers are scarce.

The vendors of those databases could likely offer additional reasons why groups buy.

Hope that explains why groups opt for those types of services.

They make the money they may have spent back but are they guaranteeing any more money made on top of that? If you're paying $3500 and get $3500 back then you're breaking even if that, since I'm sure the companies are charging fees.

It doesn't seem like it is a good idea if you are a small group or small non-profit. If I were the one reading donation requests and they were coming from an outside company, I don't think I'd be inclined to grant them personally esp. if they were sending the same thing to the same companies repeatedly. You can't really build relationships with donators that way.

Sarah,

Procurement of items generally falls into 3 camps: ask for donations, use a consignor, or rent a procurement database.

I talk about what these each are -- and the advantages and disadvantages of each -- in this blog and video post:

www.redappleauctions.com/charity-auction-items-where-to-get/

I haven't used Innovative Event Solutions. They might have ties to consignors ... or they might start calling companies on your behalf ... or they might have a database.

A number of my clients have used a company that offers a procurement database. Some of my them had great success and signed-up to use the service the following year. Others got items, but they weren't as desirable as hoped. (For instance, the hotel donations were West coast, and they preferred East coast.)

It's irrelevant, though, because the vendor I had them use guaranteed my clients would make back 100% of the money they paid for the service. So in essence, the $3500 investment with him was risk-free.

I think that if a company offers that type of guarantee, it's great! There's no reason NOT to make the investment.