A lot of companies use the Bidding for Good form for donation request. I probably filled out at least 30 of these. I did not receive a donation from any of them. Has anyone else had a positive experience with them? How do I go about getting on their "good side"?

Wanda, you're not going crazy. You're "in" the list.

The listserve's name is "Ultimate Donation List." Those participating in this listserve make posts (like you just did). This adds content to the "list."

Imagine it as one very long email string with people contributing. Some people offer ideas; others ask questions.

If you start on Page 1 and work your way through, you'll get the gist of it.

I guess I'm losing it I can't find the list but would love to, we lost a huge amount of our funding for next year and looking for a way to generate some extra money. I was thinking auction when I saw these post can you help me.

This list has been a great resource in our preschool's online auction. We're live now, throughout the month of May. Our catalog is just under $20,000 in retail value and more items continue to arrive. I will list more later of what I did have success with but first I want to mention a resource I haven't seen here before: Donationmatch.org.

It's a match making website for donations. Companies can sign up to use it to manage requests or to find new places to reach out to. Fundraisers can sign up to contact specific donors or post an event and see what comes their way. The site specifically gives you lists of current offerings your event is a good match for. We received $150 in products from 2 companies through this site and coupons for free $100 goodie boxes to distribute to all our live event attendees.

Most of all, though, I think of how much easier this job would be if everyone used a site like this!

ptrrabit.... I'm sorry your event didn't go so well...this was our first big auction for
our Lutheran school and getting people to come wasn't easy. The school didn't communicate that well with the families and didn't even have flyers or posters out so
we have very few parents show up. They concentrated more on the church goers. My
auction packages were very family geared so we had very little bidders on some of them. we did average 186 people but very small percentage actually bought anything.
Guess next year We will try to target families a lot more to come & I will need to figure out more packages for the older generation. Our auction did bring in 21,450 so not so bad for our first year.

Regarding having things sent to your home, it is easier if items are sent to your home, however, I felt it was more professional to have everything sent to the school. If I was a company, I would feel really put off if I was asked to send something to a private residence. I also set up an email address for the auction as I felt that was more professional also.