Karen V. - one of the volunteers had Amazon bucks which is free money from all the orders she placed at Christmas. So we went on Amazon and were able to buy a coffee mug and soft Kitty socks without any expense. We found pens at Walmart that had the characters on them. We received a donation of 4 Cheesecake Factory gift cards so added one of those. We found a Bazinga window cling and are working on painting a themed wine glass.
Duck Dynasty is a popular one also.
We just put together a Boy Prom auction item that includes free tux rental, Gift Card for flowers and hair cut.
For the girl prom items we got gift card for dates flower, nails, tanning and looking for a hair certificate.
Other ideas are if you find anyone who can knit. My mom made me a couple baby blankets.
We also do a town spirit basket that always includes a scarf knitted in the school colors.
Tiny Prints gave us 4 $50 gift certificates so we used one for the baby basket and also used one for a graduation basket and included thank you notes, note cards and randon graduation cards.
We just sent out letters to all the area golf courses to try and get packages for out silent auction.
Hope some of this helps.
help our basket party is in 2 weeks and I am working on the program. Should I list items as tickets to .... to be used from APRIL TO May 17th V 100 or simply tickets to .....
We are a group of 15 women who conduct a silent auction each year in order to raise the $2000 we need for our annual charity work.
We typically have 75 theme baskets. In the past we had very few gift certificates, but since finding this site, this year we will have many!
Instead of the traditional paper/pen and have people sign their name and their bid amount, we do it the following way:
Each item has a number and there is a clear jar next to the item with a number as well. We have bid sheets which ask for name, cell phone, item number and their bid. Individuals fill out this sheet and put it in the corresponding jar. By having a clear jar, others can see how many bids have been made. At the end of the day we open each jar and call the highest bidder. We feel we do better doing it this way, than the traditional way, since it is an all day event.
Two years ago, my co chair introduced a new twist which worked great. Each item had a buy my now price in which a person could buy the basket outright and take it with them. Since we are in a highly vacation area, many campers in the past wanted to purchase baskets, but at that time, the auction was by bid only.
Last year we sold 57 out of 75 baskets outright.
This year, we are going to do a pre-sale in the hopes of selling baskets at buy me now price, so we don't have to carry baskets to our silent auction site. We will accept bids and buy me now at our actual fund raising event.
I don't think biddingforgood stonewalls people but they usually send you stuff about signing up with them, trying to sell you on it. I have 50-50 success with it. I get no's if it is a bigger company like Sephora but I often get yes's if it is a company in my state - California. Hotels usually say no to us through that site though.
can anyone tell me how the Bidding For Good intervenes with donation requests if you're not a subscriber. I don't quite understand how some people are getting stonewalled. I'm wondering if I should just avoid requesting when I see companies use the company. Thank you
