Question about doing a Silent/Live Auction for my girl's school!!

[lucky1]

Does anyone know where I send the letter to American Girl to see if they would be willing to donate something?? TIA!!

http://www.americangirl.com/corp/corporate.php?section=about&id=5


You will need probably 4-6 months prior to the event and you wlll not hear anything back even if you are not selected. Also you need to meet their guidelines

 

[wildfan1473]

We are doing our dinner and live/silent auction next weekend. We are a small Catholic school, this is our biggest fundraiser every year - last year we took in over $60,000.

For our live auction, this year we are doing MN Twins Champion Club tickets, donated by a law office; a Mexican Fiesta for 8, donated by a local Mexican restaurant owner; a full orthodontic treatment; a 4 day pheasant hunting trip in S. Dakota, donated by the landowner; a live cooking show from the head chef at the country club for 12 people; a canoe trip with our Pastor; a golf outing with a former MN Viking Hall of Fame player; 2 nights at a Wisconsin Dells resort; and a lobster boil. Many of these we have done in the past, and they are all big money makers.

For the silent auctions, we have tons of stuff. One I haven't seen mentioned are group events - for example, a card or game night for up to 12 people, at $25/person. Or a pontoon boat cruise with adult beverages and snacks. Salsa making parties. The host family sets the terms with how many people, and, depending on the event, we charge a per person price, anywhere from $25 - $100 each, and once we meet the number of people, it gets taken off the table. We usually have about 10 of these events each year.

I usually donate wrapping Christmas gifts... I purchase all of my wrap after Christmas on clearance, I spent about $8 last year to wrap for this year, and it brought $45 to the school.

I have gotten some other great ideas here also, keep it up!

 

[aprilgail2]

Get the teachers to group by grade level and do lunch with the teachers. If you have 3 first grade teachers, you would have 3 winners for first grade. This brings in crazy amounts of money. The teachers can take the students to lunch/breakfast (late start days), or bring lunch into the school.
If you have any kind of promotion/graduation, live auction reserve seats. Almost $1200 for the high school last year.
A ride to school with a police office, stopping for orange juice and donuts brought in a lot of money. For high school, things like job shadowing a trauma doctor, D.A., college prof are very popular.

We tried things like that and they never did well- our auctions are open to the public so most people there do not have any kids in the school and these items mean nothing to them. If you only had parents of the kids in the school there I am sure thats great but for most school auctions here are open to the public so non school related things are needed.

 

[Arkansan]

What about getting the athletic dept. to donate a season pass for games? My DDs Middle School auctions two passes (for HS sports): one for spring season and one for fall. The fall one always goes for more money, as it covers football games. Here, football reigns supreme. It sold for over $300 a couple of years ago! (and there are only 6 or so home football games) You could always do something similar for your most popular sport season, ie: ice hockey, basketball, etc.

Another donation of time that was REALLY popular at our East Coast pre-school: the director and her twin teenage daughters would donate a weekend of overnight babysitting--your home or theirs--for up to 3 children. About 5 yrs. ago it went for over $600! We were in PA at the time, so only a couple of hrs. from NYC, Baltimore, Philly, etc. We never won it, but I really wanted to! I guess I did my part, though, if I bid the price up!

As for the Reserved Parking sign, the preschool also auctioned one off. Someone just made a sign and set it into a 5 gallon bucket with cement. Then it could be moved. (The preschool rented space in a church, but was not church related, so the sign had to be moved over the weekend and couldn't be permanently set in the parking lot.)

You could also auction off experiences. My HS band was very good and we traveled all over competing. I remember we had a "guest conductor" during a spring concert. We just played a march and the "conductor" led us. The person conducting had won the right to direct the HS band at an auction. I don't know how much $$ we were worth.

 

[IMALOVNDISNEY]

I am good how about you?? I can not find your phone number. You can email or PM it to me...Thanks,,

PM'd you.

 

[micheleq]

For my DD5's preschool we always had an auction that was very successful.

Don't forget to ask each and every parent if there is something they can donate -- you never know who works where (a manager of a liquor store may donate two cases of wine), or is a member of a golf club, has season tickets to sporting events, has a friend who is a friend of... that kind of thing.

Not sure if you are in CT close to NYC (we were), but a great package is a limo ride to NYC with dinner and theater tickets. That always brought in a good amount. Also backstage tours -- like at a local tv station -- or private meet and greets (if you happen to know someone famous).

Best of luck! Our auction was a ton of fun, I'm looking forward to helping with our school auction next year here in Michigan

 

[kritter]

Thanks, for all of the GREAT ideas!! I love them all......

 

[actnkidz]

At our school our live auction consists of the classroom keepsakes, which can go for up to $4- $5,000, which I think is crazy. This includes quilts, books of photos of everyone in the class and other crafty things that includes the entire class. They also auction off a trip worth about $8000 that was donated by a family. This year they are planning on having a puppy to auction off, we have heard they go for big bucks especially if the puppy is there. The other live auction items are teacher for a day, they choose 3 teachers who are willing to let a student run their classes for a day. Another idea would be front row seats to the graduation or christmas program, this is great so you don't have to get to the event so early!

We also have a silent auction at this event, which includes a lot of the things that others have discussed. Good luck its a lot of work but usually has great results.

 

[micheleq]

They also auction off a trip worth about $8000 that was donated by a family. This year they are planning on having a puppy to auction off, we have heard they go for big bucks especially if the puppy is there.

What a great idea! Details please? A resuced puppy or pure bred? What great PR for your local animal shelter if they could bring in a kitten or a puppy.

 

[NewCrew42]

The lunch with a teacher or breakfast with a teacher go over huge at our school!!!!

Also, the little kids LOVE this one!!!! Waterboy for the night for the football or basketball team (whatever sport you choose.) Cheerleader for the night, Junior PomPom girl for the night. You just say something like Make your K-4th graders dream come true by being an honorary football player for the night. Your child will get to lead the team onto the field, be an honory team captain, walking to the center of the field for coin toss, etc. These are HUGE at our school.

Also getting birthday type parties donated by either businesses or families to places like the skating rink, pottery painting places, jumpzone, etc. These go for usually more than their value.

Parking spaces, birthday greeting on school sign, for high schoolers see if you can get a couple of teachers to offer a homework pass. I would pay $$$$$ for that for my son tonight for his Latin class! I was able to win one for him when he was in 5th grade. LOVE the homework pass. OH, and when you list the value for this on the bid sheet, be sure to put PRICELESS!!!!!

 

[jg789]

Just finished up doing an auction. The hardest part of the auction was check out - getting items for donation wasn't hard at all. We had 4 months and a HUGE group of people soliciting. We got to where everytime we went out to eat we asked for the manager and for a donation.

Every time we did ANYTHING we asked. If I got my hair done, I asked the stylist. When I got my nails done, I asked the manicurist. Etc..It's harder for people to say no when a) you are in person and not on phone and b) you are already spending money

We also had sponsorships - businesses that would "match" bids...this was really cool as well! And that made donors feel extra good knowing that their highest bid on their donated item would be matched!

We had everything from baskets and gift cards to unique items like paintings, prints from an old movie theater, dinners with local celebrities, LOTS of signed memorabilia. The live auction items consisted mainly of condo/vacation rentals that owners donated, etc..

BUT IF YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH CHECK OUT, START FIGURING THAT PART OUT NOW, AS THAT WAS THE HARDEST PART, LOL!