Silent auction help

[sas_mk]

I am trying to come up with a good fundraiser for our church youth group. We are trying to help the kids earn money to go towards a summer camp and a few other activities. Right now I am exploring the idea of a silent service auction.

The idea is that we would have a breakfast one Saturday morning and invite all members of our church. At breakfast, church members will be able to bid on different services that the 12-18 year old youth have committed to provide. Some of the services might include: babysitting, yard work, house cleaning, cooking, etc.

Do you think this would work? Would you support something like this in your church or community?

Any helpful hints to make this a success? Or... Anybody have any good services I can suggest to the youth to get them thinking about what they want to auction off?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[LovesTimone]

You could include a basket auction as well, we did this with my DD team in high school and we made lots of $$$. Here are some suggestions for the basket that we made.

Car care - sponge, car wash liquid, wind shield wiper fluid,tire cleaner, window wipes, and paper towels.

Beach basket - beach towels, sunscreen, ect..

Coffee basket - coffee cups, coffee, flavored cream, Starbucks GC was included in this one.

Spa basket - lots of stuff from dollar store, eye mask, loofah, body wash, lotion, shower gel ( I made this one, and I had caught a sale and Bath and Body)

Also we did ask some parents if the had any donation, We received, lots of Gift cards,

Picnic Basket - table cloth, napkins, paper plates, ect..

You could ask for donations possible white elephant items.

One of the most popular items was a photo taken of the team that each girl signed, then was enlarged.

You could sell desserts after a service, whole and by the slice - Our youth groups have alot of luck raising money with this.

 

[Claire&TheBoys]

To offset the cost of the bus transportation for our Youth to the camp and mission trip, we've done auctions the last 2 years. There are items up for silent auction that church members donate - nights at condos (we're in a beach community so a lot of members own condo units), rounds of golf, babysitting services by a certified nanny, and we also get donations from retail shops, like purses, movie tickets, gift certificates, etc. Then, as something that everyone can participate in, we do a Cake Auction. Ladies in the church bake cakes or pies or brownies and donate them for auction. We have a big fellowship after church and the Youth Minister auctions them off one by one. There's like a $5 minimum, but everything goes for at least $10, many go for up to $50 for really fantastic cakes. Between the 2 auctions (which happen simultaneously) they usually make in the range of $5000.

 

[Local_Girl]

Perhaps the kids can "solicit" donations from family/fellow church members that can be auctioned off. We did something similar once, and had all kinds of things come in, like home made wooden birdhouses, a dish of egg rolls (from an Asian family--they were really in demand!), computer work (my DH offered this as he is an IT guy). Right now in our church congregation, we have several folks who have done professional photography, and lots of guys who are good with car repairs/maintenance. If you want the youth to participate more, perhaps they can be involved in making a craft, or cooking up a special treat. What about a different special dessert once a week for a month? Our youth (girls) recently sold large chocolate chip cookies for a camp fundraiser. They were very successful, and my DD15 earned more than 2/3 of what she needed for camp doing this! Good luck!

 

[sas_mk]

Thanks for the replies. I love hearing what has worked for others. It is really helping me figure out what will work well for our group.

 

[v.t.]

I love the idea of the kids auctioning off their services, what a great lesson that is teaching them.
In addition to their services I would also try to have items donated. For example, movie tickets to go along with the night of babysitting, flowers to go along with the yard work, etc.
Our church has a parents night out, where we drop the kids off at church and the youth entertain them for the evening. (This is very popular at Christmas time so parents can get shopping done.)

 

[MSSANDRA]

I love the idea of them offering services. It really makes them work for what they want and need.

We did a VERY large scale silent auction with our youth a few year ago and made a LOT of money. It was however for a sick child that was a member of the youth so people really came together.

We live in the heart of race city so we have lots of church member solicit donations from race teams that went really high. We asked for business to donate items or services. We had a few member that had lake or beach houses offer those.

kids did a car wash-pure profit
We sold biscuits for breakfast and I think did a chicken lunch.

We made about 17,000. No we are not a really big or wealthy church but we worked REALLY hard and ADVERTISED a lot! It worked.


Kids have also done walk and rock-a-thons
Have all kinds of meals -After church meals were everyone just stays and gives a donation really works well!!