Seeking Advice on Fundraising Auction Event for School

At theschools my kids go to the biggest ticket items that sold were
Closet parking spot to door for the year
Front row seating for performances
Principal for the day
Tickets to sporting events
Class made projects ( hand prints of all the students in the early grades on a canvas, quilts, ceramics the kids made)
Riding in the fire truck/police car to school
Also trips to far away locations people donated their time shares and mile for plane tickets.
The key to raising big money is inviting as many people as possible from outside the school to spend $$.
Good Luck!
J.

The school I worked at did does this every year. Each classroom makes a craft and themed gift basket. The younger grades usually make a quilt, scrapbook, serving platter or something personal. Parents eat that stuff up! The older grades will paint a piece of furniture, or make a mosiac coffee table (once we did this with paint chip samples from the hardware store), fleece tie blankets. The themed baskets are usually put together by a volunteer parent or the teacher. Each child is asked to donate $5-10 or a certain item, depending on the size of the class. We've had baskets that were sports, board games, movie night, spa, pet, specific sports team, scrapbook, ect.. themed.
I hope this helps a little! Good luck!

A lot of schools now do a "write a check" campaign and it is pretty successful and you don't have all the legwork and organization that goes into something like a big event and silent auction.

That said, our athletic boosters did very well with a silent auction in the fall to kick off basketball season. Things donated were,,,, training packages at specific athletic gyms, personal trainer time, tickets to the Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Stars and Dallas Cowboys, baskets donated filled with wine/cheese, movie night theme, spa packages, mani/pedi packages, movie tickets, etc.

It was a successful event.......it is a traditional event done yearly so everyone looks forward to it.

The items sold that have brought the most money have been donated items: 1 or 2 nights at a B&B; an attorney donated services to prepare wills for a couple; a pair of diamond earrings;services of an interior decorator.

The items that didn't do as well were the "fixed price" items: A $30 gift card to a restaurant is worth $30...no one will want to pay more.

The BIG item at one auction was a quilt made by the children. Another BIG item was a garden bench that the children had painted (with the help of the art teacher).

It's probably too late to change anyone's mind, but I was talking to some PTA moms the other day, and one school is now doing a thing where they request $100 from each family, and in turn they won't have to do fundraisers. Apparently the school raised about $46K this way, vs. 1/2 that amount from the fundraisers.

Maybe someone will be interested in that approach?

Good auction items tend to be wine/pampering/vacation/theatre tickets, and kid entertainment-themed things. Make gift baskets full of multiple items. Give each gift basket a name.

Also, if you can get classrooms to make items, parents usually want to buy the classroom project for their kids. Quilts and garden tiles are the ones I can remember -- my son told me the other day he still wants the 4th grade class quilt I purchased many years ago, so I guess it was worth the money. :) And yup, a mosaic coffee table too.

We have an auction at my job every year. the things that bring the most money are the electronics. wii, playstation, ipod. But people wont pay more than retail, so, its important to get those donated. Women bid on good name purses - Dooney, and Coach mostly. There are usally some theme baskets, like a coffee basket full of expensive coffees and mugs, or a relaxation basket, full of bath and body works stuff and a loofa. Truthfully though, they probably cost more to put together than they bring in. Things that flopped were kitchen items and camping gear. I picked all that up for a song because noone else bid on it. If its homemade stuff, I think those fleece blankets that you tie together would be a hit, especially in the school colors. I would also have several made with the big universities in Calaifornia. Kids buy the ones for the schools with good sports teams and parents buy thier alma mater.

Not sure if this would work for older kids but at my kid's preschool, they dressed up the kids in some sort of theme (the first year his class was knights and princesses - there theme's was 50's where the kids stood near an old car, cowboys/girls where the kids sat on bales of hay, cooking where the kids all wore aprons and some w/chefs hats all holding some kitchen item and they stood around a kitchen playset), took a picture and framed it. It was great watching the parents battle it out over who would take home the cute pics.

Again, not sure if it would work for older kids.

One thing we did at our "parents only" auction night was a champagne lottery (?). We got a local jeweler to donate a diamond (the winner had to pay to have the diamond set at that jeweler), and we purchased a bunch of fake cheap cz diamonds. We put 1 diamond or one of the fakes in champagne glasses, filled each with champagne and sold the glasses for like $15. It was fun, different and everyone wants alcohol!
Also, if this is a religious school you could do "dinner with the priest/pastor", get the gym teacher to do a kids sports birthday party in the gym, get a teacher to do a night of babysitting and combine it with a dinner gift card or movie tickets, get a teacher to do a tutoring package...

If you would like to check my information out for your fundraiser the big difference from most others is that we give 50% back to the organization and you can't go wrong with that.
Go to www.partylite.biz/tammysgreatgifts
and check the tab Fundraisers for information. Then email me or give me a call!

we recently had a fundraiser for a friend with medical issues, and the big ticket items that did well were tickets ... sporting events, family events, concerts, circus, etc. check with your local banks etc, whoever holds boxes at these events, our local credit union donated loads of tickets, they dont use them all, and they often come with all kinds of special perks that people are willing to pay for...

Hi K.,
I help run an elementary school auction and have found our biggest moneymakers to be unique experiences (summer camp deals, vacation rentals, timeshares) followed by local services - handyman/contractor services, family portraits packages, housecleaning, music and dance lessons, gardening/landscaping consultations/design, etc. We generally tap the parents at the school first and then the community for donations. Other really popular moneymakers are "Pay-to-play" items - for example, "boot camp" excercise classes, or parties/dinners where there is a set number of people that can attend. An example of how it's structured is : four boot camp sessions for 10 people @ $80 per person; nets $800 for the school if it sells out! One local family has a brick pizza oven in their backyard and donates a dinner party each summer, which includes home made pizzas, salad, etc., wine/beer and is adults only. They set the date prior to the auction so it's listed on the sheet for the auction item - it always sells out! Massages, restaurant gift certificates and such are also good items to have but are less popular since the advent of groupon and livingsocial type websites - deals on those types of things are readily available now..... Art by the students can be a money maker for the right school - I've seen things like tile mosaics, quilts, platters with art drawings... Hope this was helpful!

Best of luck!!
J.

Both of our boys have auctions at their shcools that I've helped out w/a lot. My younger son's school did the wine raffle as well....which I won! Sold tix for $5 each. Each family donated a bottle of wine w/a minimum value of $10. The school put together a DVD of all the classes that we sold for a flat fee: $$$ straight to the school. Not only did each class make a project (sold at the live auction) but families also donated parties. Example: another mom & I donated a day at FairlyLand (small theme park in Oakland) for the whole class...thankfully it was a small class of 8 boys! We also provided lunch & transportation & did it on a day the school was closed. Made it easy for working parents to have daycare for their kids that day. We charged $25/kid. We had some discount coupons so we only ended up paying for maybe 2 entrance fees. Also helped that Fairyland charges only $8/person to get in.

Older son's school: as an incentive, if you donated an auction item or bought a ticket to come, your kid got a free golden dress pass good for every Friday for the rest of the year. Clearly will only work if your kids wear uniforms! Teachers also donated parties w/them that sold for a flat fee. Some of our class projects were sold for a flat fee cuz if a silent auction item, they usually go for less than the cost of making them. We also had a small amount of silent auction items up for early bidding for families that couldn't attend. We have also sold class projects this way over the years. This past year, we had inexpensive wine glasses made up w/our school logo on them that we sold for a flat $25 & then you got your first glass of wine free. Both schools had their events at night & adult only as booze was sold. At my younger son's school, there were 3 signature drinks & then wine & beer all for free as someone donated it for us! Older son's school, some of the booze is donated & some purchased. We sell drink tix ahead of time as well as during the event so that the bartenders handle no money. Honestly, I think a decent amount of money comes from the drink tix alone! And at my younger son's school, the small amount of decorations were sold at the end of the night for a flat fee.

Party ideas:

Art in the park, swim parties (if someone has a pool & only open to a small amount for safety purposes w/parents attending), breakfast in bed for families, a home-cooked meal for either one specific night for one family, or auctioned off for a group by a family w/a good chef, music lessons, photography sessions, language lessons, time w/a counselor/therapist, time w/a lawyer for specific thing, ie: will writing. Teacher parties: soap making or other craft project they are good at, movie/popcorn night in the classroom, trips to the zoo.

Class projects: painted pottery, stepping stones, quilts, benches, small table & chairs, clocks, ceramic masks, planter boxes. The one item we've found does not go well is any kind of a themed gift basket. A lot of money is spent on the items in the bakset & then it generally does not go for its value.

Good luck!

Another idea is to raffle of an "instant wine cellar". I live in wine country and wine is a huge seller at our school auctions. There are hundreds of wineries in our area - send out donation requests (or make phone calls) to as many as you can and ask for a donation of a bottle of wine (make sure you do it well in advance. I work for a winery and we get hundreds of requests and it can take several weeks to process a donation request). You can even ask parents to donate a bottle they may have at home. Single bottles of wine don't auction as well as a "lot" of several bottles of wine. Who wouldn't want 20 or 30 bottles of various wines from all over wine country? They're great for parties and gatherings especially in the summertime. What we've done is to have a few kids roaming around the auction selling $5 raffle tickets for the "wine cellar" and then raffle it off at the end of the auction. It keeps people there the whole time in anticipation of winning a whole bunch of wine!