How to start a fundraiser?

limabeans
Sat, 05 Jun 2010 23:51:21 +0000

Seems to me you need to do a lot more research before you blithely move ahead with this, however admirable your intentions may be. Do you have a local chapter of the PDF in your area? Have they done auctions before? Do they agree you can use their name? You’ll need to contact their board and work with their marketing/fundraiser/development office. I’m not sure they would want to sound so casual as this, “But I’m sure I can come up with a marketing ploy”.

If this is the organization you’ve targeted, approach them first. Get this on the calendar, and begin to solicit other sponsors. You’ll need to get a sense of how much $$$ this will cost to put together (location, mailings, food/drinks, entertainment, decoration, etc., etc.) and then decide to get going. Established auctions, if done right, earn loads of money, but it takes years and big names to get it established. It usually takes a full year or two to pull it off. Think of this as a big wedding: invitations, food, music, lists of people. Then: organizing the auction items is another very big job. Again, you can do it right, with nicely packaged items stacked throughout the room, or your tables could look bare and minimal. That depends on many things: you hard work, many connections (big ticket items, vacations houses, tickets to shows and sport games, signed autographs, jewelry) and of course, the marketing of this event to bring in tons of people willing to spend money.

Start with PDF and see how they respond.