EP 11: Motivating Your Committee Members to Secure Donations for Your Auction

Jeff: Welcome to the Elevate Your Event podcast, where we talk about how to plan and execute an unforgettable event that will dazzle your guests and generate more income for your organization. From fundraising and securing trendy auction items to event production and logistics, get the best tips and advice from seasoned fundraising and event professionals who have been in your shoes.

Jeff: Welcome back to the Elevate Your Event podcast, where we talk about ways that we can make your fundraising events better and hopefully help you raise more money. We've got some special guests here today. Welcome, Mike.

Mike: Thank you.

Jeff: Go ahead and introduce yourself.

Mike: My name is Mike Pappy. I am the founder of the One Goat Foundation.

Jeff: Awesome. And then, obviously, Ms. Diana DuPlanche.

Diana: Wow. It's like you're so good at that now.

Jeff: I've been practicing.

Diana: Hey, I'm Diana DuPlanche. I've been on the podcast before, if y'all are repeat listeners. And I've been working for Handbid for quite some time now. I think eight and a half years.

Jeff: I think you're actually -- and I'm the founder of the company -- but I actually think you're the longest-tenured employee, maybe.

Diana: Hey, I've got skills, y'all.

Jeff: That's right.

Mike: I think Diana hired me.

Diana: That might have happened. Might have.

Jeff: Awesome. Okay, well, absolutely happy to have Mike back as well. And we are going to talk about something that I know Mike and I have had chats about in the past. And that is how do we motivate your committee and how do we help your committee help you? And we're talking auction committee, right?

Diana: Yes. Yes, we are. And I feel like we need to say the reason that we have this topic is because one of our listeners asked us about it. Y'all, we listen to you. We listen to your comments. And I also want to say, for the people out there that I've spoken with -- and that have actually, I've called on the phone and you've told me, you know who you are -- some of you are in Ohio. I'm just going to give you a shout out. And actually you're now a Handbid customer. Is that okay to say? And so that's exciting because I think our podcast is making a difference, and that's what we love. But you're making a difference in how you influence our choices, because you're asking us questions. And so that's where this topic came from.

Jeff: I don't know if y'all knew that. That is great to hear. And we love the fact that we have clients out there listening to this and also giving us input on, "Hey, we would love to hear you guys talk about this." So if there is something that you want to get our input on, please comment, shoot us a note, say, "Hey, we would love for you guys to do an episode on whatever topic that might be." And then we will definitely prioritize that in our list -- our amazingly long list of awesome things we plan to talk about around fundraising events, since we've been doing this for a long time.

Diana: Right. And Mike is not just a Handbid client, but Mike is a tenured event professional. And I've actually attended your events, and I would say you have amazing auction items. And I know that it's not easy to go out there and get those. And there's been lots of back and forth in the past about where do I get these things? Auctions are kind of a pain, and they do wear people out. So let's just dive in.

Mike: You know what, Jeff? They're a labor of love.

Jeff: Labor of love. That's what they are. Okay, let's just say it like it is.

Mike: Yes.

Jeff: All right. They're necessary because people love them. When everybody comes to us -- and we're kind of sidetracking here, but I think this is a good rabbit hole to go down -- why would you want to have a silent auction? Because they are a labor of love. It's because it helps to give certain people things to do at your event. You create ways to connect with your donor base or your future donor base. And so when people show up at your event, they may not know your charity very well.

Jeff: They might be a guest of somebody who knows your charity well, and they walk in that door. They may not be ready to give you money in a paddle raise just yet. So for those of you who are thinking, "We're just going to do a paddle raise" -- congratulations, I hope you do really well in it. But there's probably a chunk of people in that room who had a really nice meal and would have probably spent several hundred dollars in your silent auction but didn't raise their paddle when you asked them to.

Jeff: So think about that, because somebody might say, "This is an interesting organization. I'm not sure I really want to give money to this organization yet. I need to learn more about what they're about. But I'm going to bid on that Traeger Grill."

Diana: That's right.

Jeff: Okay. Boy, you just went to a big item right there, too.

Diana: Yeah, of course. Get that Traeger Grill in your auction.

Jeff: But keep in mind, what do you get in exchange for that? You get their name and their email address.

Diana: Ooh, holla.

Jeff: Right. Because I can walk in the door as a guest of Mike, sitting at Mike's table, and say, "I'm not going to give you my information. I don't want to register to bid tonight. I don't plan on being in the auction." Or you're just doing a paddle raise -- "I'm not going to give you my email address." And then you don't have it. But if I get incentivized to actually bid in that auction, now you're going to get my email -- if you're using mobile bidding, and we're obviously big fans of that. And you're going to get their phone number.

Mike: Yeah, agreed. I think it's almost an expectation when you go to an event. I've not only put on many events -- whether it's a gala or a golf tournament -- but I've been to them as well, and it's almost an expectation. It doesn't matter if it's big or small, you want to see something there.

Jeff: The shopper in all of us wants to try to get a deal, right? And having items at your event is an easy way to get some bidding going, a lot of fun. Generally, my favorite is when there's two people bidding against each other. And you've got the lingerer who's just kind of looking over the shoulder when Jeff goes and puts his bid down, then goes and ups his bid. So it's a lot of fun for the guests as well.

Mike: And you're going to really boost your donations and participation. But how do you get those items?

Jeff: Yeah. Well, that's a great question. And we've all been there, right? We've all had to go out there and divide and conquer and get those auction items. So Diana, you have run your own auctions before. You're a tenured auction professional. Where did you get your items?

Diana: Where did I get mine? Well, y'all, look -- I really think committees have to be inspired by one another. Everybody has to sit around and put all your ideas out there. And I think it's a lot of divide and conquer. I think the first thing to establish is some people don't like to ask people for items and they don't have that kind of personality. So I think one of the suggestions that we had in preparing for this podcast today is do some role play with your committee, because people just need to get some ideas of how to approach a proprietor of a business and say, "Hey, listen, my child's school is doing an auction, and we would love to include one of the items from your store. Do you have anything you could donate?"

Diana: And people just don't feel comfortable with that all the time. Not everybody.

Jeff: And some of us that have had sales roles in the past, maybe we feel a little bit more comfortable getting rejected.

Diana: Yes.

Jeff: But there's probably a fear of rejection from some people out there. "I just feel bad asking these people." And maybe you feel pretty good because it's the same Mexican restaurant you go to every Thursday at 4:30. And so you have zero issue asking those people for a donation. But maybe you don't know those people very well. And you know they're hit up constantly for donations. But what you don't ask for, you don't get.

Diana: Yeah.

Jeff: Right. And so I like what you're talking about, because salespeople do this too. When you're doing sales training, you role play and you give them some scripts and some talking points. And so when we talk about how do you get items -- we'll come back to what types of items to go get -- but how you get items, what I'm hearing from you is it tends to work well to divide and conquer. You can determine on your board or on your committee: these people know these other businesses or they're connected to these things. So I'm going to put them in the position to do the ask or to go get that. They're called the solicitor, right, in software. But let's keep going on the how do you solicit.

Jeff: So you talk about role-playing. You give them some scripts. And then I think the other thing that it really helps to equip them with is a donation letter.

Diana: The donation letter. Yep.

Jeff: Yeah. Because that's the number one thing people ask for as a way of getting rid of you.

Diana: Yes. That's true. They do need an out.

Jeff: Yeah. Well, that letter has your EIN number on it. It has your financial goals or your ask goals. And how are they going to reach back out to you if they do decide to give you an item? So how can you make it as easy as possible for the person that you're asking?

Mike: A lot of times, too, it's great to have the actual event flyer -- the date, the event details, things you're going to drop off. The people that want to give -- and every local business wants to give, and they will. But if they've already done enough -- and it's happened to me quite a few times -- if I go into a liquor store and try to get a bottle of spirits or something that we can donate, or a restaurant, they may say, "You know what, we're full up this year."

Mike: So now you put them on your list, and now I'm talking to those people on January 2nd.

Jeff: On January 2nd. Or the year prior, right? I mean, there's one -- it's not an auction item but a sponsor, but it's the same thing. And if you can't get to them in Q4, you're not going to get to them.

Mike: And I've missed it for three years, and they're going to be mine this year.

Jeff: Are they on your calendar, Mike?

Mike: Well, I already sent them like three draft proposals of the sponsor stuff. But it's the same with the auction items too, right? And a couple of things that we do. The committees are important. But anybody on your board, anybody that they know, anybody can ask and donate something. We all know somebody that can do that.

Mike: I found that there's a couple of things that work well. One is I have a list. It's either a list of last year's gifts that came through, and you always see -- whether you're using a paper donation sheet or the mobile bidding, which I highly recommend because everything is recorded -- you can see the items that went for the most money. You can see the items that had the most bids. Those are the items you want back.

Mike: Who got those items last year? Who can go get them this year? That's a directive. But you also want a list of things you haven't had or haven't been able to get, and then you open that up at your meetings and in emails: "Who can help with this?" The people that volunteer to do that first, trust them to go get it. Not everybody on the board or in the committee is going to want to go and feel comfortable. But I'll tell you when they do --

Mike: It's when you start sending those emails out to the people that are associated with the organization -- on the board, for example -- "Hey, we just got a $200 gift card to Fleming's. We just got a bottle of Blanton's from Heritage Liquors." Whatever it is.

Mike: People on the board will be like, "I want to kind of get -- what can we do? Hey, my friend works at Jimmy John's. Can I get some coupons from that?" Sure, whatever you want to do. And then that's how I divide and conquer.

Jeff: Yeah. And maybe if you're a board member or a committee member who isn't comfortable asking, maybe you know somebody that is. Maybe it's a spouse, or maybe it's somebody else that is a friend of yours, and you say, "Hey, will you help me with this?" Because somebody that you know probably is comfortable with it and will be able to do that.

Jeff: And I think, to your point, when you're going down that list, one of the things that I like to do is look at what other auctions have run in my area, because it will tell you what businesses will donate.

Mike: Yeah, you can steal ideas.

Jeff: Right. I'm like, "Wait a second. Fleming's gave them a $200 gift card? Well, that means I have a chance of getting a $200 gift card because they obviously give." So keep that in mind.

Jeff: The other thing is it's worth understanding that some of these businesses are local and some of them are national. And so don't get discouraged if you walk into Fleming's and they say, "All of our donations are made at the national level." That may not be true, by the way. But if they say that, there's probably a spot on the national website where you can apply for a gift card too. The airlines do that as an example. But just be prepared to get rejected in some way.

Jeff: And we were talking about the donation letter, and you're right. So that letter has to include information about your event. Not just what your charity is and what you're about, because some businesses have certain types of charities that they want to support and other types they don't. But it'll talk about the event itself. And you're going to hand it -- first thing you're going to say is, "Who's in charge? I have a donation request here for a charity event that we're running. Can I speak to the manager?" And they'll normally say, "Well, Mike is the manager." 99% of the time, when they know that you're a charity asking for a donation, Mike is not going to be there.

Mike: Mike is not there at all.

Diana: That's right. Mike's not available. He comes in on Mondays.

Mike: So busy.

Jeff: Right? So if you can get a hold of the manager, hand it to the manager. If you can't, make sure it gets to the manager. And then find out when they make these decisions, because you want to plan to follow up.

Jeff: "Is Mike in on Monday?" "Yes." "Okay. Well, then hand this to him. I'm going to come in and follow up with Mike on Monday. Is that okay?" And that way they know that you're serious. It helps to stay on top of them, because a lot of times these get thrown on a stack on a desk along with the other 40 or 50 that showed up that week. And you want yours on the top. So be the one that comes back.

Diana: Right. And you're in sales. You understand this.

Mike: Yes. Persistence is the key.

Diana: Persistence. Well, and also, I like what Mike said about offering up some level of inspiration to his board by talking about all the items that are coming in. Sometimes people just need to know, "Oh, they went out and got this. She got that. Oh, my gosh. Now I thought of something. My cleaning lady can donate her services, or their lawn service." What else can we come up with? And so all those inspiring ideas come together.

Diana: The other idea that I can think of if you don't feel comfortable is pairing off. So if you've got time, another committee member or a board member can go -- you all can go as a pair. Asking doesn't seem as intimidating when you're going as a group.

Mike: Yeah. It's just true.

Diana: The other thing that I've done -- I'm just going to shamelessly tell y'all -- I will bring the little people with me. The people that are going to be the recipients of the money that you raise. Sometimes it's appropriate to bring them with you. So I have had my little children with me. "Hello, these children go to the school around the corner." And they're like -- what are you going to do? Tell a two-year-old no? "So we don't have anything for you, little girl." I mean, that's just not going to happen. So I feel like they have a little bit more of an open heart.

Diana: But also, a lot of you out there -- our clients are raising money for sports teams in your little local area. I personally come from the experience of raising money for my daughter's team. And we told those girls, "Okay, you're going to take this shopping center." So we all met at a certain time and I passed out solicitation letters. I said, "You, you three, and you four -- go to this side of the shopping center. You four, go to this side. Walk in. Give your letter. Tell me what you're going to say." I made them talk to me about how they were going to do it.

Diana: And so they went and got their own items. And I was standing in the parking lot kind of watching all of them go in and out of the doors. And some of them came out and they had some beauty supplies with them from this one area. You should have seen me -- I was losing my mind in the middle of the parking lot.

Jeff: And they were like, "Something's wrong with your mom."

Mike: Well, I applaud your success in that, because we did that with my son's football team.

Diana: Oh.

Mike: And they just wore their jerseys, right? They weren't in full uniform with pads or whatever, but they wore their jerseys and they went around. And then I started to observe -- and this is where the role-playing thing might have actually been a good thing. "Keep donating. You got an item." Right? "What happened at auction? Whoops. Time out. Huddle in the parking lot."

Jeff: Let's talk this through again.

Diana: Yes, exactly.

Jeff: But I think it is effective. People love to give to schools. So if you guys are obviously connected to a school, you have a little bit of an easier time. Mike, your organization handles first responders. That's got to be a help.

Mike: Yeah, it's a big help.

Jeff: Very cool. Our charity deals with a rare disorder. It's a little more challenging. Sometimes bringing Abby with us definitely works.

Diana: Bad idea.

Jeff: Oh, it's a good idea. Okay. Sometimes, depending on the mood she's in, it could be a really bad idea. We might only get to three businesses before we have to go home. But there are other times, especially when they know her. My daughter's a creature of habit, so there are certain routines that she has, all the way down to the quickie mart at the gas station. So I'm pretty convinced that they're going to give me a case of water or something because they love her so much -- they see her every Sunday.

Jeff: That can definitely help. They're connecting it now to a person or to a cause. So tell me -- I don't know if you exploit this or not -- but do you have first responders help you get items?

Mike: I don't walk with them into the --

Jeff: Come on, Mike. Have them wear their fireman uniform.

Mike: Most of them are bigger than me anyway, so I'm more like holding my hands up here. No, but I do have them reaching out for me too, right? And the one thing about what we do is we support first responders with financial assistance when they need it. And the first thing they always come back with is, "How do we give back? How do we help?" And it's real simple. We've got a lot of volunteers. I'd love for them to volunteer, but it's also -- talk to our sponsors. Talk to people you know. Talk to businesses you know about how they can help donate and help us raise money, because that's the lifeblood of what we do -- we give money. So that's where I point a lot of them.

Mike: And we've been introduced to a lot of great people that way. And the words "first responders" carry a lot of weight for other donations that we're getting -- anywhere from allowing us to have an open bar at the gala, all of that is donated from local folks or businesses that want to be known for giving back to first responders. So I don't bring them in with me, but I have them speak on our behalf.

Mike: But it also really helps to lean into who you're giving it to, because that's who somebody wants to back.

Jeff: Sure. Yeah. I love it.

Jeff: So we've talked about how you motivate, or kind of train, or equip -- or I would even say just encourage -- your team to go out there and ask. The mechanics around asking: we talked about the donation letter. I do think the next thing that really helps is some sort of shared spreadsheet or system where you're tracking these. This could ultimately become the item list that goes into auction software, but it doesn't have to be. It's really more of a donation list or a solicitation list.

Jeff: And there's a variety of ways to do that. I've seen committees use a shared Google spreadsheet that they all have access to, and they're tracking and sorting and organizing by a workflow. Like: "We've asked. It's been committed. It's been picked up and received." Or you have an assigned person to it. I've seen task management software like Trello that people have used. We actually built an entire solicitation tool that connects to Handbid -- some of our customers use it, and it has that same workflow in there. And it really just depends on how organized you want to be. But I do think you need somewhere to track it, because when people start seeing things come in, they need to see that somewhere.

Jeff: The emails are great. We get those on our committee too. "Oh, look, Mark just picked up this amazing donation. Last year they gave us a $250 gift card. Now they gave us a $500 gift card." Those celebrations are great over email. But when you start seeing them in that spreadsheet and you start seeing these donations accumulate, then it's like, "Yeah, now we can start building auction packages off of this. This is going to be a good auction."

Mike: One thing I want to add for the people who are kind of new at this -- I just want to set an expectation from my experience. If you don't have a personal relationship, it takes about 10 asks to get a yes. So just keep that in mind. If you don't have that special relationship with someone, or the committee doesn't know somebody, if you're just walking into a store, you might get nine no's until you get one yes. I think that's something to be prepared for.

Jeff: That's the importance of even building a list first, right? And you can go beyond that list. But giving your committee an idea of where to go, who to ask -- "Go to Costco and get a $200 gift card from Costco," right? Well, somebody may not know anybody at Costco, but somebody's going to take that on and build the 10 asks or whatever that would be.

Jeff: But knowing what to get -- you can also not just prioritize but categorize what you've got coming in. You don't want 50 gift cards from restaurants. That wouldn't be bad, but you want variety in your auction. We'll do a whole podcast on bundling. But that brings up a good tactic that we use, which is we know there are some very generous businesses out there. Home Depot is one of them. So we will accumulate Costco gift cards, Home Depot gift cards, and then you can use those to go buy something from that organization.

Mike: I love that.

Jeff: Yeah. So like Home Depot -- maybe they're only going to give you a $50 gift card at one location. Well, maybe there's eight locations in the metro area. Now I've got $400 worth of Home Depot gift cards. Then I go back and I buy that power saw or whatever I want to put in my auction.

Mike: A Traeger Grill.

Jeff: Traeger Grill. So should we talk about items? Is that something we were going to circle back to?

Diana: Well, I think what we were going to talk about -- because we've addressed certain types of items in other podcasts -- I think what's important to talk about here is the mix of what's going in your silent auction, what's going to go in your live auction, and then a little bit on consignment. Although I think that's probably its own episode at some point because there are so many questions about it.

Jeff: But it's not a bad idea. So when you're building out your list, you want to see what kind of donations are coming in. Live items tend to be one-of-a-kind experiences or things that are not easily bought. So if you are able to get one of those, or you have a board member or a committee member who's well connected to arrange some sort of meet and greet, or special access to a concert, or maybe they have box seats to some venue -- those you can kind of set aside and say, "Hey, Mike, I really do need VIP access to this event. Can you get me some passes to Waste Management or something like that?"

Jeff: And then outside of that, I think your committee can help you decide: are there a collection of consignment items we want to put in there? Consignment meaning you're paying a third party for the right to put this in the auction, and then you have to pay whatever that is. You won't have to pay if it doesn't sell. But say you put in two passes to Waste Management and that package with 10 passes and everything else is $2,500 per person. So you get two of them, that's five grand. If it sells for $8,000, you get to keep the $3,000. The $5,000 goes back to the consignment house.

Jeff: Don't be too shy about it. You don't want too many of those in there, but also keep in mind that people who are going to spend money on that kind of stuff -- that's going to be their discretionary income.

Mike: Yeah. Well, even adding to that, what we've done -- and we've got it lined up for this year too -- is actually purchasing items that we know will go for a higher dollar amount. Like a Mahomes signed jersey that you're going to spend $100 on. In a live auction or even silent auction, that's going to go $500, $600, $700, maybe a grand. So you're looking at that net donation or net profit off of that item.

Mike: And not everything has to be given. A lot of times, if you talk to some organizations and they're going to charge you cost for something -- okay, I'll pay cost for it knowing I'm going to get above and beyond what I've paid for it. And that's okay to do, because you need those cachet-type items in your auction, whether it's live or silent, that kind of lifts it up and puts everything at a level where there's an item for everybody.

Mike: I'm the person who bids on the golf balls and the golf glove, and that's a $50 deal. That's what I'm hoping to get. But there's other people that are going to bid $500 to $700 on a set of cigars or something to that effect. Your high, premier items and your standard items -- they're all valuable to you. You need a mix of all of it, and you're going to appreciate everybody.

Mike: I will say this. You will also have those people -- and this is the importance of a silent auction and having those items -- you will have people that will look for the items with no bid and put the minimum bid on every one of those items. My mom is one of those. She comes home with some of the craziest stuff.

Jeff: But she feels she's got the deal and it went to a good cause.

Mike: But nobody would have bid on that item anyway. She does the minimum bid and either drives it up or gets it.

Jeff: We love your mom.

Mike: My dad doesn't so much. But that's the part of having that auction. It's giving something for your participants, not just to show up and eat a meal or play golf. It's to do something more and have fun with what they see and what they may not see. And a lot of people want to give, but they want to get something for that. And it makes them feel like they're doing that.

Jeff: Yeah. And I liked your idea of saying you can purchase certain things. We've done that too. I've gone online and actually gone to online auctions and bought sports memorabilia knowing that I'm going to be able to sell it for a much higher price.

Jeff: I've actually been in other states and seen sports memorabilia that was not going to sell well in that place because it was donated remotely, and it's some sports team that is nowhere near where these people are bidding from. And you can pick it up cheap, take it back to your own city, and sell it for five times the price. So keep your eyes out for those types of things as well.

Jeff: And then the last one I would add is sometimes it's good either to use the gift cards that you've accumulated, or to spend a little bit of extra money to spruce up a package. One that we did: we got some vinyl records donated, and these were super cool. One of a kind, super awesome. But you need a record player to play them. Well, a record player on Amazon was 150 bucks. So we bought one and bundled it in with the package just so that you had the entire suite. And I think it went for $600 or $700.

Mike: That's a good call. That's a good item.

Jeff: So sometimes you have to look at that and say, "I'm going to need something a little extra in that." We do that. We'll put cigars in with a package here or there. Go to the cigar shop -- they'll sell them to you at cost. We'll spruce up packages with bottles of liquor or bottles of wine. All of the places I go around here, they'll sell to a nonprofit at cost. So go in there and get a bottle of bourbon or something at their cost, and it's a pretty good way of putting together whatever package it is that you're selling. I think ours was around a golf package somewhere, and we threw in some cigars with it.

Mike: Cool. And another thing to do -- and how our auction got as big as it did -- is one of our board members just sent emails out to a number of different places. Like an Orange Theory, or an Oakley -- he just took a list and sent our information to them. Not everybody responded, but a number of people did. They want to help, they want to give. They'll be happy to do it, or they just sent stuff.

Jeff: Yeah. And the more stuff you have to put in an auction, bundling is a great way to do it. Because you want to keep your item count limited -- that's the other thing. If you have 200 people at a gala, you don't want 200 items. You want maybe 70 items or 50 items. You want people going after it and bidding that up.

Mike: Yeah. It's just keeping an idea of the number of items per participants that you have coming.

Jeff: Yeah, for sure. All good. Well, let's summarize some things that we talked about today, just in terms of energizing or encouraging or equipping your committee to go out there and get stuff. So the role playing -- giving them the scripts.

Diana: Yep.

Jeff: What else would you add to that on the encouragement side?

Diana: Well, the solicitation letter.

Jeff: Oh, that's right. Yes, that was something that we want to equip them with. And just a level of inspiration. How creative can we be in going out and getting items? And who can we get to help us? And who are the right players to do that? And keep that communication up. As you're getting items in, let everybody know who got the item in and what they got.

Diana: I love that. Get that spreadsheet going.

Jeff: Yes. All right. Well, this has been a fantastic conversation. I think we've covered a lot of things. Hopefully you found some good nuggets of tips, advice, information, tactics, and ideas that can help you solicit auction items for your next event. So until we see you guys again -- thank you, Mike.

Mike: My pleasure.

Jeff: Thank you, Diana.

Diana: Thank you.

Jeff: All right. And we'll see you guys next time.

Diana: See you later.