20+ Best Silent Auction Software Solutions to Grow Revenue

Your nonprofit’s team has been working day and night to bring your silent auction to life. You’ve procured the right items, marketed your event online, and booked a venue. But once the event day rolls around, you quickly realize you don’t have any of the technology you need to make sure your silent auction goes off without a hitch.

Silent auction software is an often underrated tool that all nonprofits should add to their tech stack. Not only will the right platform help you with day-of event logistics, but it will also make the entire auction planning process, from donor communications to item tracking, a breeze.

Here’s our round-up of the top silent auction software and support tools that can take your event to the next level:

Explore the top solutions from top to bottom or jump to the products that interest you most. We’ll also cover a few silent auction software FAQ and best practices for building a solid silent auction software toolkit. Let’s get started!

OneCause: #1 Best Silent Auction Software

OneCause is the industry leader in silent auction software, trusted by thousands of nonprofits for more than a decade. As the first mobile bidding platform on the market, we’ve continued to innovate—expanding into a full suite of fundraising solutions that power auctions, events, online giving, peer-to-peer, virtual fundraising, and Text2Give® for nonprofit organizations of all sizes. At the heart of it all is what matters most: your mission. And a powerful mission needs powerful technology.

OneCause is committed to providing charity auction software that facilitates a seamless giving experience. From start to finish, OneCause helps your nonprofit run auctions as easily and efficiently as possible.

Unlike other platforms, OneCause is built for flexibility and gives your in-person or virtual auction attendees more options and methods to engage with your mission than ever before. Supporters can browse, bid, and buy directly from their smartphones, receive real-time push notifications on their favorite items, and even make fixed-price purchases or donations—all in one seamless experience.

Top Features

OneCause auction software centralizes all the best components of charity auctions into one solution, including:

• Event management: The OneCause Fundraising Platform offers a variety of flexible and modern event management features, including the ability to create a fundraising microsite, sell tickets, manage sponsorships, facilitate contactless check-in through QR codes, procure and track your silent auction items, and much more. You can also take any event online with the help of built-in livestreaming tools.
• Item procurement and tracking: With OneCause, you can streamline the item procurement process by generating solicitation letters to corporate sponsors, tracking the status of your items, logging each item’s location, and bundling multiple items into packages. Generate item descriptions quickly with our built-in generative AI features. Then, easily customize starting bids and minimum raises.
• Streamlined bidding experience: Give donors the best bidding experience possible with AI-driven personalized auction item recommendations and push notifications that drive higher bids. Plus, your nonprofit gets real-time bid tracking during the event and detailed bidding analytics to study after your silent auction.
• Guest engagement features: OneCause empowers nonprofits to display scoreboards with the top bidders or table teams, highlight donation progress with a fundraising thermometer, and use engagement drivers like live chat. And, with outbid notifications, you can always keep your bidders on their toes.
  

Let’s dive deeper into our core feature that helps organizations maximize their auction revenue: mobile bidding.

Forget disorganized paper bids! With OneCause, advanced mobile bidding capabilities make the entire bidding process convenient, streamlined, and rewarding. Guests can let mobile bidding do all the work for them by automatically setting them as the next highest bidder based on the maximum bid they’re comfortable giving.

OneCause also sends your attendees outbid notifications to pull them right back into the bidding auction and keep energy levels high. Best of all, the software isn’t just limited to auction participation. Supporters can also use it to purchase fixed-price items, take part in raffles, and give during your donation appeals. This ensures that everyone can engage with your cause and push your fundraising goals forward, whether they’re bidding or not.

Success Story

OneCause has helped over 14,000 nonprofits reach their fundraising goals, collectively raising over $8 billion for causes around the world. Take a look at the results we achieved for 50 Legs, a prosthetics organization.

This nonprofit wanted to shake things up in its yearly gala by leveraging software to drive deeper engagement. With a built-in analytics dashboard, 50 Legs could see real-time fundraising data and insights. They gathered specific reports on auction performance, proceeds, and ticketing and registration data. Ultimately, they found incredible success by hitting 111% of their auction goal, raising over $100,000 for their mission.

Read more about this organization’s journey with OneCause in their success story.

Price

OneCause works with nonprofits of all sizes, offering multiple pricing packages to meet your unique fundraising and auction needs.

Choose from a variety of plans tailored to fit your goals, starting at just $200, with the industry’s only pay-as-you-go pricing capped for your convenience. Prefer an annual subscription? Launch a year of impactful fundraising with our $2,995 Professional Auction & Event package. Explore our pricing plans for more details.

Auction Packages: Silent Auction Software for Diverse Travel Packages

Auction Packages is designed for nonprofits that want to auction off amazing experiences risk-free. Your organization can choose from over 150 travel and unique experiential packages that are best suited to your fundraising goals. From there, you can reserve the auction items, offer them at your event, and then report on what sold so the winning bidders can redeem their packages.

Their full-time concierge team of travel consultants is well-versed with travel destinations, with years of experience meeting the expectations of new and seasoned travelers. Auction Packages has partnered with numerous travel companies, hotel chains, and experienced providers to offer their clients access to the most exhilarating experiences, including:

• Domestic & international vacations
• Fantasy getaways
• Luxury properties
• Adventure expeditions
• Cruises
• Golf & ski trips
• Shopping adventures
• Spa retreats

Plus, Auction Packages adds new exciting packages every month to ensure you can offer the most unique packages and events.

Top Features

Auction Packages offers the following features and benefits to nonprofits:

• Variety of auction items: Choose from multiple items and experiences that appeal to your bidders and boost your fundraising revenue.
• Risk-free procurement: With Auction Packages, you only have to pay for the packages on which you generate a profit. This ensures that your nonprofit won’t unnecessarily spend your hard-earned funds on items or packages that your supporters don’t want.
• Team of fundraising specialists: Deciding what items are right for your nonprofit is a big responsibility. Luckily, Auction Packages will pair you up with their fundraising specialists so you can strategize together to choose exciting packages. Plus, their team of specialists works directly with trip winners to meet all of their booking and travel needs.

Auction Packages also allows nonprofits to customize any of their packages to better meet their supporters’ needs. This flexibility ensures you’ll be able to auction off experiences that your guests will love.

Price

As an auction item consignment service, Auction Packages’ items are free to offer at your silent auction. Because you don’t need to buy your auction packages until after they have sold at your event, the items are risk-free. Auction Packages will give you a price for each package, and your organization decides what price to open the auction at.

If an auction package doesn’t receive a high enough bid or you don’t sell it, no fee will be incurred. If one does sell, simply purchase the package online or call Auction Packages to arrange payment.

Winspire: Charity Auction Software for Flexible Item Procurement

Winspire is your destination for insight into the world of event fundraising, charity auctions, and no-risk travel packages. This provider offers highly sought-after, hard-to-find, unique experiences for use in charity auctions or fundraisers. 

Select from more than 200 unique experiences, offer them at your auction, and then tell Winspire how many times you sold each package so the winners can redeem them.

Choose from award shows, major sporting events, VIP access, family vacations, international trips, cruises, adventure travel, golf trips, and hundreds more. Here’s how the process works:

1. Winspire’s Event Fundraising Specialists help you choose travel packages that align with your audience.
2. You promote the packages leading up to your event so donors come excited and prepared to bid.
3. You only purchase the Winspire experiences that raise money at your event, and every dollar you raise above the nonprofit cost goes directly to your bottom line.
4. Once winners have received their redemption vouchers, Winspire will take care of everything, from booking the entire trip down to every last detail.

The Winspire team has years of experience helping nonprofits raise over $62 million with over 56,000 events worldwide.

Top Features

Winspire can step up your next silent auction experience through the following features:

• A full staff of nonprofit fundraising and event professionals: You get paired with a personal event consultant who provides you with valuable advice on how to maximize your event’s revenue and make your auction a success.
• Ability to sell multiple experiences: Rather than having one winner for an amazing trip, allow multiple people to win the same experience. This allows you to double, triple, or quadruple your auction earnings and make multiple guests happy.
• Hands-on approach: Winspire will take care of everything for your winners, handling their reservations and ensuring their trip can go off without a hitch.

Winspire even offers virtual experiences, like online cooking classes, to meet a wide variety of donors’ interests. They also take a risk-free approach, meaning you don’t have to pay a penny for their packages until you earn back a profit.

Price

As an auction item consignment service, packages from Winspire are free to offer at your silent auction. Since you purchase only what you sell, every one of Winspire’s experiences is risk-free. Simply tell Winspire how many packages you sold and pay the starting prices, but keep all your profits.

CharityAce: Top Silent Auction Platform for High-Quality Travel Experiences

CharityAce provides a one-stop shop for some of the most dependable and desirable consignment options across the industry. From a 7-night vacation in Italy to a snowy getaway in the mountains, CharityAce has a variety of packages that will maximize your auction’s success.

Top Features

As one of the top package and item providers, CharityAce helps your nonprofit boost your ROI with the following key features:

• Supportive team: The CharityAce team assesses your needs and takes a strategic approach to ensure that your goals are met, your donors are happy, and your mission is supported.
• Strict vetting process: CharityAce only offers high-quality packages from the top providers, ensuring that your winners have smooth and positive travel experiences after the event.
• Custom packages: You can customize any of their already established travel packages to better suit your nonprofit audience’s interests.

CharityAce also provides you with all the marketing materials you need to pique your supporters’ interests in the various packages and inspire a bidding frenzy.

Price

As an auction item consignment service, CharityAce provides a free consultation and a quote for the packages of your choice. You’ll have to pay this amount back after your event.

Booking Entertainment: Best Silent Auction Provider for Event Entertainment

Booking Entertainment helps clients worldwide book the biggest names in entertainment. Operating for almost 30 years, this agency serves nonprofits, corporations, and more. Whether you’re looking for singers, bands, DJs, speakers, or comedians, this silent auction provider can secure the entertainment you need to delight your event’s guests.

Top Features

As a top silent auction provider, Booking Entertainment helps plan event entertainment by:

• Highlighting availability and pricing information for any entertainment act
• Providing customized recommendations of entertainment options for your event
• Negotiating the best deal for your nonprofit on your behalf and securing the necessary contracts

This agency has plenty of expertise working for nonprofits and understands the delicate balance between raising funds and spending your budget. They also offer full turnkey service for events, ensuring that your silent auction’s performance or entertainment portion runs smoothly.

Price

There is no upfront fee to use Booking Entertainment’s services, and if the agency doesn’t book an act for you, their service is free. If you do book an act through them, prices vary, and their fees are built into the overall price they quote for the entertainment.

Boardable: Top Charity Auction Software for Virtual Board Management

Your board plays a critical role in the success of your fundraising events and campaigns, from soliciting donations from major donors to approving the budget for galas and auctions. As a result, you’ll need a way to keep board members engaged and streamline their workflows. With a virtual board management platform like Boardable, you can make it easy for board members to collaborate, no matter where they are, and take action to support your silent auction planning.

Top Features

Boardable’s features can empower your board members to take a more active role in supporting your auction efforts with multiple collaboration tools, including:

• Agenda building tools: Use one of Boardable’s many customizable agenda templates to focus on what’s most important and structure your meetings.
• Productive meetings: Boardable offers built-in virtual conferencing so your members can work together on planning your silent auction and ensuring the budget is ready to go.
• Centralized document storage: Rather than digging through endless online files, simply use Boardable to upload important documents and securely store them for future reference. When you need to pull a document up, use the search features to quickly find the details you need.

Plus, Boardable is mobile-friendly, ensuring everyone can check-in and get involved from home and on the go.

Price

Boardable offers a free version, but if your nonprofit is looking for more extensive tools and features, you might want to choose from their Essentials plan starting at $20.99/user per user per month, Professional plan starting at $29.99, or Professional + plan at $35.99.

DonorSearch: Top Charity Auction Software for Prospect Research

Not sure how to determine your guest list for your upcoming silent auction? DonorSearch can help. DonorSearch is the leading provider of prospect intelligence. Their products empower your nonprofit to search for the information you need and unlock key donor insights using premier analytics capabilities. Their software incorporates a combination of philanthropic and wealth databases to determine both an individual’s capacity and affinity to give.

DonorSearch delivers donor intelligence data and solutions to nonprofits of all shapes and sizes to strengthen their financial capacity. Their goal is to provide what nonprofits crave every single day: more accurate, comprehensive, and actionable data that helps you achieve better fundraising results.

Top Features

To identify the donors who are most likely to take part in your auction and place larger bids, leverage these key DonorSearch features:

• Large philanthropic database: DonorSearch has data on your donors’ past charitable giving information, nonprofit involvement, business affiliations, real estate information, and more, helping you to pinpoint the donors who will make the biggest difference at your silent auction.
• AI capabilities: DonorSearch uses advanced machine learning to remove the veil around your donors’ behaviors. Through their predictive modeling tools, DonorSearch provides fundraising predictions and recommendations about specific individuals to guide your cultivation and stewardship efforts.
• Data visualization: Using its suite of visual data representations, DonorSearch provides a complete picture of donor and prospect data. This way, your nonprofit can better understand your donor base’s giving potential and determine ways to move them along the donor journey to larger donations at your auction and beyond.

DonorSearch’s screening has a 90-100% accuracy rate, ensuring that you have the most accurate picture of your donors and can create a data-driven strategy to connect with prospective major donors.

Price

Pricing details are available by quote. Request a demo to learn more about how DonorSearch can support your prospect research.

MarketSmart: Top Nonprofit Auction Software for Connecting with Major Donors

MarketSmart takes a data-driven approach to help you build stronger long-term relationships after events like silent auctions. Focused on major donor and legacy donor prospecting, their tools help you make the most of your auction efforts for years to come.

Top Features

MarketSmart offers the following intuitive features to foster connections with your top donors:

• Data analysis and outreach automation: Generate a 360-degree view of your big bidders, including their interests and how much they want to give. With these insights, you can dramatically strengthen your stewardship strategies and increase your chances of making successful asks down the line.
• AI-powered communications: Keep leads warm with automated and personalized email drip campaigns that sustain their interest.
• Proprietary scoring platform: MarketSmart ranks your donors so you can prioritize prospects most likely to make a major or legacy gift now or in the future.

Before any major fundraising event, MarketSmart can help you cultivate your relationships with more efficiency and less manual effort, saving time all around.

Price

Contact MarketSmart to learn more about their software and pricing.

Double the Donation: Top Nonprofit Auction Software for Matching Gifts

Double the Donation is the leading provider of matching gift and volunteer grant solutions to nonprofits and educational institutions. This platform helps donors check their eligibility for corporate matching programs so they can easily request matches for donations made during your silent auction.

Matching gift programs are one of the most underutilized but easily obtained forms of corporate philanthropy. There’s an unnecessary gap between fundraising organizations and corporate giving programs—to the tune of $4-7 billion in unclaimed matching gift revenue annually. Double the Donation helps nonprofits increase their fundraising by tapping into these impactful opportunities.

Top Features

Double the Donation helps accelerate silent auction fundraising through the following tools:

• Auto-submission: Allow eligible donors to get their gifts matched right from your donation page through auto-submission. This makes it easier for your donors to play a more rewarding role in your organization and ensures that you’ll receive the support you need to power your mission.
• Automated emails: No need to manually remind your supporters about matching gifts! With Double the Donation, you can automatically send custom emails to match-eligible donors with matching gift forms and instructions.
• Data analytics: Receive real-time data summaries on what percentage of your gifts are matching gift eligible and what your biggest revenue opportunities are. This way, you get a birds-eye view of how your fundraising efforts are performing and can make adjustments as needed to boost matching gift revenue.

Incorporating matching gifts into your silent auction strategy is a great way to double the revenue of the donations you receive and power more good in your community.

Price

Double the Donation offers standard plans starting at $999/year, and a 360MatchPro Enterprise plan, typically starting at $30,000/year.

Cathexis Partners: Top Silent Auction Provider for Fundraising and Technology Consulting

Although they’re not a software provider, Cathexis Partners offers consulting services to support the technology selection and implementation process for your nonprofit’s next silent auction event. They’ve worked with over 1,000 nonprofits in North America, empowering them to handle their tech stack efficiently and impactfully.

Top Features

Here are a couple of the top services offered by Cathexis Partners:

• Software implementation: Cathexis Partners helps you select software that fits your nonprofit’s needs and set it up according to your organization’s requirements and preferences.
• Software support and training: This provider also offers support and training for using your new software effectively and troubleshooting any issues you encounter.

On top of software-specific services, Cathexis Partners also offers database management, website design, and online fundraising strategy.

Price

For pricing, contact Cathexis Partners to get a quote.

Virtuous: Top Silent Auction Software for Donor Management

If you want to leverage the data you collect during your auction, it’s important to invest in CRM software. Virtuous is a top nonprofit CRM that is easy to use and offers smart analytics that suggest next steps (e.g., who to contact and when). This way, you can get in touch with your donors after your silent auction and retain their support.

Top Features

Virtuous offers the following top-of-the-line features to organize and leverage your donor data:

• Email integration and marketing automation: Cultivate relationships with each auction event attendee by automating personalized communications with them and keeping them involved with your nonprofit beyond the event.
• 360-degree donor views: As part of their robust CRM, Virtuous will create donor profiles that you can monitor in a customized dashboard. Here, you’ll be able to view key supporter details like their preferred mode of communication, donation history, demographics, and more. Then, you can use this information as part of your stewardship efforts.
• Online giving tools: If you want to raise revenue before your silent auction, you can use Virtuous to create donation pages, track donations, and power off confirmation emails and receipts. This will help to improve the donation experience while giving supporters another way to give to your organization outside of bidding.

Virtuous makes it easy to stay connected with your supporters long after your silent auction is over. With high retention rates, you can develop a sustainable donation pipeline for your organization.

Price

Virtuous offers several different plans, including the Starter Plan (ideal for small nonprofits that have under 5,000 contacts), the Platform Plan (ideal for growing nonprofits that have between 5,000 and 30,000 contacts), and the Enterprise Plan (ideal for large nonprofits that have anywhere from 30,000 contacts to millions.) Explore the Virtuous pricing page to learn more.

DonorPerfect: Top Silent Auction Software for Fundraising Campaigns

DonorPerfect is your fundraising success partner. Over 50,000 nonprofit professionals trust its software to save time, raise money, and inspire donors. If you’re looking for a provider that will help you manage your donor data and fundraising campaigns in one place, this software is a great option.

Top Features

Here are a few of DonorPerfect’s top features:

• Donor profiles: Build familiarity with your loyal supporters with thorough profiles that include pictures, the number of years donated, lifetime giving total, and other metrics and indicators.
• Task management tools: Delegate, manage, and automate your day-to-day tasks with calendar reports, automatic assignments with due dates, and personalized pipelines of approaching deadlines.
• Reporting: DonorPerfect offers unlimited custom reports and 70+ standard reports showcasing essential metrics to ensure your team makes informed, data-driven decisions.

With DonorPerfect, managing tasks related to your fundraising campaigns and events will be easier than ever before.

Price

For pricing, contact DonorPerfect to get a quote.

DonorDock: Top Silent Auction Software for Donor Outreach

DonorDock is a CRM software solution that allows all of your data from your auctions to flow into one place, giving you more time to focus on building relationships with your attendees. From there, easily communicate with your attendees using personalized email templates, automated messaging, and more.

Top Features

DonorDock offers the following top features to make sending post-event communications to attendees a breeze:

• Prebuilt email templates: DonorDock takes the guesswork out of designing an effective email by offering a variety of templates to choose from to meet your different communication goals, from appeals and updates to newsletters.
• Automated thank-you messages: As soon as you receive donations, DonorDock will store this information in its database and power off automated, custom thank-you notes to your supporters as well as receipts acknowledging their contributions.
• Reporting and email analytics: Leverage DonorDock to check how your emails are performing at any time with insightful metrics and adjust your communications accordingly to better meet your supporters’ interests.

DonorDock also lets you create well-designed donation pages to collect revenue before, during, and after your silent auction. Plus, among its many integrations, DonorDock integrates with OneCause to provide a cohesive fundraising experience for you and your supporters.

Price

DonorDock offers a free plan with limited features, or a Lite plan ($79/month), Essentials plan ($119/month), and Professional plan ($239/month) depending on how many emails you plan to send and number of advanced tools you’ll need. See their pricing page to learn more.

Salesforce: Top Silent Auction Software for Data Collection

Salesforce is a top nonprofit CRM solution that allows you to cultivate life-long relationships with your supporters. Using their software for your auction, you can reach more guests, create stronger relationships with your supporters, engage your community, and streamline your internal processes.

Top Features

As one of the leading CRMs, Salesforce offers nonprofits like yours a variety of key features to better engage with donors:

• Unified view of your organization: Get a complete picture of how your nonprofit’s fundraising and marketing strategies are performing at any given moment, learn more about your supporters’ giving behaviors, and use these insights to power automated donation appeals.
• Donor-centric experiences: Salesforce helps you manage major donor relationships and use their past activity to guide your relationship-building. Plus, you can use source codes to track how individual appeals perform across different donor segments, messages, and channels. Then, make changes as needed so your appeals better resonate with supporters.
• Built-in customization: Customize Salesforce to meet all of your nonprofit’s individual needs, including a comprehensive view of every interaction you have with your auction guests. Then, use this knowledge to boost your outreach, improve your donor management, and organize your events with your audience in mind.

Salesforce offers the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), which gets organizations up and running on the platform by addressing the highest priority needs of nonprofits. Build deep relationships with your donors using a system built for nonprofits so you can keep up with your auction attendee data and spend the time where it matters most: raising funds for your mission.

Price

The Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack is free to adopt for most organizations. However, the implementation and customization process can become quite expensive. This option is recommended primarily for larger organizations. Try out a free 30-day trial to see if the NPSP is right for you.

Civic Champs: Best Silent Auction Software for Volunteer Management

Civic Champs provides the solution for recruiting, engaging, and retaining volunteers, ensuring you have the support you need for your upcoming event. Founded in 2019, this provider is dedicated to igniting volunteer service, strengthening nonprofits, and improving lives and communities. Now, they help nonprofits across 30+ states manage their volunteers.

Top Features

Civic Champs offers the following features to streamline the way your nonprofit interacts with volunteers:

• Manage volunteers: Access volunteer profiles with personal information and emergency contact information, track their activities and hours, and message volunteers to keep them connected.
• Schedule volunteers: Use participant, location, shift, role, and onboarding information to create volunteer events. Then, send out registration links for volunteers to sign up for opportunities online.
• Coordinate event volunteering: Allow volunteers to check in and out of volunteering events efficiently through the kiosk or mobile app, so you always know who’s on deck and ready to help out.

Plus, Civic Champs offers micro-donation features, which help your nonprofit raise funds from volunteers at the moment they’re inspired to give.

Price

Civic Champs offers a range of pricing options based on the number of active volunteers your nonprofit has each year. For 1-49 volunteers yearly, the price is $49 a month.

Bonfire: Top Charity Auction Software for Merchandise

Bonfire is a merchandise fundraising platform that helps organizations fundraise online and order custom printed materials directly. Specializing in t-shirts, Bonfire provides top-quality merchandise that you can brand to your organization and auction off during your event.

Top Features

Bonfire offers the following features to augment your auction fundraising strategy with merchandise sales:

• eCommerce storefront: Sell all of your merchandise in one designated hub that supporters can access on desktop or mobile. You can even add your branded colors and typography to your store so supporters can feel confident that they’re contributing to your nonprofit.
• User-friendly t-shirt design tools: Develop customized tees that feature your logo, color scheme, fonts, and other branded elements. Upload your own shirt designs or access Bonfire’s database of 500 free customizable t-shirt design templates.
• Peer-to-peer fundraising support: Want a way to bring in extra revenue before your silent auction? Ask loyal volunteers to design their own shirts and sell them in exchange for donations to your cause.

With Bonfire, you’ll be able to catch your supporters’ eyes with well-designed apparel that will serve two purposes: raising money for your organization and spreading awareness for your cause when individuals walk around wearing your merchandise!

Price

Bonfire comes up with a quote based on how much it costs to manufacture and print your custom tees. As a special perk for nonprofits, Bonfire will reduce your processing fees from 8% to 3.5%. Check out Bonfire’s pricing calculator to see what your shirts would cost your organization.

Mailchimp: Top Charity Auction Software for Email Marketing

Mailchimp is an email marketing platform that can help you market your silent auction. Use their all-in-one platform to target supporters who would be most likely to attend your event and make sure they receive the information they need, including how to register, recommended attire, and the event location or livestream link.

Top Features

Mailchimp has a number of features to streamline your email communications, including:

• Email builder: Leverage Mailchimp’s drag and drop editor to easily add headings, body text, images, videos, and more into a well-designed email format that will drive conversions.
• AI capabilities: Mailchimp’s AI tool analyzes thousands of data points at once about your supporters and then generates suggestions for crafting effective emails.
• Advanced analytics and reporting tools: Gain powerful insights into your email marketing strategy’s performance so you can make informed decisions about next steps.

Using Mailchimp, you can understand what your audience likes, collect data about your contacts, and turn this into action. Promote your auction across several channels, including email, social media, and more for the greatest impact.

Price

Mailchimp is free to start using to promote your silent auction. However, tiered paid packages offer more advanced features and support for larger organizations. See the Mailchimp pricing page to learn more.

GivingMail: Top Silent Auction Software for Direct Mail Marketing

When hosting a charity auction, reaching and engaging wide audiences is key to your success. GivingMail offers a range of direct mail marketing and fundraising tools for organizations of all shapes and sizes.

Top Features

GivingMail makes it easier than ever to engage with supporters offline through the following innovative features:

• Fundraising templates: GivingMail offers a number of templates to meet your nonprofit’s various needs, from making an annual appeal to a matching gift appeal. Access their ready-to-go fundraising packages and simply customize your copy and logo to add a branded touch.
• High-performing donor lists: If you’re a smaller nonprofit, you might not have a large enough support base to consistently perform well during your fundraising events and campaigns. Tap GivingMail’s vetted donor lists to acquire new supporters and earn more for your auction.
• Fast sending time: Once you submit your custom touches, GivingMail will take care of sending out your direct mail in as little as 10-14 business days.

Organizing and sending out direct mail can eat up way too much of your nonprofit’s time. Instead, work with a service like GivingMail to streamline your approach and watch the donations roll in.

Price

Schedule a meeting with GivingMail to learn more about their pricing and see what their software can do for your nonprofit.

KindKatch: Top Silent Auction Software for Audience Engagement

KindKatch is a video messaging solution designed to make managing your upcoming silent auction easier and amplify your donor engagement. With KindKatch, you can curate personalized videos and easily share them with your auction attendees to inspire giving.

Top Features

Generating high-quality and motivational videos is simple with these KindKatch features:

• Content database: Film highlights from events, such as your upcoming silent auction, and store this content in a designated hub. Repurpose this content in your marketing strategy and use it to encourage donors to sign up for future events and donate to your cause.
• Mobile app and desktop portal: KindKatch allows nonprofits to share videos from the KindKatch mobile app or desktop portal in just moments. Supporters will receive this content directly by email or text, keeping them tapped into your organization at all times.
• Customized landing pages and CTA buttons: With KindKatch, you can also create personalized landing pages with persuasive CTA buttons to drive actions like donating.

Consider using KindKatch to send off compelling fundraising videos that appeal to your donors in advance of your silent auction and encourage them to attend and give.

Price

KindKatch has multiple packages, including the Standard Pricing plan at $101/month that includes 2,500 MMS/SMS texts/month and 10,000 emails/month, the Pro Pricing at $254/month that includes 5,000 MMS/SMS texts/month and 25,000 emails/month, and the Enterprise plan (with custom pricing) that offers 7500+ MMS/SMS texts/month and 37,500+ emails/month. Visit the KindKatch pricing page to learn more about these options.

MemoryFox: Best Silent Auction Software for Storytelling and Video

MemoryFox is a top software solution for nonprofits whose goal is to bring their clients’ missions to life with powerful stories collected from their community. These stories make great features at any event, including your silent auctions, as they demonstrate the impact you’ve made on your supporters and beneficiaries. Assisting over 400 mission-driven organizations in collecting more than 100,000 videos, photos, and testimonials, MemoryFox is a valuable partner in the space.

Top Features

When you work with MemoryFox, you’ll access the following features:

• Guided content collection: Build branded campaigns and distribute them to your community. Supporters simply click the link to submit their pictures, videos, and written testimonials.
• Organized content bank: Store submissions in one centralized content bank, which you can pull from any time you need a story to feature in your marketing materials and events.
• Story-sharing tools: Turn your most compelling stories into visually appealing videos, social posts, and reports with MemoryFox’s video editor, story builder, and Canva integration.

This software provider also offers other professional services to aid your nonprofit’s event marketing efforts. MemoryFox helps you prepare your annual marketing campaigns, turns your stories into polished engagement drivers, and offers tailored training workshops.

Price

MemoryFox’s pricing is based on your nonprofit’s annual revenue, using your organization’s most recent 990 form. To discuss your options, set up a demo.

How to Build Your Silent Auction Software Toolkit

Choosing the right auction software for your nonprofit can make a huge difference for your events down the line. But if you’re new to planning silent or online auctions, how do you get started?

Auction Technology Essentials

For any organization, there are a few foundational platforms you need to conduct a modern silent or virtual auction. These include:

• Auction software to plan and manage the event
• Mobile bidding tools to engage bidders and raise more money
• A CRM or database to store the data that your auction generates
• Marketing software to promote your event online

Without these essentials, planning, managing, and promoting your auction will become much more logistically complicated. The list of software providers above features tools that cover each of these categories, plus extras like prospect research and merchandising platforms to help you raise even more.

Top Charity Auction Software Features

Searching for charity auction software can quickly become overwhelming. With each site boasting different “must-have” features, it can be difficult to figure out what your organization actually needs.

We’ve broken down the four most essential features for any auction platform:

Mobile Bidding

Mobile bidding is a paperless bidding method that offers guests the ultimate auction experience. By allowing donors to bid straight from their phones, your organization receives more bids and adds an unparalleled level of fun and excitement to your events.

Mobile bidding tools are a necessity for charity auctions of any kind. The ability to bid from a smartphone has completely changed how live, silent, and online auctions can be planned and managed. Plus, they provide huge fundraising benefits by keeping guests more engaged throughout the whole auction.

When evaluating mobile bidding tools, look for these features:

• Intuitive item browsing. Your app should pull item listings from your event site so guests can browse items and place bids without needing to jump between displays. Plus, guests can even automate bidding on their favorite items.
• Text notifications. Send attendees text messages throughout the night to keep them engaged with your auction. Automate the notifications through your software to send messages when guests have been outbid, when the bidding is about to close, and more.
• Fixed-price options. You can also offer standalone, fixed-price items for purchase through your mobile bidding software. This is a good strategy for raffles, sign-up parties, and selling merchandise during the event itself.
• Donation functionality. Your auction software should also make it easy for guests to simply donate to your cause. Look for the ability to add donation buttons and auction packages to capture some extra generosity on the big night.
• Covered cost options. Give guests the option to cover the credit card processing fees that typically cut into a nonprofit’s revenue. This will maximize proceeds and let donors ensure their bids and donations make the most impact.

Event Management Features

For many auctions, event ticketing is a proven revenue source. With the right auction software, nonprofits can automate ticketing, streamline the donor experience, and ultimately drive fundraising success.

When it comes to event ticketing, your charity auction software should allow your nonprofit to:

• Sell ticket packages for donors and sponsors.
• Manage RSVPs from guests.
• Offer coupon codes for discounts.
• Sell VIP, raffle tickets, and party passes.
• Receive instantaneous access to transactions.
• Utilize mobile payment systems such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
• Email receipts to your donors.
• Split bills and add charges.
• Collect seating requests and guest names.
• Track guest dietary restrictions.
• Assign guests to tables.
• Use express check-in and contactless checkout to minimize lines and wait times.

Registration is the first impression your guests have of your auction, and checkout is the last experience they have with your event – make them count!

Item Management, Procurement, and Planning

An auction is only as successful as the quality of its items. Securing and managing the perfect auction items may seem a little daunting, but have no fear. The right charity auction software will make this an organized, intuitive process.

Your software should enable you to track and manage auction items. Look for silent auction platforms that allow you to organize item procurement volunteers and share your item needs requests with them, allowing for a more effective and efficient item donation process. Even better if it has functionality to easily group related items into packages to maximize revenue.

The top item procurement & planning tools will help your organization:

• Generate solicitation letters
• Track procurement status
• Log item locations
• Bundle multiple items into packages
• Auto-assign package numbers
• Customize starting bids and raises
• Group items by category
• Offer a once-in-a-lifetime experience to your donors

Better items equal more bids, more bids equal more proceeds, and more proceeds equal more money for your mission.

Gamification and Engagement Features

Your charity auction software should contain one or more gamification tools. These are extremely useful for building excitement and directing attention during the auction itself.

For instance, scoreboards give guests real-time updates throughout the event. You can feature the status of popular items via live social media streams and progress thermometers to ensure your auction is always exciting. Countdown clocks are another great way to build up the momentum as your auction ends, especially when paired with text notifications.

Ultimately, these gamification features help your organization:

• Showcase current bids.
• Highlight donation progress.
• Recognize donors.
• Foster competitive fundraising.

AI Features

Ensure your charity auction software leverages the latest and greatest technologies to drive your events’ success. Look for a solution that taps into artificial intelligence (AI) to offer you time-saving features like:

• AI-generated auction item descriptions
• Personalized item recommendations for bidders
• Instantly sorted item catalogs based on bidding activity
• And more

What Else to Look for in Silent Auction Software

Besides having the above core features, your silent auction software should have these essential characteristics:

• Cloud-based: Mobility is crucial for nonprofit events, whether you host in-person or virtual auctions. Cloud-based software lets your team plan your event from anywhere, enhancing your efficiency and making it much easier to stay organized remotely.
• Mobile-friendly: The number of nonprofit transactions made through mobile devices increased by 50% over the past year. Your software must be optimized to meet donors where they are.
• Nonprofit-specific: Software designed specifically to meet nonprofit needs will always be the better choice than generic platforms. Features and support tailored to fundraisers’ needs make for a more sustainable long-term investment.
• Scalable: Your auction software should be able to grow with your organization’s event strategies year after year. Choose a platform that lets you customize your fundraising site and scale to fit your evolving needs.
• Compatibility: Consider your marketing and donor management tools. Make sure your different systems can sync to avoid losing data points.
• Reporting and analytics: Any tool you use should make it easy to gather and analyze your fundraising data. Charity auction software should have built-in analytics tools, reporting, and integrations with top CRMs.

Check out our complete silent auction planning guide for more information and tips on building your toolkit.

Silent Auction Software for Nonprofits: FAQ

Let’s go over some frequently asked questions so you can confidently run your next silent auction with the right software.

What is charity auction software?

Silent auction software solutions are platforms that include features to support mobile bidding, registration, marketing, and other essential auction-related processes. Top-tier auction software tools should also integrate with your nonprofit’s CRM to ensure seamless data sharing between platforms.

Why use silent auction software?

Silent auction software tools are a necessity for charity auctions of any kind. The ability to bid from a smartphone has completely changed how silent auctions can be planned and managed. Plus, they provide huge fundraising benefits by keeping guests more engaged for the whole auction. Additionally, these solutions allow your nonprofit’s team to manage events and guest communications via their mobile devices or laptops.

Who uses silent auction platforms?

Nonprofits of all shapes and sizes use silent auction software. To determine which tools are right for you, it’s important to look at your budget and your fundraising goals.

What are the benefits of using virtual event and auction software?

Building out your charity auction toolkit has several major benefits, including streamlined planning, a wider reach, simplified logistics, more engagement data, improved bidder experience, and increased revenue.

How does an online charity auction work?

The move to online giving opens up more possibilities for nonprofits: new donors, remote supporters, and more fundraising options. But many fundraisers are still grappling with how to not only move their fundraising online but thrive in a virtual world!

We’ve broken down how to take your auction online in a few simple steps:

1. Set up an online auction site. To host an online charity auction, you’ll need a digital venue. Online auction software helps streamline the event process from start to finish.
2. Pre-register bidders. Guests can register online by inputting their name and payment information. Make sure you require an address at registration in order to ship silent auction items to your winners.
3. Spread the word. Don’t forget to share the registration link a few weeks in advance to generate excitement and maximum bidding! Leverage your ambassadors and use social media to spread the word far and wide.
4. Open the bidding. Once the start date of the virtual auction rolls around, open the bidding to your donors. The great thing about an online auction is that you can extend the bidding time far beyond what you can with an onsite event.
5. Build excitement online. The final minutes of your silent auction are pivotal in reaching or exceeding your fundraising goals. Ramp up the excitement with text message notifications, countdown clocks, and social media blasts.
6. Process winners’ payments. By submitting their payment information before the online auction began, the winner agreed to pay the amount they bid for that item. With silent auction software, credit cards, and online payments like Apple Pay are automatically and instantly processed through the site.
7. Ship items to winners. Package items securely, thank bidders for their support, and let them know how your organization will use their donation to support your mission.

Get Started with OneCause

Engaging silent auctions need flexible fundraising software! The OneCause Fundraising Platform makes giving modern, flexible, and seamless to drive deeper engagement and grow your fundraising. Take a look at this versatile all-in-one fundraising software that meets the expectations of today’s donors, supporting any event, in-person, virtual, or hybrid.

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Upgrade Your Tech Stack with the Top Silent Auction Platforms

There are many silent auction software options on the market. However, an all-in-one solution designed for nonprofits like yours will be your best bet at maximizing your chances of success and minimizing your workload. Look for a platform that meets your nonprofit’s specific needs and will advance your mission in the community.

Eager for more information about building your tech stack and running a seamless auction experience? Check out these additional resources below:

• OneCause: Nonprofit Auction & Mobile Bidding Software. Learn more about our number one pick for silent auction platforms. Explore OneCause features and success stories.
• 10 Nonprofit Fundraising Platforms to Inspire More Giving. The right fundraising platform will make it easy to host any event. Explore this list of top providers.
• 14 Top Fundraising Software Tools to Maximize Giving. Discover top solutions to boost revenue and strengthen donor relationships in this guide.