How to Run a Silent Auction: The Step-by-Step Guide
Nonprofits of all sizes look to the silent auction to fuel their fundraising and generate the revenue needed to fund a significant portion of their missions. Donors love the excitement and suspense of winning an item, and they take comfort in the fact that their bidding supports a cause they care about—making the silent auction an incredibly impactful event for all organizations.
In the first part of our silent auction series, we discussed how to plan a silent auction. In part two, we’ll dive into the nuts and bolts of how to run one, including the steps you must take to make your silent auction successful:
With this step-by-step guide, you can make your next silent auction the best and most profitable one yet. Let’s get started!
What Is a Silent Auction?
As a quick refresher, a silent auction is a fundraising event in which bids are placed on auction items within a set timeframe. Instead of having an auctioneer run the process by announcing items and facilitating bidding, items in a silent auction are displayed in designated areas with accompanying description cards—usually listing what the item is, its value, and bidding instructions.
Traditional silent auctions have paper bid sheets where bidders write bids on items they’re interested in. With mobile bidding, silent auction attendees can bid from their smartphones anytime and anywhere. Attendees will know in advance when they’ve been outbid and when the auction is about to close, allowing them to adjust their bids as needed. When the auction concludes, the highest-listed bidder for each item wins.
How to Run Your Event Logistics
When it’s time for the big event day, you want to make a great impression on attendees. After all, a smooth and exciting silent auction could convince participants to stick around for future fundraisers and become committed supporters of your organization. Let’s look at the steps you need to take to accomplish this.
1. Organize Your Silent Auction
You might be wondering: Didn’t I already organize my silent auction when I planned it? Yes — however, there are additional logistics to organize on the day of the event. This is where on-site organization comes in, where you bring all your planning elements together into your silent auction masterpiece.
The three main areas you should consider include:
On-Site Setup
Take a moment before your event to put yourself in your attendees’ shoes. It will be most guests’ first time at the venue and perhaps even their first time bidding at a silent auction. Create the perfect guest experience by taking the time to:
Arrange silent auction tables along the walls of the space: This will give attendees plenty of space to walk around the venue and peruse the items. The last thing you want is for the space to feel too cramped or uncomfortable.
Display items in a way that appeals to the shopper in all of us: Make sure there is enough space between each item so they aren’t hidden from the bidders’ view. As a best practice, incorporate different levels of display and detailed, easy-to-read signage.
Ensure your technical equipment is up and ready to go: Test your mobile bidding software to ensure that bidding goes smoothly. Additionally, do a run-through with your emcee and guest speakers and check that they’re audible for all attendees.
If your silent auction is part of a larger event, you must also set up those event elements. For example, if you’re hosting a gala, you’ll have to arrange tables and chairs for attendees to sit in, discuss the flow of food and drink with your caterers, and more.
Auction Item System
Your auction experience is only as good as your items are organized. To ensure a seamless experience for your guests, use a system that makes finding the silent auction items easy and fast. Here are two suggestions:
Color code your items based on categories that make sense for your auction. For example, items with blue bows might be sports memorabilia, green bows might be travel packages, and yellow bows might be gift baskets.
Establish a numerical system with categories. For example, items in the 100s can be gift baskets, 200s are memorabilia, and 300s are consignment items.
Ultimately, the system you end up using should work for your event’s unique needs and make it easy for you to identify and find your auction items.
Volunteers
The amount of volunteers you need to run your auction depends on the size of your event, the setup of your venue, and any event fundraising activities you have planned.
Before you open the doors, train volunteers to:
Greet and register guests
Monitor and close the silent auction
Check out and deliver items
Clean up the venue
Additionally, your event team will need to know when and where to arrive, what to wear, what tasks they’ll perform, and how long they can expect their shift to last.
2. Conduct Auction Registration
Registration is the first impression your guests have of your event — make it a great one! Here are a few tips for conducting registration for your silent auction:
Get ready to welcome: Volunteers should be ready at check-in to greet and register guests, take tickets, and relay important information.
Make registration fast and easy: Use the right event tools so volunteers can efficiently check guests in.
Have your handouts organized: Print all lists, charts, and materials and back everything up on a zip drive, just in case. Better yet, ditch handouts entirely by using mobile bidding tools to display important information.
Offer multiple registration stations: To avoid long lines and frustrations, have one booth for walk-in guests who have yet to register and another for pre-registered attendees.
To further streamline the process, ask guests to pre-register before the event and encourage them to add their preferred payment method to your event software. Then, with the OneCause Fundraising Platform, your organization can simply scan guests’ QR codes and get them in the door and bidding!
3. Make Bidding Fun
Event planning may seem like nothing but logistics, but you can’t spell fundraising without ‘fun’! Create an atmosphere that has energy and use a variety of communication strategies onsite to drive excitement. Here are some top strategies you can use:
Don’t make your silent auction silent: Have your emcee regularly announce special items and bidding deadlines to ensure the bidding is always the focus of the night.
Use texting to drive bidding: With mobile bidding software, send text reminders to guests when bidding is about to close on their favorite items.
Leverage scoreboards and countdown clocks. Project a countdown clock or update your fundraising progress to encourage healthy competition. Use leaderboards and scoreboards to gamify your auction and get everyone focused on the goal of supporting your organization’s mission.
Assign each bidder an anonymous number. If you’re using charity auction software, this will be done automatically. Auto-assigning bid numbers makes the bidder wars more mysterious and can drive up your auction proceeds.
Strike an appropriate balance between allowing attendees to enjoy your event and reminding them about bidding at your silent auction. If your reminders are too frequent, it may detract from the overall experience. However, you don’t want guests to forget to check their bids and participate in your auction.
4. Check In Regularly with Guests
As your event continues, be sure to regularly check in with your guests to ensure they’re engaged and eager to bid. This is especially important if your auction is online or hybrid. If engagement levels are low, consider different ways you can re-immerse attendees into the bidding action:
Play a video that captures the heart of your nonprofit’s mission
Bring up an individual who has been personally impacted by your cause and have them share their story
Share impact statements to encourage giving and make your mission more tangible in the minds of your donors
In addition to the ideas above, for an in-person event, you should have dedicated team members go around to mingle with guests and thank them for their support. It’s not every day that you get to be face-to-face with the donors who make your mission possible. Don’t miss the opportunity to share their impact and your appreciation.
How to Run Silent Auction Checkout
At the close of your event, send winning bidders home with their items and collect their payments. Make the process a breeze with these simple steps.
5. Checkout Auction Attendees
Donors who have a great experience at checkout are more likely to return to the same event next year and attend other fundraisers for your organization.
If you use paper bids, the end-of-night process will require more volunteer power to keep checkout running smoothly. To improve your donors’ experience, consider eliminating wait times at checkout with mobile bidding.
A mobile checkout process includes the following steps:
Set up a physical check-out booth: Encourage guests to use mobile checkout. Then, have a separate booth for those who wish to pay by cash or check. Make sure you have plenty of volunteers and the right payment processing tools on hand.
Make multiple lines for checkout: This speeds up the process for everyone, and your attendees and volunteers will appreciate your forethought.
Process their payments: At checkout, make sure to close out payments for each item. With mobile bidding tools, bidders will save their payment information in the software and, at the auction’s end, simply confirm their payment and checkout on their mobile devices.
After you’ve processed payments, send each guest to the item pick-up area.
6. Distribute Silent Auction Items
Silent auctions are notorious for unclaimed items after checkout, but they don’t have to be! Take steps to prevent this so you will have less follow-up post-event:
Record the winners: Once the winners have been determined, note their names and the winning bid amount for each item. If you’re using auction software, this information will automatically be tracked, so you’ll have one less thing to worry about.
Assemble items for pick-up: When the auction closes and winners are determined, have volunteers move the won items to a designated pick-up area near the checkout booth.
Arrange a separate area for item pick-up: The pick-up booth should be independent from the checkout booth. This way, your volunteers won’t run around frantically grabbing items while also checking guests out. If done correctly, there will be a flow from checkout to the item pick-up booth.
Establish dedicated item pick-up times: The OneCause Fundraising Platform offers the ability to set up item pick-up window times for guests to choose from. This keeps checkout organized and prevents your volunteers from being overwhelmed.
Establish in your auction rules that any items not picked up within a specific time frame will become your nonprofit’s property to avoid any potential complications at checkout.
7. Collect Feedback from Attendees
While your guests are still engaged, take a moment to collect feedback from them before they exit the building or leave the livestream. You can text out a mobile-friendly link to a survey that asks them to:
Rank their level of engagement
Describe how satisfied they were with the event
Offer any recommendations for next year on event theme, venue, auction items, and more
This valuable feedback will help you gauge how you can improve your silent auction strategy for the future.
How to Follow Up After Your Silent Auction
The work isn’t over just because the auction is! Use these steps to engage your audience and prepare your nonprofit for future fundraising auctions.
8. Reflect on Fundraising Goals and Update Supporters
After your event wraps up, take time to reflect on your goals and determine whether you met them:
If you didn’t, assess where there were gaps in your strategy or silent auction experience that you can hone in on.
If you did, identify ways to improve your strategy to raise even more revenue next time!
Then comes one of the most essential steps of running a silent auction: following up with your supporters. Our Giving Experience Research Study found that 49% of donors were more likely to give again when they felt like their donation had an impact. Implement this best practice by sending an update to your supporters after the event. Tell them how much you raised and how this revenue will supercharge your mission so they can clearly see the impact they’ve made.
9. Express Appreciation to Attendees
Aside from updating your supporters on their impact, you should also express your appreciation for their support. Communicate three things to your attendees post-event:
Send a personalized thank-you note: While you should thank attendees before they leave the auction, you should also follow up with a more personalized thank-you note to every guest, volunteer, and staff member.
Update your corporate sponsors: Send a follow-up message to your sponsors, including exactly how much was raised and what this money will impact. Showing your appreciation early and often will deepen your relationship and allow you to hopefully enlist their help again in the future!
Suggest additional engagement opportunities: Providing further opportunities for interaction is the best way to actively deepen attendee relationships and successfully convert them into recurring donors. The only caveat: Avoid making a monetary ask right away! Save your solicitations for later in your relationship-building process.
Thanking donors properly (and promptly) will extend the relationships you made at your silent auction into your larger fundraising efforts.
10. Share Content from Your Silent Auction
The days and weeks immediately following an event present a huge opportunity for additional fundraising and further donor engagement. Post-event marketing is an art in itself and, if done right, can smoothly facilitate lasting donor relationships.
After your event is over, continue to:
Share fun photos and videos from the night on social media.
Tag your guests and sponsors where appropriate to increase the likelihood of further sharing and engagement.
Add guest or staff quotes to show the real-time donor engagement and personalize the event’s impact.
You can even create blog posts on your nonprofit’s website that summarize the results and go over all the event highlights. This way, you can showcase the impact of your event and encourage supporters to sign up for the next event to continue pushing your mission forward.
Use the OneCause Fundraising Platform
Our top insider tip? Successful auctions require powerful 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.
Running Your Silent Auction: Inspire Giving with Software
Congrats! We’ve walked through the core stages of how to run a silent auction, from running the event and checking out to follow-up. Now, put this step-by-step guide into action and host your best silent auction to date.
If you’re interested in learning more about silent auctions, check out these resources:
How to Plan a Silent Auction: The Ultimate Guide for Success. You can’t jump into running a silent auction if you don’t have a solid plan! Check out the first part of our silent auction series to ensure you’ve got all the essentials down to host an amazing event.
Silent Auction Bid Sheet Template. Not sure how to format your bid sheet? Download and customize our template to meet your nonprofit’s needs for your upcoming auction.
