This article is an excerpt from a CharityVillage webinar, The Fundraising Drivers That Raise You More: The Donation Augmented Approach to Tickets, Auctions, and Raffles. View the full video recording here, or scroll to the end of the article to watch the video.

So, next up is auctions. In our study, we found that 40% of all funds raised came from auctions alone, and honestly, we weren’t surprised one bit. They are truly a cornerstone of fundraising. We also found that according to our survey, organizations invested, on average, the most amount of time towards this fundraising element, compared to every other one.

But the payoff is there.

With auctions alone, organizations were raising around $14,000 compared to every other fundraising driver that was bringing in between $2000 and $8000.

Now, don’t get me started on what happens when we donation-augment our auctions, but I digress. We’ll get back to that later.

So there is still a case for auctions, and it is worthwhile doing them because, on average, they’re bringing in $14,000, but how can we do them better while not adding even more time to your plates?

Here are some quick ideas for a silent auction.

One, automate your donor notifications throughout your fundraiser. Notify your donors when they’re outbid and give them easy options to keep rebidding or notify them right before the auction ends. Those simple texts or e-mails can keep your donors engaged. And if you find a fundraising platform that can do it for you, even better, you won’t have to worry about it at all.

Now for live auctions, there is also great potential to use these to raise more for your organization. We’ve supported a lot of organizations that have done live auctions, but one thing that has always stood out to me was the idea of a mystery item, and it worked so well that I honestly share it with everybody I talk to.

So here’s how it works. You announce your first live auction item, which is going to be a complete mystery. Maybe it’s a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates, but the auctioneer takes it off and makes that first bid really low. I’m thinking like one or two dollars.

Now you can focus on just getting your donors engaged. And as you know, when donors are engaged, it’s so much easier to encourage them to keep bidding and giving.

So don’t let your guests know what the item is. And then, when the bidding is only a couple of dollars, all of your donors are going to be so much more likely to start bidding on it for a chance to find out what it is.

When the item is won, reveal what it is and then use that momentum to go straight into your real live auction items. And we guarantee you’ll see more engaged, bidders as a result.

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, I’m not going to deny the amount of work that an auction takes by far out of all of the fundraising drivers. It has the biggest time investment, but automated bidding and texts, or motivate notifications, should be included with the fundraising platforms you choose, and actually, if anything, should reduce the amount of time you have to spend on engagement throughout your auction. And doing a live auction mystery item shouldn’t be challenging for you to come up with. And it is also a really easy way to drive more engagement, which is ultimately going to help you raise even more money in your live auction altogether. Again, the mystery item is not about raising money, you’re thinking you’ll probably make $50 to $75 on it, but it’s what can happen afterwards that’s going to get us really excited about that additional engagement, how you can get more people participating, which is ultimately going to help you raise more money.