Fundraising Auction Success Starts with Volunteers

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As many of you already know, an auction doesn’t appear out of thin air.  Items don’t appear at your doorstep and bidders don’t bid on your site magically.  There’s a lot of planning that goes into running a successful auction. From acquiring items, to promotion, to executing your live event, and so on – it’s easy for it to get overwhelming and for auction administrators to feel like it's all going to spiral out of control.  That’s why when you’re in those initial planning stages one of your first tasks should be to assemble a team of volunteers to help!

Many times, when I ask administrators about volunteers I find that they don’t know what to do with their volunteers.  The way I see it, there are a variety of “job opportunities” available for the online auction. Here are a few to consider:

• Graphic Design – One (or more) of your volunteers can be in charge of creating the homepage, setting the auction colors, and creating your banner. This would be a lot of fun for someone who enjoys working with graphics or has a knack for color.
• Item Acquisition – You’ll need at least a handful of volunteers for the task of asking local businesses, their personal network, etc for items to auction off. 
• Data Entry – This is a good job for someone who wants to help, but can only offer a few hours of their time here or there. 
• Promotion & Social Media – Ask one volunteer to be in charge of posting auction-related updates on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  Also, another volunteer can write up a few promotional emails to send out before, during, and after your auction.
• And more - Depending on other factors, including if you're running a live event, you may have other jobs to offer your volunteers.

With busy schedules, sometimes volunteers can only help for a few hours here or there (me included). By breaking the entire auction into different tasks, you’ll not only appeal to more volunteers, but you’ll also be able to take advantage of their skills and interests.