At 10:04 AM -0700 5/30/07, Duluth Community Garden Prog. wrote: >We're planning a silent auction as part of a major fundraising weekend >scheduled for October. Do any of you have experience with silent >auctions? What auction items have been popular? Have any of you put >together irresistible garden packages? What's been in them? Information >on anything that has worked well is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
One of the local gardens offers silent auction items in conjunction with its annual garden tour. Most of the items are donated from local businesses. If you have persuasive volunteers who are willing to call local businesses for donations, I think anything at all garden-related would be great, and it also gives the local businesses free advertising. Any business that has been at all supportive of your garden is a good bet. Brainstorm with your group about who your audience will be, what they like and where they shop, and figure out what businesses to call and what to ask for. It's always a good idea to set a minimum bid for each item, at least 20 percent of the value of the item, to get bidding started. Here are some examples I've seen at various silent auctions: landscape-design services (1 or 2 hours) from several designers (each one has a separate bid sheet), hotel/spa packages, several baskets of garden supplies (gloves, hand tools, soap/lotion), books (current regional gardening books or coffee-table garden books), tickets to upcoming events, picnic basket with a selection of foods, sunhat and sunblock, gift certificates (clothes, garden clogs, trellises, soil/gravel, compost, etc.), art (sculpture, framed art, photography), table settings (garden-theme dishes, napkins, etc.). If you have CSAs in your area, maybe a one-time CSA box. In addition, anything that community garden members (or people they know) can contribute is great, from zoo tours to accounting services. Presentation is important: nicely calligraphed or printed labels on the items, a big display table. An alternative to a silent auction for smaller items, such as 1-2 tools or small container gardens, is a raffle. One of the local community colleges had about 40 raffle items at one of its plant sales. Each person could buy blocks of tickets at 50 cents each and use one or more tickets for desired items. The fewer tickets an item got, the higher each person's chance of getting it. I think the key to a good raffle is to offer a large selection.
