Case Study: Manhattan Wine Auction Virtual Gala

The Manhattan Beach Education Foundation normally holds its “Manhattan Wine Auction” in early June. A crowd of 2,000 people spends the afternoon enjoying wines from 70 vintners and food from 50 chefs on six tennis courts, before settling in for a 28-lot line auction. Netting over $1,000,000 annually, the Manhattan Wine Auction is a significant source of income for Manhattan Beach’s public schools.

The 2019 Manhattan Wine Auction: the stage is set for over 2,000 attendees

As soon as the pandemic struck, we knew there was no way they could hold anything akin to their normal event in 2020. And the money the wine auction raises is extremely important, as executive director of MBEF Hilary Mahan notes, “Although we have a robust donor campaign, the Manhattan Wine Auction is the only fundraising event hosted by our organization each year and raises significant money for our schools.”

We reached out to Hilary and her team in mid-March to encourage them to consider holding a virtual event this year. There were a lot of concerns, not the least of which was attendance and participation. “I was concerned that our stakeholders would not embrace tuning into a livestream show,” says Mahan. “It just didn’t sound as appealing as our traditional in-person event. But our need for funding was still prevalent…and Greg assured me that he would partner with us to make it happen.”

The first step was to partner with an audio visual company who could produce the show and broadcast it to a streaming platform. MBEF chose to work with The Lux productions based on the fact that they were one of the first AV companies in California to create a virtual gala solution for non-profit events. MBEF also brought in event planner Beth Sandefur to help produce the virtual event.

“We collaborated on ways to guarantee an audience, reach virtual attendees prior to and during the event, and maximize the attention span of our audience,” says Mahan.

One of the ways MBEF engaged its attendees was to create six different virtual tasting events to be held immediately prior to the main gala. These varied in price from $75 for a beer tasting with a brewmaster to $400 for a high-end wine tasting with a vintner. “The goal was not to make a lot of money on the virtual tasting,” says David Brennan, Director of Development & Partnerships, “but to get our community members involved at 6pm with the hope they would transition over to our 7pm live stream event.”  

And it worked! MBEF sold over 250 virtual tastings on a per-household basis, which means approximately 500 people participated. And over 1,000 screens tuned into their livestream. Their fund-a-need raised over $550,000 during the stream, and brought in another $100,000 over the course of the next week. “We could not have been happier with the results!” says Mahan. “Our event netted just $25,000 under what our in-person event typically does, raising over $1M for our schools.”

The 2020 Manhattan Wine Auction virtual event was a stellar success, tripling previous years’ fund-a-need totals and raising over $1,000,000

Two of the key factors of MBEF’s success were committing wholeheartedly to the concept of a virtual gala, and getting their stakeholders to buy in to the concept. The number of people who watched the stream is roughly equal to the number of people who normally attend the event in person. MBEF did great work in making the virtual gala fun and accessible and working hard to get their crowd to be there. And they did it all in under eight weeks.

Auction lot idea: “The Wine Spectator Top 100”

Wine is consistently one of the top-selling categories of auction lots in fundraising auctions, and the vast majority of charity auctions we conduct feature at least one or two “wine lots.” People like their wine and are often more than willing to overpay for it in support of a good cause.

But not every committee is comprised of wine lovers with expansive wine cellars, and sometimes coming up with a good wine lot is a daunting challenge. Committee members often don’t have the wines and don’t know which wines they should purchase to donate.

We’ve worked with a number of committees to come up with ideas for lots that can be achieved without necessitating a deep and expensive cellar. Lots that can be assembled at minimal expense to your individual committee members, but for which the collective perceptual value is very high. One lot that is the easy to replicate and consistently yields solid results is “The Wine Spectator Top 100.”

Every year Wine Spectator releases its list of the top 100 wines of the year. It isn’t simply a list of the 100 highest scoring wines from the previous year; the editors of Wine Spectator base their list on “quality, value, availability and excitement.” All important criteria when assembling an auction lot!

Wine is perennially popular, especially wine with provenance. 

What this means is the wines on the Wine Spectator Top 100 are readily available and relatively affordable. Thirteen of the top twenty wines on the list have a retail value of $50 or less. Only eight of the entire list cost $100 or more.

I recommend creating a lot of at least ten bottles. “Ten of the Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines” has a nice ring to it and is an achievable goal for most committees. Avoid duplication by agreeing as a group which wines you’ll be targeting individually. This ensures people have a clear direction and clearly defines the goals of the lot.

Here’s a dirty little secret: although it is nice to target the top ten wines on the Wine Spectator list, you really don’t have to have all wines from the top of the list. Wines from anywhere in the top 100 will work – as long as a few of them sniff the rarified air of the top of the list.

From a bidder’s perspective, the fact that someone else has pre-assembled a group of highly qualified wines makes this lot appealing. If the retail value is relatively low it, great! That gives people the opportunity to earn a higher tax deduction if they pay over value. And the many times I’ve sold variations of this lot, the final sale price has outperformed retail value.

Have a favorite go-to wine lot for your fundraising auction? Let us know in the comments below!

Create your own traditions for your fundraising auction

2016 marks the 35th year that the Sun Valley Center for the Arts has held its annual wine auction. 2016 also marks the 22nd year that Atkinson’s Market has donated a collection of seven 3-liter bottles with an image of Sun Valley etched and painted across all seven bottles.

It is a big, impressive, beautiful lot. It is a definitive collector’s lot, and you see previous sets on display in major donor’s homes all over Sun Valley. And over the course of the past 22 years it has raised one million dollars.

The Atkinson's Market annual collection of etched and painted 3-liter bottles is one of many traditions at the Sun Valley Center for the Art Wine Auction.

Every year the image on the bottles changes, making each set unique. Discussions about the art on the bottles, who bought it last year, and who is interested in it this year are all part of the fabric of the weeklong event. Over the course of 22 years, the Atkinson’s Market lot has become as much a tradition as the Wine Auction itself.

I see lots of other examples of traditions like this: the dinner that takes place every year in the same supporter’s home, the trip to Italy to stay in one of the biggest donor’s vacation villa, the chilled magnum of champagne to open the auction. Whatever it is, traditions are a valuable part of any fundraising auction. Traditions provide a sense of continuity, and hopefully make things easier for your solicitation team by not requiring a major revamp of your auction every year.

Whatever your traditions are, acknowledge them, embrace them and make them a part of the fabric of your event. And if you don’t have any traditions yet, now is a great time to create your own.