Bell a ringer for Stellar Fundraising Auctions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  November 5, 2014

Jacquelyn Wells
Stellar Fundraising Auctions
(415) 682-4224
Jacquelyn@stellarsf.com

 Bell a Ringer for Stellar Fundraising Auctions

Devon Bell Joins Roster of Stellar Auctioneers

 San Francisco, CA: Today Stellar Fundraising Auctions, Inc. (http://stellarsf.com), a fundraising auction firm specializing in planning and implementing fundraising auctions, announced the addition of fundraising auctioneer Devon Bell to the Stellar roster. Mr. Bell has worked with Stellar as a spotter on a number of events over the years and now becomes the third auctioneer at the firm. His presence will help meet the rising demand for Stellar auctioneers in the Bay Area and beyond.

 “We’re thrilled to have Devon on board,” said Stellar CFO and co-founder, Ed Gold. “He’s a brilliant consultant and an excellent performer, and he is wholeheartedly committed to helping make the world a better place one bid at a time. And besides,” added Gold, “we’re tired of turning work down because we’re booked.”

 Devon is excited to be joining the Stellar team. “I’ve spent years working auctions with Greg and Ed and am excited to learn this craft from two experts in the field,” he said. “They are renowned for their performances onstage, but their knowledge of consulting is staggering. I’m honored to join such luminaries.”

 Devon has already conducted two fundraising auctions under the Stellar banner, exceeding expectations in both cases. He already has a bevy of events booked for spring of 2015, and events looking to make the leap to hiring a fundraising auctioneer should act quickly to secure the newest Stellar auctioneer in San Francisco.  

 About Stellar Fundraising Auctions: Stellar Fundraising Auctions is a San Francisco-based fundraising auction firm. Stellar helps plan and implement over 100 fundraising auctions a year, raising tens of millions of dollars annually for non-profit organizations all over the United States, including schools, arts organizations, service organizations, and foundations.

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Identify the celebrity in your crowd

The best things to sell in a fundraising auction aren’t things at all, but experiences. Unique, one-of-a-kind packages that offer “insider’s access” always outsell any item that has a clear-cut retail value. And the truly most desirable type of access we can sell is access to a relationship.

Access to celebrity always sells well in a fundraising auction. But the definition of celebrity varies from event to event. Sure, it would be nice if everyone could get access to A-list Hollywood movie stars, but the truth is you probably don’t need it.

There are people in your community or event who have their own celebrity, who can be tapped to help make your auction more successful. You simply need to identify them, and find a way that they can help out.

For years I conducted both of the fundraising auctions for the National Pain Foundation. We did one event in San Francisco and one event in Philadelphia each year. At each auction every year the highest selling auction lot was dinner with Dr. Elliott Krames and his wife at their San Francisco home. The package consisted of a 3-course meal prepared by Mrs. Krames, paired with wines from Dr. Krames’ extensive cellar, all served in their lovely Victorian home.

And at this point you are thinking, “Who the heck is Dr. Elliott Krames?” along with everyone else who’s ever heard this story. Dr. Krames was the founder of the National Pain Foundation. At those events he was a celebrity. Outside of those events, he’s “just some doctor from San Francisco.” But in that room, he’s a best-seller.

Why is Greg onstage with a pirate and a woman with a crab for a crown? And why is the crowd bidding like mad on their auction lot? Chuck Huggins, CEO of Sees Candy for 54 years, was always a celebrity to those who knew him.

We see examples of this crowd-specific type of celebrity at a variety of events, crossing all types of organizations. At schools there is almost always the “principal for a day” auction lot, but we also see lots of buy-in parties leveraging the popularity of a few key parents. Other organizations utilize the celebrity of their leaders, be they the executive director or a well-known board member. Some people simply have a popular or well-liked home, that is its own sort of celebrity.

The key is to take a step back and look over your organization’s closest supporters with an objective eye. Ask yourself, “who could I sell in my auction?” (in the most loving of ways, of course). I guarantee that you have an extremely potential-filled auction lot within a degree of separation. All you have to do is identify the celebrity in your crowd and ask.

Use a chair to make your fund-a-need more successful

The fund-a-need is the single most important element of the majority of fundraising auctions we conduct. The fund-a-need usually makes as much as or more than the combined total of the rest of the auction lots. In many cases, the fund-a-need generates three to five times more than the rest of the auction as a whole.

Statistically speaking, more people participate in the fund-a-need than the rest of your auction combined.

An item this integral to the success of your event and your organization deserves its own committee chair.

Typically, the fund-a-need falls within the purview of the live auction chairs. However, these are the people who have been tasked with soliciting auction lots, creating packages out of them, writing up their descriptions and then marketing them. They have a lot on their plate, and often they simply want to know what the staff has decided to do the fund-a-need for, and where to put it in the auction.

Make one person the chair of the fund-a-need, and enable them to focus on all of the small details that will help make the appeal more successful. The fund-a-need chair can:

• Work directly with staff to determine and define the fund-a-need;
• Identify ways to quantify the need so that it maps to every pledging level;
• Write the description for the catalog;
• Coordinate the testimonial for the night-of the event, including either the creation of a video or working to identify appropriate speakers; and
• Identify and solicit lead donors for each level of the fund-a-need.

With or without a fund-a-need chair, each of these steps is integral to the ongoing success of your fund-a-need. Putting one person in charge of all of them ensures consistency across the myriad tasks' timeline to help make it successful. Creating a fund-a-need chair also elevates the importance of the fund-a-need among those planning your event and auction.

A successful fund-a-need takes work, it seldom “just happens.” Getting other committee members to recognize that will change the perspective of the fund-a-need within your community, all of which will help make it more successful

It is the single biggest moment of your event, work to make it so.

The scientific case for hiring a professional fundraising auctioneer

One of the challenges of being a fundraising auctioneer is the number of amateurs who think they could do my job – and number of seemingly otherwise intelligent event chairs willing to believe them. I don’t know what it is about being an auctioneer that makes so many people think they could simply jump onstage and do it. Maybe it’s the fact that we all learn how to say numbers in sequence in elementary school.

When the stage has been set for success, don't leave it up to an amateur to maximize the potential of your crowd.

We are professionals who have focused on fundraising auctions as a craft so that we can hone and perfect that craft. I’ve long argued that anyone can look brilliant when an auction is going swimmingly well, but it is a true professional who can handle an onstage challenge with aplomb. And now I have scientific proof to back me up.

A fundraising auction is a high-intensity affair, a continual stream of in-the-moment decisions being made that range from the mundane to the extraordinary, and sometimes extreme. Most of the obvious decisions seem easy enough to make, especially to the untrained eye. But when an extraordinary situation arises, the person onstage has microseconds to respond before the crowd starts forming an opinion – good or bad. And it is when the time pressure is greatest that the amateur is most likely to mess things up.

Law and Finance expert Frank Partnoy, in his book Wait: The Art and Science of Delay, uses chess as the example of how novices cannot cope with time-sensitive pressure. Most of us novice chess players can muddle through a game of chess well enough to present ourselves as competent. But add a timed element, such as in blitz chess where you only have 30 seconds per move, and the difference between novice and expert becomes profound.

“Expert chess players cope well with this kind of intense time pressure,” writes Partnoy. “When grand masters play blitz chess, the quality of their moves hardly deteriorates at all. They instinctively pick the best move, right away. But when novices play blitz chess, it is a disaster. Either they tap their conscious system and use up too much time thinking about the next move, or they make quick, bad moves. Either way, their systems overload and they lose.”

In the real world and on the chess board, Portnoy argues, “The message is clear: if you only have a few seconds to make a decision, you had better be an expert.”

Why then, with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, would anyone risk giving the reigns of their auction to an amateur who is, statistically speaking, prone to messing it up when it matters most? The amount of money one “saves” in such a situation is outweighed by the performance a professional will bring to your stage.

And this isn’t just me saying this, it’s science.

Marketing not charity

When you start on the solicitation trail for silent and live auction items, you can use the incentive of your attendees demographics to help you get a "yes" by having the person you're asking  take off their charity hat and put on their marketing hat!  Most of the businesses that you approach have gone through their "charity' budget long before you got there, but there's always marketing funds in reserve throughout the year.  Have a breakdown of your demographics handy and emphasize that the couple of hundred people who attend your event consist of those who are already customers and those who may be, after seeing your support for their organization.  I also suggest that "who" asks will certainly make the difference in how the ask is received.  If one of your solicitation team members has a personal or customer based relationship with a prospective donor they should be the one to ask.

It's also important that you try and target the ask by knowing what you actually would like from the donor, so that you don't get into the "what do you want"...."what do you got"  conversation. If you need the donor to contribute something that's part of a great auction lot, let them know that.  A well thought out ask shows a lot more respect for the donors time and resources than "gimme something"

Auction sponsorship to drive bids: "Bidder Bucks"

There are many ways to offer event sponsors benefits in exchange for their sponsorship and participation. Almost every sponsorship solicitation packet I see offers a similar list: logo placement in the program, an ad onscreen during dinner, and prominent table placement the night of the event.

Give a sponsor prominent placement in your bidder's eyes and try to drive up bids at the same time.

One idea to give a sponsor lots of marketing traction at your event, and hopefully drive up prices on either live or silent auction items, is to get a sponsor for “Bidder Bucks” (see photo). Bidder Bucks are essentially a currency that you hand out the night of the event that are good only in the live or silent auction.

Every couple receives their allocated Bidder Bucks, and can use them as part of their bid on an auction item. The Bucks are non-transferable, and only good the night of the event. In the example at right, every attendee got $40 in bidder bucks that were good only in the silent auction that night.

Ironically, this particular sponsor wanted to remain anonymous, so they missed out on the branding opportunity. But you can see the branding potential here, especially if the bucks are of a high enough value.

The value of the Bidder Bucks is determined by dividing the sponsorship by the number of auction items. $2,000 in a 50-lot silent auction would result in $40 Bidder Bucks. $10,000 in a 20-lot live auction would give everyone an additional $500 to spend in the live auction and so on. The value of the Bidder Bucks has to be high enough to be meaningful to people, otherwise it lacks impact. $10 Bidder Bucks aren’t going to change people’s behavior.

This type of sponsorship works best in an environment where people are value-minded, people are of potentially limited capabilities, or participation in the auction has been lackluster. Bidder Bucks are ready-made for school events, for example, or a fledgling event in the sub-$200,000 range.

The goal is to use the sponsorship as a lever to get people to spend more than they would have. Once someone bids on an auction lot they are committed and far more likely to bid again. And when people start with “free money” the natural tendency is to spend it…and then some.

How the Napa quake will impact your charity event

Charity events nationwide are lubricated with the generosity of vintners and winemakers. Whether we’re talking about a single bottle or a wine country experience, wineries often provide the foundation upon which successful fundraising events are built. So it is natural to wonder what is going to happen to your fundraising event in the wake of the 6.0 earthquake that struck Napa and Sonoma counties on Sunday, August 24th.

We should start by doing an honest assessment of the damage to the Napa Valley. The vast majority of Napa came out relatively unscathed. Most wineries had little to no damage, including wineries whose storage facilities were at the epicenter of the quake.

“We lost a total of about six bottles,” said Stuart Bryan of Pride Mountain Vineyards, even though their storage facility is less than a quarter mile from the epicenter. “We palletize all of our boxes of wine, and then shrink-wrap each pallet. Everything was fine.

“But if the building had collapsed,” continued Stuart, “we’d have lost everything.”

A small minority of wineries got hit exceptionally hard, and they have been getting the most news coverage. Trefethen Family Vineyards, for example, has been one of the unfortunate poster children for damage done by this quake. Their historic Eshcol Winery building, built in 1886, buckled during the quake and its fate is being decided by structural engineers.

Trefethen is visible from highway 29, and the sight of their three-story winery buckled and leaning is a moving one. But if there is good news it is the fact that Trefethen was between bottling their last vintage and harvesting this one: their winery was essentially empty. They may be looking at a loss of their building, but their wine remained intact.

The same cannot be said for The Hess Collection. Situated on Mount Veeder, Hess sustained some of the most graphic, and costly damage in the quake. “Mount Veeder is the mountain closest to the epicenter,” says Samuel J. Peters, the Executive Director of the Mount Veeder Appellation Council, “but that’s not the reason it took such a hit. All of the other mountains in Napa have volcanic soil, and their terrain is much firmer. Mount Veeder was seafloor, and didn’t fare well.”

Hess, specifically, lost over $4 million in wine when their pressure-sealed, full-of-wine storage tanks were crushed like so many empty aluminum cans  sending a flood of wine out onto their wine tasting patio. A few rows of their barrels also collapsed, making for stunning photos and video – and sending the erroneous message that Napa had been shut down.

The majority of Napa is open for business. As of this writing there are 58 red-tagged businesses. Hess isn’t one of them – in fact, Hess has been actively campaigning to get people to come to Napa, and making the most of the situation with humor and aplomb. Their Labor Day Weekend Tasting Menu included a selection between the "Summer Shakes," "Triumphant Tremor" or the "Falling Rock Collection."

So how does this all impact you and your charity event?

I don’t know for sure, and it is going to be up to you to find out. You’re going to have to do some legwork, strengthening your vintner relationships, and checking in with your contacts to see where they are at.

Reach Out

If you have existing relationships with wine producers in Napa, or Sonoma for that matter, who donate to your event you need to reach out to them to see how they fared. Do a quick search online to discover what you can first, in case they are one of the wineries that took a major hit. Odds are they came through mostly unscathed. Either way, they will appreciate you reaching out.

Calibrate your Own Expectations

If a winery that you depend on did take a significant hit in the quake, offer them a year off from participating in your event. If they need a break, they will appreciate it – and if they don’t need a break, they will appreciate the thought.

Make No Assumptions

Even if one of your vintner partners did take a significant hit, reach out to them and find out how best you can work together on your upcoming event. They may need the time off, but they may need the marketing your event provides even more. Have conversations with people: it is the best way to build and strengthen relationships.

Vintners and winemakers are, as a whole, one of the most generous groups of business people in the United States. They consistently use their powers for the greater good, contributing to fundraising events all over the nation. The damage caused by this one earthquake isn’t going to change that commitment overnight. In fact, it will probably only make it stronger.

And now I’d like to introduce…

Almost every event has a series of speakers who make their way to the podium pull out a crumpled sheet of paper and “make a speech.” Some are dynamic presenters and some…not so much. Sometimes the flow of the evening is determined by these people, instead of the other way around. And what your speakers say is critical to the success of the evening.

At an event last year three people - a CEO, a board member, and a celebrity - got up before the auction and proceeded to hammer out a message of “the economy sucks…..we’re all broke….we need to tighten our belts, etc. etc.” As I stood off to the side of the stage, I could feel the energy in the room drain and actually saw people put their paddles on the floor. I do not suggest that anybody pretend that things are peachy keen, but there’s no need for three consecutive speakers to take the wind out of anybody’s philanthropic sail.  A message of needed support and acknowledgment of difficult times can both be addressed.

Along with content, length is also a concern. One painfully long thank you speech by an honoree at a large event in San Francisco actually delayed the evening by 30 minutes! The following year the organization video-taped the acceptance speech for that year’s recipient. Then they projected it on the large screens and let the honoree come up on stage, get the award, say thank you and return to his seat.

It’s obviously a tricky matter when it comes to editing or controlling people’s speeches. But your guests will appreciate it if you take the time to offer your speakers a well-placed word about brevity when discussing their speeches.  Everyone’s goal should be for the audience to still have plenty of energy and enthusiasm left by the time the auction starts to keep those paddles waving.

An Unredeemed Lot is an Excellent Donation

At a recent planning meeting where we were discussing repeat auction lots for an event, it came out that one of the donors felt seriously slighted because their lot was never redeemed. A buyer had paid top-dollar for the lot at the auction, and had yet to cash it in with the expiration date looming. The donor felt slighted, and was inclined not to make the donation again.

Over the past decade, we've consistently seen an average of 45% of auction lots purchased at fundraising auctions go unredeemed. This isn’t a function of the desirability of the lots being offered at fundraising events, but a reflection of the nature of supporting causes through auction purchases. People who make a purchase at a fundraising auction do so first and foremost because they believe in the cause; the desirability of the lot simply justifies getting caught up in the heat of the moment and (hopefully) overpaying.

Buyers assume that 100% of the money is going to the organization putting on the auction: if they don’t redeem the lot they will have still made a good donation to the cause. Most buyers also support more than just one cause, and often have shoeboxes full of certificates they keep meaning to redeem. Buyers aren’t trying to slight donors, they simply lead busy lives and have scheduling conflicts.

It is understandable that some who donate lots to an auction most often do so because they really were looking forward to making their event happen. There are a lot of possible solutions, such as putting the donor in direct contact with the buyer to coordinate the event, but they are all fraught with potential for disaster.

The simple solutions is to assure donors that their donation is loved: by you and the people who bought it. Their donation helped raise significant amounts of money for a cause they believe in. If the buyers haven’t taken them up on their generosity yet, it is not a reflection of how wonderful their lot is. It’s just more proof that we all lead insanely busy lives, and sometimes making time to show up and buy the lot is a major accomplishment, let alone making the lot happen.

Eye Can’t Hear You

A few years ago at an East Bay Auction an interesting thing happened.  The event included about three hundred people at a beautiful Country Club.  Everybody was enthusiastic and came ready to spend and support and enjoy the evening.

After doing my  normal “can everybody hear me clearly” announcement, I felt confident that everybody could. So I started the 43 lot auction and paddles were going up everywhere. The lot descriptions and numbers were being projected on a large screen behind me and and bids were coming from every corner of the room.

Then, about halfway through the auction the laptop sending the PowerPoint slides to the projector failed and the large screen behind me went black. Oddly enough, people started telling the spotters that they couldn’t hear me! The only thing that had changed was the screen going black.  The sound was exactly as it was for the first twenty lots, no levels were changed, no microphones replaced, nothing changed except… the big black screen,  and now they couldn’t hear me.

So what caused this sudden loss of hearing?  Their eyes!  Having the lot numbers displayed near the stage gives your audience a chance to “track” where the auction is. When a lot that is of interest gets close, the interested parties can stop their socializing and get ready to bid.  Most people have already perused the catalog and know which lots they are going to bid on.  But when you take away their visual reference system, they need to “hear” when a lot of interest is coming up.

“Which lot are we on” and “I wanted to bid on that” is not something you want to hear from the crowd.

I have never had the feed to a projector go out in the past and hopefully will never have one go out again in the future.  I do however, wonder if one of those large pads and a Magic Marker tucked away behind the stage is a ”sound” investment.