Red Alert! What to do in an Event Emergency

When something goes wrong at your fundraising event (and something always goes wrong) it is best to have a plan in place and be prepared to respond decisively. Most mishaps at galas are minor, and require a small response. But if a true emergency does occur, it is best to be prepared. In a life-or-death situation, every second counts.

Designate a Single Point Person

Make sure one person on your event team is the go-to person in the event of an emergency. Tell volunteers and other staff to let this person know if there is an emergency. Have this person in a visible, accessible place throughout the event so they can be found if need be.

Have a Plan in Place

Equip your Emergency Response Person with a plan, and make sure they have the tools to carry it out. Make sure they have the direct line for local emergency response professionals readily at hand, and that they have adequate cell phone coverage to make the call. It doesn’t have to be a complicated plan, and can be as simple as: “If someone is choking on their food, call 911 immediately.”

If you are doing your event in a hotel ballroom or professional event space, find out who their emergency response team is and how to reach them. For example, the Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco has a medical response team on duty 24/7, and respond immediately to emergencies in their ballroom – but only if someone lets them know.

Do Not Panic

Stay calm, keep your crowd calm, freaking out will only make the situation worse.

Act Quickly

Do not hope the situation will resolve itself and do not worry about the optics of what this will look like for your event or organization. If it is a life-or-death situation, every second counts. It is better to over-respond decisively than to fatally under-respond.

Give People Suffering an Emergency Some Space

If someone is experiencing an emergency at your event, do your best to give them space and privacy. Call as little attention as necessary to the emergency. Direct the audience’s attention elsewhere, and encourage the crowd to focus away from the emergency.

Be Prepared to Adapt

Depending on the severity of the emergency, you may have to radically change the course of your event. Engage your crowd honestly, and with respect, and they will help you achieve the most positive outcome possible.  

Making a Quantum Leap

One of the greatest joys in our world is seeing a fundraising auction make the leap to a new level of success. As charity auctioneers and fundraising event consultants, we have been part of many success stories, seeing auctions double or even triple their revenue in a single year.

How do these auctions achieve such success?

Have a vision for where you want to take your crowd

They start with a vision of where they want to take their event. From there, they develop very specific goals and formulate strategies for achieving them.

“Raise more money in the fund-a-need” is a goal that most events would love to achieve, but alone it lacks direction. Starting with a vision of “engage our crowd on a deeper emotional level so they feel more connected to our mission” leads towards the goal of raising more in the fund-a-need.

Be willing to take risks. We’re not advocating risk for the sake of risk, but you are never going to make a quantum leap by embracing the status quo. It can be a large risk, like changing venues, or a smaller risk, like changing the flow of your program or embracing a new theme for your event. Any risk you take should be in service Identify a way to achieve your goal.

Embrace change and get your audience to buy-in to it by communicating with your crowd in advance to manage their expectations. Engage directly with key supporters to get them to commit to your vision, then reach out to your larger audience with their support. Fundraising is a conversation that takes place year-round, and your closest supporters should always feel like they have a stake in your event.

Train the crowd to embrace this new status quo and establish The Way for subsequent events. Momentum in a fundraising auction is a fascinating thing, and crowds have a way of remembering how an event was the year before. Highlight your successes in post-event communication, and carry that momentum forward to next year.

Finally, believe that you can grow. Your faith and optimism will inspire your committee, your board and ultimately your crowd to help you make your own quantum leap.

How to Deal with Competing Events

Planning and implementing a successful fundraising auction is challenging enough on its own terms, let alone when your event has to compete with other events for your audience’s attention. A sporting event that was announced long after you set your date, or another charity’s longstanding event can both have radically different impacts on your event.  

Here are some tips for avoiding unnecessary competition and dealing with unplanned competition:

Check the Social Calendar
If your event is moving to a new date, it is always wise to check the social calendar before you settle on a new date. Every city has a list of non-profit events (here in San Francisco the Nob Hill Gazette is a great resource). And if nine- to twelve-months in advance is too far out for a full listing of events, you can always look at the previous year’s calendar for your date to see what events exist around then.

Network with Similar Charities in Your Region
Establish relationships with the organizations who are in your same space, or who have crossover in your donor base. There are many great resources networking with other charitable organizations – Facebook groups, email lists, etc. Find out where your regional charitable peers participate and join them. We work with many organizations that actively seek to coordinate their events so as not to compete with each other.

Gala or Warriors watch party? How about both…

Message and Engage Your Donors
If you do find your event is in direct competition with another fundraiser that will impact your donor base, be proactive. Reach out to your big donors directly, encourage them to come to your event. If they are not coming, see if you can secure a donation from them to be used at your gala in their absence. We love proxy bids on auction items and gifts of all shapes and sizes for the fund-a-need.

Keep an Eye on the Sports Calendar
If you have any rabid sports fans in your donor base, you need to keep an eye on the relevant sports calendars. Here in the Bay Area we have been lucky enough to often have one or more professional sports teams in the hunt for a championship going back at least 20 years.

Playoff schedules get announced a few weeks before the games, so sometimes it is impossible to avoid competing with a major sporting event. When that happens, make a plan that works for you and the culture of your event. We can’t always recommend setting up screens and watching a playoff game as part of your gala, but we’ve done it.

Reach out directly to your donors who are sports fans and find out if sports are going to impact their participation in your extremely important fundraising. Offer them solutions such as, “we won’t announce any scores during the event so you can DVR it.” Always, always, always offer the opportunity to make donations or bids in absentia.

How to Prevent an Auction Takeover

It is a big challenge for any fundraiser when one person decides to take over an event and make it all about them. It shifts the focus of a gala, has the potential to derail the fundraising and could end up costing the event significantly.

There are no easy solutions for what to do once someone is already onstage, rambling on about their product, personal pet peeves, or other random tidbits. But there are a number of steps you can take in advance of your event to try and prevent any sort of auction takeover.

Set Clear Expectations

Tell each speaker how long they have for their speech before they start writing it. As a general rule, very few speeches need to be longer than three to five minutes.

Review All Scripts

It is reasonable to ask speakers to prepare for their time onstage by writing up their remarks in advance. It is also reasonable to ask to see that script in advance.  If someone’s script is too long, or off-message, seeing it beforehand gives you the opportunity to discuss that with them while there is still time to make edits and adjustments. There is little time to course-correct the night-of your event.

Designate a Stage Manager

Someone needs to be able to play the “bad cop” if need be, but it is also useful to have someone who is in charge of getting speakers on (and possibly off) the stage. From a show-flow standpoint, it is a waste of the audience’s time if the emcee introduces the next speaker, and that speaker is still seated at their table. Then the whole crowd has to wait while the speaker gets up to make their way through the tables to the stage.

Don’t let one of your speakers hijack your auction, have a plan in place to prevent podium piracy

Far better is to have a stage manager who ensures every speaker is at the stage, ready to go on when they are introduced, and encourage them to leave the stage if they speak for too long.

Have a Plan in Place

What do you do if a speaker goes on too long? Or launches in to an inappropriate tirade? How do you handle the worst-case scenario? At what point do you turn off a speaker’s microphone? (We’ve seen it happen!)

Create a plan and empower your stage manager to implement it. Hopefully none of those worst-case scenarios come to pass. But if you don’t have a plan in place, you’ll be scrambling to figure out what to do, instead of reacting immediately and decisively.

Ryder Solos His First Auction Lot

At the 2024 Claire Lillienthal School Auction, Ryder took to the stage and sold his first auction lot from beginning to end. It was “Principal for a Day” and he sold it for $4,600- TWICE! The video cuts off before he doubles is, but he raised $9,200 his first time taking the mic. We are all insanely proud.

Celebrating Ten Stellar Years

Join us in celebrating ten years of Stellar Fundraising Auctions with this look back over just a few of the highlights from our first decade!

Auction Lot Idea: First in Line at Valet

We love to open an auction with a “warm-up” lot that has a low opening bid, but hopefully is extremely popular and sets the tone for the rest of the auction. These lots are fun, readily accessible, easy to describe, and usually offer some sort of instant gratification.

There are many variations on this theme, usually involving food or drink. We often sell opening lots of a round of “special” drinks served immediately to the winning bidder’s table, a “better dessert” for the winning bidder’s table, or special attention from the waitstaff and bartenders.

If your event has valet parking, you have an easy warm-up lot just waiting for you. At most events with valet parking, there is a line of people waiting for their cars at the end of night – especially larger events of 500 people or more. On more than one occasion we have offered the opportunity to have the winning bidder’s car moved to the front of the valet line as an auction lot.

The logistics are simple: as soon as a winner is determined, a staff person gets the winner’s valet ticket and has the winner’s car pulled around so it is waiting for them when they are ready to leave. All it requires is an agreement with the valet service provider to maintain a lone parking spot at the front for when the time comes to get the winning bidder’s car.

Market it in the auction catalog and slideshow, give it a description that sells the story. I’ve even seen some extra details added on, like a goodie bag to take home waiting on the front seat for you. The point is to keep it simple and make it fun. The results always align with what we’d hope for an introductory lot like this. Worst case scenario, we raise about $500 and do a great job of warming up the crowd. Best case scenario, two bidders go at it and we’re off to the four- or five-digit races on our first lot.

If you have other ideas for great warm-up lots, post them in the comments below, or drop us a line.

Stellar Announces Jonathan Moscone

Stellar Fundraising Auctions is honored to announce Jonathan Moscone as the newest performer to join our fundraising auction team. Jonathan has spent the last 35 years crafting a career as a leader in the arts. We are excited to bring his experience backstage and in the boardroom to help non-profit organizations achieve their philanthropic goals.

Jonathan has planned and attended his fair share of fundraising auctions over the years. He first worked with Stellar on the client side as the artistic director for California Shakespeare Theater. It was during Cal Shakes’ annual gala that Jonathan gained an appreciation for Stellar’s pre-event consulting and onstage performances.

“I have worked with many charity auctioneers over the years,” says Jonathan, “and Stellar’s approach to helping set the stage for success is unique. I have witnessed Stellar bring wisdom and joy to every event they conduct, and I am excited to be part of their extraordinary team.”  

Jonathan’s experience as the artistic director of one of the nation’s leading classical theater companies gives him powerful insight into stagecraft. “Jonathan’s instincts for what works and what doesn’t onstage have always been incredibly impressive,” says Stellar’ founder, Greg Quiroga. “His notes have always resonated, and he is going to make an incredible fundraiser.”

Jonathan’s skill, energy, and commitment – combined with his onstage experience over the years – position Jonathan uniquely in the fundraising auction world. No other fundraising auctioneer in San Francisco and the greater Bay Area has the depth of knowledge and wealth of experience that Jonathan brings.

“This is going to be really fun and meaningful,” says Jonathan. “I am looking forward to helping non-profits succeed in fulfilling their missions and increasing impact in their communities.”

Jonathan is currently available to help your non-profit organization achieve its fundraising goals. Contact Stellar Fundraising auctions: 415-682-4224, Info@stellarsf.com

Do Your Homework on Consignment Packages

Consignment companies serve a valuable role in helping round out live auctions. If your auction is in need of an exciting travel package, or something specific that you have been unable to get donated, purchasing an auction lot from a consignment company is a viable option. However, if you are going to purchase a consignment package, it is important to follow a few simple guidelines.

Only purchase from reputable consignment companies that specialize in working with non-profit auctions. Any consignment company worth dealing with will be able to provide you with references to happy clients, auctions that have sold their packages, and bidders who have taken their trips. If you are going to trust the care and handling of your bidders to a company, their partners, or representatives, you need to know they will be treated well.

Sometimes you need a tropical paradise in your live auction, and have to pay to get it.

The financial goal should be at least double your investment. If a consignment package is going to cost $1,500, your target sale price should be at least $3,000. This means you must know your audience, their desires, and their potential budget. Don’t base the decision to purchase a consignment package on what the consignment company says it is worth or on how well it has performed at other auctions.

Shop around and do your homework. Once you find a package that seems like a fit, ask the consigner if they are the provider or if they are a reseller. If they are a reseller, see if you can go directly to the company that provides the package. There are many resellers out there that simply take other consignment company’s packages, mark them up significantly, and then do their best to market them.

A client recently came to me with a consignment package that seemed familiar at first glance, except it was way more expensive than I remembered. Once I looked a little deeper, I realized it was a consignment package from a different company being offered at two times normal cost. What should have cost my client $1,800 was being “offered” at $3,600. As soon as we figured this out, my client simply switched over to the originating consignment company and purchased the package from them.

Consignment packages can be a useful tool for your live auction, raffle, last hero standing, or silent auction, but only if you do your homework, and make sure the package is going to fit your needs, and not vice versa.

Greg Quiroga Featured on The Moth Radio Hour Broadcast

Stellar fundraising auctioneer Greg Quiroga is also an avid storyteller and stage performer. Since 2012, when he is not onstage raising money for non-profit organizations, he likes to tell stories at local The MOTH story slams.

Greg Quiroga, performing onstage at The Moth.

Greg has won numerous local story slams and been invited to perform in multiple Moth Grand Slams at the Castro Theater. This past December one of Greg’s stories was selected for inclusion on The Moth Radio Hour, which is heard on over 575 public radio stations nationwide. It’s an incredible honor, especially given the tens of thousands of stories The Moth has to choose from.

If you didn’t happen to catch the story when it aired, you can listen to it on The Moth’s website here. And if you want to see some of the extra material Greg submitted to go along with the story, scroll to the bottom of the page at this link.