Start Procurement With a Wish List
Intimidated by item procurement for your auction? Don’t be! Have fun and get some great items or experiences by holding a “Wish List” party. Gather together the procurement team, board members and staff to brainstorm about items to procure for your event.
Before you begin brainstorming for your wish list, go over the demographics of the event audience. This will help the team picture what items, activities, and services might be of interest your constituents.
Do your attendees tend to be young, mature, hip, or traditional? Is your attendee mailing list composed of 20-to-30-somethings with less discretionary income, but more of a sense of adventure? Or a more mature audience with time and resources for leisure travel? Or is your list composed of working professionals with not much time but a high disposable income? Or do you have a combination of all three? Knowing your audience will help you determine the items, activities, or services that will most appeal to them.
Now you can start your brainstorming. All ideas are good, no matter how outrageous. Encourage your team to push past the items that seem to show up over and over again at benefit auctions. Ask them what items, activities, or services they have seen at other events have done well, and add those to your list. Perhaps you can improve on a great idea at your auction.
Don’t rule out unusual offerings, but keep your audience in mind. Medical procedures have been top auction items—but will your bidders be willing to bid publically for them? Would they do better in a silent or online auction?
Reach for the sky! High end, hard to obtain, or unusual items can be acquired by your procurement team. You never know where or when you will come across a great item or contact to help you.
The resulting list is your starting point. Pare that list down based on your audience demographics—not by the difficulty of procurement. If you anticipate having attendees from several demographic groups, identify which ideas will be most appealing to what audience type.
Use the list to develop your procurement plan. Ask your brainstorming team who they know and who their friends, business associates, relatives and acquaintances know. Do they regularly shop at certain stores? Are they a regular at a local restaurant? Do they know a celebrity, or know someone who knows a celebrity? Who do they know that has a vacation home? Make a list for every team member and start watching for possible connections to the items on your list.
Find a connection to the item list? Assign that item procurement to the team member with the connection. Coach your procurement team to not be afraid to ask for items to support the cause. Arm the team with procurement forms, procurement letters (or emails). Remind them periodically to keep their procurement search going. Consider having a procurement contest, with a fun prize going to the team member that procures the most items or the items that bring the most value at the auction.
Procurement is vital to your auction’s success. And, with creative ideas and team work, it won’t be a chore.