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It Was Better Than Our Silent Auction

by Jeff M
(New Orleans)

Like many catholic schools in New Orleans, my son’s school counted on raising a lot of money at the annual fair. They were willing to try just about anything that would help raise money that covered the gap between what it costs for each student versus how much tuition is. The gap keeps growing every year as costs go up. It is not always easy to raise tuition because people can only afford so much.
A couple of years ago, they started a silent auction. Goody baskets were put together and displayed during the fair and people bid on them. It was a tremendous success and became one of the key money makers very quickly. This year we took the idea one step further. We decided to use an online silent auction to raise even more money. We were able to secure some wonderful items for auction by promising to also advertise the companies that provide them. Instead of using a web site such as ebay, we set up the auction or our school website. All of the parents were notified of the auction by e-mail and by a flyer that was sent home. The parents were asked to forward a link to the auction to everyone in their contacts list. We also advertised the auction in the church bulletin and made several announcements. Because we were able to get many different gift certificates from places that had locations around the country we were able to appeal to many different people who normally would not be donating to the school fair.

The auction period began and lasted for two weeks. During that time we had a fantastic response that far exceeded our expectations. But we did more than just raise money. We did make more than any other activity at the fair but that was only part of the benefit. The auction brought many people to the schools website that were not aware of it. We were able to get more parents involved in the school because they saw information that they had never seen before. The biggest surprise came at the open house. Several parents said they came to the open house because of seeing the website during the auction process. They were considering sending their child to the school because they were impressed with the website.
The online auction will now become a permanent fixture of the schools fundraising process. People like to get real value for the money that they are donating and this is accomplished by the online auction. It has also generated a considerable amount of new traffic to the schools website. The traffic showed the importance of the website and it has been improved. We look forward to planning at least two online auctions during the upcoming school year and anticipate a successful venture with them.