12/30/11

A Post For Board Members Who Will Soon Be Working On a Benefit Dinner-and-Auction

If you are a board member of a community-based organization, chances are good that you will be involved in putting on a special event to raise money. And chances are good that the event will involve an auction...and that you will be asked to procure donations for the auction.


If you have read my November 26th post, you may know where this is going. If not, I'll tell you: Procure those unwanted gifts that  your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, received over the holidays! In other words, ask your contacts to donate their unwanted gifts to your organization's upcoming fundraiser/auction. Not every gift can or will be returned or re-gifted. And what is one person's reject gift is another's treasure. I worked with one organization whose board treasurer donated to its silent auction an unwanted gift - a set of Harry Potter books that had been given to her. That donation became the object of a vigorous bidding war and the source of a generous contribution to the organization. 


Hurry and get those gifts - before they get stashed in the recesses of basements/closets/attics, then forgotten.