Provide reading glasses.
All too often guests forget to bring their reading glasses to gala events and then struggle to read the auction tent cards. A great idea I saw was putting baskets of reading glasses by the silent auction items and at registration. Guests who had forgotten their glasses were relieved to be able look at the items and their descriptions with clarity—which increased interest in the items and revenue raised.

Create a phone charging station.
Guests rarely think to charge their cell phones before attending an evening event, but it’s important to do so if they will be using their smartphone to bid. Charging stations are a great fix! Set up a table (maybe near a bar) with iPhone and Android phone chargers plugged into a power strip. This will allow guests to give their phones some life while socializing and placing their bids.

Offer plate clips for holding drinking glasses.
Sometimes guests feel as though they need three hands to carry their plate and their cocktail glass while holding their BidPal device. Wine glass plate clips are an innovative idea that I saw at a Tres Bonne Annee event. The plate clip secures to the edge of the plate to hold a glass of wine, freeing up a hand for bidding.

At your next event, don’t be afraid to think outside the box and really wow your guests with extra little touches. Enhancing your guests’ experience and making them feel like you have thought of it all can help generate more money for your organization.

Cameron Mahoney, BidPal Consultant

Registration is the “red carpet” of your event. This is your guests’ first glimpse of what their experience will be like for the duration of the fundraiser. Setting a positive mood and having a smooth registration process will set you up for success.

When using BidPal payment processing, we recommend two volunteers per terminal. One volunteer can verify guest information and swipe credit cards while the second volunteer types in the bidder number and hands over the BidPal device or a “How to Smartphone” card. If you are not using payment processing through BidPal, be sure to have at least one registration line for every 100 guests.

Two volunteers should staff a help desk located near registration. This will alleviate your registration volunteers from answering questions and holding up the line.

No matter how many volunteers you have at registration, make sure they are welcoming and friendly. Nothing will make your guests grouchy faster than an unwelcoming welcome!

Stephanie Bristow, Event Consultant

• Principal for a Day
• Teacher for a Day
• Front Row Parking for a Semester/Year
• Locker of Your Choice for a Year
• Front Row Season Tickets to any sport
• Front Row Seats at Graduation
• Front Row Seats at Play/Musical/Choral/Band event
• Gift certificate to the school bookstore
• Sell passes for out-of-uniform days

Use your school to create easy and unique items that your guests and parents will battle over at your event.  What better way to generate profit than use items that are free and promote involvement in your school?

Jodi Campbell, Regional Event Manager, Central Region

BidPal’s number crunchers noticed an interesting trend: proceeds as a percentage of item value was extremely high. Five organizations exceeded 100% and another five achieved 90% and above.

The average number of bids per item also was very high. Stanwich School in Greenwich, Conn., received an average of 15.56 bids per item at its annual benefit, Stanwich Sets Sail, on Friday night.

Saturday night in Minneapolis Rochester Catholic Schools received an average of 14.11 bids per item at its event, Hearts of Gold, A Purple Tie Affair, benefitting Lourdes High School.

Stay tuned for more updates on fun and profitable fundraisers as BidPal takes the country by storm!

Be sure your event emcee and/or auctioneer is well-versed in BidPal before your event begins so that they can influence the audience as effectively as possible. Then incorporate the following helpful announcements into the emcee’s script:

Max Bids
Let your guests know that they can submit maximum bid amounts so that they don’t have to continually monitor the status of their favorite packages.

Items with No Bids
One of our most popular features, with this tool your guests can clinch a bid on the event’s best kept secrets!

Donation Appeal Announcements
Highlight the “Make a Donation” button and explain each donation level and watch the contributions roll in!

Countdown Announcements
Your Event Manager can activate a countdown clock to show the time left in your silent auction. Make frequent scheduled announcements to draw attention to this clock so that guests don’t miss out on a great opportunity.

Express Checkout Announcements
If you are utilizing BidPal’s payment processing solution, make an announcement letting guests know that if they haven’t pre-swiped a credit card, they can pay for their winnings directly on their BidPal device from the comfort of their dinner table.

Email Receipt Announcements
If you are a payment processing customer, make an announcement to remind guests that they can email themselves a receipt from their BidPal device, saving them time and paper!

Checkout/Item Pickup Announcements
Make an announcement detailing the checkout and item pickup instructions that will display on the BidPal device once the auction closes. Guests always ask where to go next, and this will help alleviate any confusion.

BidPal announcements are an important part of your event’s program. Think of a creative way to fit them into your event theme or think of ways to keep your audience engaged and interactive.  Building excitement for BidPal will pay off in the end!

Jennifer Mendoza, Event Consultant

Many event chairs believe auction booklets are critical to the success of their event. But consider this: where do those booklets end up? Most guests throw them away, leave them on their table, or set them down for their all-important adult beverage and never use them. What a waste.

Using BidPal will save you the expense of printing books and the time it takes you to compile it. At events with the BidPal mobile bidding system, cocktails usually are set down before the BidPal device!

Auction booklets also become out of date quickly. Anyone who has planned a silent auction can attest to how many silent auction items are donated and sponsors acquired the week of the event. Booklets are printed well in advance and often don’t contain the complete list of items or donors. BidPal allows changes up to event day to make sure that all of the information is up to date.

Auction books contain a lot of useful information, but it is not reasonable to expect your guests thumb through the booklet to preview all of your items. With BidPal, guests can enter item numbers as they walk around, search by category while at the bar, or even browse items by photo while enjoying dinner. All these functions allow your bidders to easily search for their wish list and bid faster—which means more money raised!

Do away with the old auction book and adapt the newest technology—an auction book and bidding device in one—BidPal!

Cameron Mahoney, BidPal Consultant

Apply this same concept to your silent auction. Recently, I saw an organization use the online gift registries of several major U.S. retailers to request items for their silent auction.  While you may think registries at Crate & Barrel, Macy’s, Pottery Barn, and Target are only for the bride and groom, if you look closely you see they are promoted as gift registries, not just bridal registries.

Early in your item solicitation phase, spend an afternoon at your favorite store with a scanner gun. You will most likely find some great additions for your silent auction. Consider the following categories:

• For the Home: wall art, small appliances like a Keurig coffee maker or KitchenAid mixer
• For Her: designer purses and jewelry
• Tech Genius: DSLR cameras, Apple products and tablet computers
• Outdoor Living: Adirondack chairs or a copper fire pit
• Sports Enthusiast: branded tailgating essentials

Using gift registries will appeal to individual donors who want to give, but who may not know what to give. From the comfort of their living room, they can find an item on the registry that fits their budget.  You can even set up the registries so all gifts (donated items) are shipped directly to the auction office.

Happy scanning!

Kat Taylor, BidPal Consultant

Dress volunteers in apparel that coordinates with your theme. Keep with the ambiance of your event and use apparel to help your volunteers stand out. Hawaiian leis would be great for a beach inspired event. Volunteers wearing Santa hats work great for holiday themed night. Fun green hats add a festive feeling to your St. Patrick’s Day event and they can be spotted easily throughout the venue space.

Have your volunteers all dress the same. Dressing all of your volunteers alike creates unity among the team. It also makes it easier to make announcements about the volunteers: “Please see a volunteer in a bright green BidPal shirt.” At one recent event, a school group had their student volunteers wear tuxedo t-shirts.

When it comes to easily identifying your volunteers in a crowd, there’s not more to it than meets the eye!

Cameron Mahoney, BidPal Consultant

By using BidPal’s cellular solution at your golf outing, you can watch your silent auction proceeds rise all day long. You won’t have to wait until dinner to get people bidding.

Everyone stops for a drink at some point on the course. Why not remind your guests that they have a mobile auction right in their pocket to check out between holes?

To really get your guests excited about bidding on the greens, strategically place bidding kiosks and signage at each drink cart. Place an outgoing volunteer there to schmooze with your guests and see what they are bidding on. Excitement is contagious—get those volunteers talking with guests and bidding on items!

You can even sell mulligans with BidPal, so if even your best golfers discover mid-game that it just isn’t their lucky day, they can help out their score and your organization on the spot!

Ann Govert, Training Specialist

Auctions at golf outings historically under perform and for good reason—golfers typically can’t bid while they’re on the course. That is about to change. BidPal’s cellular solution allows golfers to bid on their smartphones from the golf course, and allows you to capitalize on what used to be down time.

Your players are already amped from the golf competition; why not add the auction competition to keep your revenue moving? Imagine: While player one is teeing off, player three is outbidding him on that golf getaway to South Florida. Player one exacts his revenge by outbidding player three while he is putting on the green. A more devious player might even try to time an “outbid text alert” for the middle of their opponent’s swing.

Selling Mulligans? Let the players purchase them on the course, as they need them. This will keep your registration moving faster and your revenue climbing!

Who needs cash? When the drink cart makes the rounds, allow your golfers to purchase the drinks right from their smartphone. If you are giving away drinks on the course, allow your golfers to make the recommended donation on their phone.  Donations tend to be larger when they are made on a credit card.

Your golfers will love the added excitement on and off the course and you will love the results!

Katie Treadwell, Event Consultant