A Step-by-Step Silent Auction Guide to Hosting Successful Silent Auctions for Your Nonprofit

When it comes to hosting auctions for your next nonprofit or charity fundraiser, you now have several options. You can host a traditional in-person auction complete with a professional auctioneer, attractive auction item displays, and bidding paddles for your participants.

Alternatively, you can offer your guests a virtual or hybrid live auction that can be hosted virtually on an online platform like PayBee. Online live auctions are very popular since they can attract a lot of people who place their bids via a mobile app or their laptops.

Hybrid live auctions operate much the same way, except you have the additional benefit of having both in-person and online participants, which can increase the bidding substantially.

Then there’s the third option: silent auctions. These popular and profitable auctions can be held both in-person and virtually and make an excellent lead-in to your main fundraising event. What’s more, you can host both silent and live auctions at your event, giving you multiple sources of revenue.

If you’re interested in hosting a successful silent auction, read on. We’ll break down everything you need to know about these profitable events, including all the best practices for holding one. We’ll also give you real world tips on how to use PayBee’s software to make your next silent auction a convenient and fun event for all of your guests.  

What is a Silent Auction?

So, what is a silent auction and how does it differ from a live auction?

When you host a live auction, your auctioneer and your bidders all actively engage in the event from start to finish. You’ve probably seen movies or TV shows where the auctioneer calls out each item and encourages people to bid. Once the highest bid is called out, the auctioneer lets the audience know the item has been sold (usually with the famous phrase, “Going once, going twice, sold!”).

Silent auctions, by contrast, are more passive events. In an in-person silent auction, attendees write down their bids on slips of paper or a bid sheet instead of holding up paddles or calling out bids.

In a virtual silent auction, the process is similar, except the participants can enter their bids electronically. In both types of auctions, bidders can check to see if they’ve been outbid (or receive mobile alerts if someone else bids on the same item) giving them a chance to raise their own bid.

Benefits of Holding a Silent Auction

One of the best things about silent auctions is that they can be held over a longer period of time. Since people can enter their bids at their convenience, some nonprofits and charities start a silent auction a week before their actual main fundraising event.

This is a great way to advertise your fundraising event, since people will already be participating in your fundraiser before it officially starts (and raising revenue for your event). The longer span of time also means auction items can sell for higher prices than they would at a live auction, especially if a lot of people bid on them over the days.

Since silent auctions are so much fun, holding such auctions for your in-person, virtual, and hybrid events can help increase your nonprofit or charity’s brand awareness. You’ll also be able to expand your donor base and keep donors engaged with your nonprofit and its fundraising events. Donors will also get to see all the other ways they can contribute to your organization while participating in a silent auction simply by seeing all the notices and buttons on your web page.

One additional benefit to both in-person and online silent auctions is their popularity with women. According to Nolo, women between the ages of 40 and 49, with household incomes of $50,000 to $99,000 are the most frequent participants in online auctions. This can be very significant if a large portion of your current donor pool falls in this demographic.

Setting Up Your Silent Auction (Step-by-Step)

Okay, so how should you go about preparing a silent auction? Like many successful fundraising events, it all starts with creating an event committee made up of your staff and volunteers. These people will set up all the important aspects of your auction, including:

• Setting up your in-person venue or online platform
• Obtaining auction items from sponsors and other donors
• Cataloging and pricing your auction items
• Working out the registration processes for participants
• Coming up with an advertising campaign to promote your silent auction
• Planning other activities for your in-person, virtual, or hybrid event
• Hosting your silent auction
• Following up with your guests

If this all sounds a bit overwhelming, don’t worry. PayBee offers plenty of easy-to-use online tools to make setting up your silent auction much more manageable. Here are some of the best practices to follow when hosting a silent auction — along with the tools you’ll need to make it all work.

Step 1: Set Up Your Venue and Online Platform

If you plan on holding a traditional in-person silent auction or a hybrid auction with an in-person experience, you’ll need to arrange to have a physical meeting area to display your auction items and accommodate your bidders.

This doesn’t have to be in a huge auction hall, but you do need to choose a location big enough for all of your attendees to move around comfortably. If you have a lot of items up for auction, you’ll also need enough space to arrange them attractively so people can get a good look at what they’re bidding on.

If some of your auction items are less tangible — like a spa day or a vacation package — you can use a large photograph of the event or experience to entice bidders.

If you’re hosting a hybrid silent auction, you’ll want to plan on having a large monitor that shows your in-person bidders the bids from their virtual competitors. You’ll also need to choose a venue that offers good connectivity for mobile bidding and your silent auction software. 

Plan on booking your silent auction venue early — months ahead if you can. This will give you the flexibility you need to find the perfect place to give your guests a good experience.

Virtual auctions are somewhat simpler to set up since you just need a reliable online platform like PayBee to host your entire auction campaign. The PayBee system gives you full control of your silent auction, including the ability to upload all of your auction items as well as start and stop the auction on command. PayBee can also be easily integrated with hybrid silent auction events.

Step 2: Obtaining auction items

Offering great auction items is the key to making your silent auction a success. Not only do they encourage enthusiastic bidding, they also provide excellent ways to promote your upcoming event. Who wouldn’t want to come to a silent auction that promises the chance to win a trip to Hawaii or season tickets to your favorite sports team?

That being said… you don’t have to offer extravagant items to draw people to your silent auction. In fact, one of the smartest things your event planning team can do is to look at the data on your current donor pool and brainstorm the type of items they want based on their interests.

Are many of your organization’s supporters movie or music fans? Then they’ll probably love a chance to bid on some signed movie or music memorabilia. Will your silent auction be a family event? Then restaurant gift cards and a pizza party might be popular. Young adults might be into a bar crawl while art enthusiasts will appreciate bidding on paintings and professional photographs.

When obtaining your auction items, turn to your staff, volunteers, and donors. See if they have anything related to your wish list that they can donate. Many of your people may even have a personal network of friends and co-workers who can donate something.

Business and individual sponsors can also provide excellent auction items — particularly big-ticket items. Be sure to offer them plenty of publicity at your event in exchange for their support. Virtual fundraisers offer many opportunities to showcase your sponsors’ business logos and names on your website, virtual lobby, and promotional materials — not to mention the auction items themselves.

Step 3: Cataloging and Pricing Your Auction Items

After you secure your auction items, you’ll need to create a range of starting bids for your offerings. Once again, keep your audience in mind. Don’t make the starting bids too high or you’ll run the risk of discouraging your guests before they start bidding.

Your event team will also want to create some attractive copy that describes each item. This doesn’t have to be too long — just be sure to focus on the benefits your auction items will provide the bidder. If you’re offering an experience like a yoga class or spa day, offer enticing examples of the experiences they’ll enjoy the most.

If you’re offering an in-person or hybrid silent auction, be sure to create bid sheets for each auction item. Each sheet should include the item name, some copy describing the item, and the name of the business or person who donated it for your auction.

There will also be a line for the minimum bid, bid increments, and minimum bid increases. If you like, you can also offer a Buy-It-Now Price that a person can pay to obtain the item and avoid further bidding.

Below the auction item information, offer spaces for bidder names or numbers, contact information, and the bid amount.

PayBee offers automatic bid sheets for print — including a convenient QR code participants can use for bidding with their smartphones. The added convenience helps encourage more enthusiastic bidding.

If you’re offering a completely virtual silent auction, the PayBee system offers many handy features, including the ability to bulk upload your auction items using CSV spreadsheets (with an item limit in the thousands). You’ll be able to add item names, descriptions, and images (be sure to include attractive photos of each item!).

You can also fully customize your bid increments along with minimum and maximum bid amounts. In addition, you can offer a Buy-It-Now option for any of the auction items displayed online, which will attract participants with busy schedules.

Hybrid silent auctions can easily use PayBee to integrate the in-person portion of their event with the online features provided by the PayBee system. As hybrid events offer two separate experiences of the same event, using PayBee to manage both is a convenient way to keep on top of your hybrid event.

Step 4: Working Out Your Registration Processes

When you use silent auction software like PayBee, you can easily let your attendees register online before the event begins. The PayBee system also lets you customize auction settings, including checkout settings that accept all major credit cards.

While you can host a silent auction without silent auction software by simply having attendees pre-register and submit their payment details, using software is much simpler. This is particularly true if you’re holding in-person or hybrid auctions and need to expend extra manpower to handle both pre-registrations and new registrations.    

Step 5: Promoting Your Silent Auction

You should plan on promoting your silent auction (along with your main fundraising event) several weeks in advance to help build up hype for your in-person, virtual, and/or hybrid event. There are several ways to do this.

Physical flyers and posters can still be effective, especially if you can post them in areas of high traffic where your target audience hangs out. If your staff, volunteers, donors, and sponsors can offer up space at their businesses and organizations, you should definitely take advantage of this.

However, these days most people still learn about upcoming events by going online and checking their social media. As such, your nonprofit or charity should have a strong social media presence where they can communicate with their supporters and keep them informed about upcoming silent auctions and other fundraising events.

Focus on social media channels your donor pool likes. If your supporters spend a lot of time on Facebook, you can offer regular posts and even video clips showing what auction attendees can bid on. Instagram also provides a great place to share photos and videos of your event and the auction items. And both Twitter and Snapchat can reach large audiences.

PayBee provides easy social sharing links that make sharing information about your upcoming silent auction easy. Just focus on the channels your audience frequents, and you can start generating some instant buzz.

To help with your campaign, please keep the following social media marketing tips in mind:

• Create a list of your upcoming fundraisers and special days: Having a schedule of your upcoming fundraisers ready lets you know how far in advance you should start advertising. We recommend promoting your fundraiser at least a month or two before your event.
• Prepare a list of hashtags for each of your platforms: Hashtags help categorize your social media posts and help your promotional material show up in online searches. Knowing in advance which hashtags receive a lot of searches in channels like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter lets you know what to include in your posts. Just don’t overdo it — using over two hashtags has been known to annoy people and drop your engagement.
• Employ storytelling techniques: No matter what platform you use, all audiences respond well to stories. You can communicate the purpose of your fundraiser by sharing your nonprofit’s mission as a story. You can also tell stories from past fundraisers, emphasizing how fun they are to attend. Social media stories can be effectively told through photos and video clips as well as text, so use all the tools at your disposal!
• Use social media marketing tools to schedule your posts: Managing multiple accounts during a marketing campaign is tricky, especially when you have so many other responsibilities. Having online tools capable of automating the process and making sure your posts go out when you need them takes a lot of your worry out.
• Tailor your content to your channel: Instagram is great for sharing impressive images of your activities and events. Twitter is good for real-time news and immediate interactions. Facebook is ideal for announcements intended for large groups of people. All this should influence how you structure your marketing content for each social media channel.

Finally, email marketing continues to be one of the most cost-effective ways to promote events. You’ll want to promote your silent auction on your email newsletter (and regularly collect additional email addresses to expand your list). PayBee’s system makes it easy for guests to share their contact information — and you’ll be able to send out automatic email invitations that make notifying your supporters simpler.

To help organize and promote your email marketing campaign, please keep the following tips in mind:

• Personalize each message: Your subscribers appreciate being recognized in the emails you send. This means making sure to use their proper names in the subject lines and email body. This also means collecting other information about them in your lead forms, such as the company they work for, how long they’ve been supporting your nonprofit, how many past fundraisers they’ve attended etc. Using automation technology to include this information in your emails lets each member of your audience feel you’re communicating with them individually.
• Make your emails mobile-friendly: These days, more people read emails on their smartphones. As such, you should make sure your emails load quickly onto their phones and that the font type, size, and color of your text is easy to read. If you include any links, they should be easy to see and tap on.
• Send reminder emails: Just because a subscriber opened your email doesn’t mean they’ll attend your event. However, if you arrange for a reminder email to be sent automatically after that subscriber opened the first email or took a specific action (like visiting the registration page for your fundraiser), there’s a greater chance that the new email will be opened and re-engage your subscriber.
• Use emotional copy: Informing your subscribers of the dates, times, and locations of your events is great, but you also want them to feel good about attending your upcoming fundraiser. Excite them with stories of how fun your activities will be. Inspire them by letting them know how their attendance and contributions will help benefit the community. If you need help with this, a professional email copywriter can help you write more engaging emails.

Step 6: Planning Other Events

Your silent auction may be one of your most popular fundraising activities, but the truth is, you’ll probably hold it in tandem with multiple other events at your fundraiser.

What types of events? That depends on your event team and the interests of your supporters. From hybrid concerts to art tours to fun runs, there are plenty of unique and attractive activities to offer at your next fundraiser. And since silent auctions can be held at any time in the year, they’re the perfect lead-in to practically any fundraising event.

In fact, one of the best strategies you can employ is to offer two separate auctions — one silent auction and one live auction. Both can be held in-person, virtually, or in hybrid settings. And since your silent auction already got people in the bidding mood, your live auction and professional auctioneer can really excite participants (especially the ones who didn’t make the winning bid during the silent auction and are hungry for another shot!)

Take advantage of the competitive atmosphere auctions generate. During your auction, highlight a fundraising goal for your event complete with a goal meter or thermometer. This can be shown on a monitor at an in-person auction or on your webpage during your virtual auction. Since your attendees are already being encouraged to place large bids, this is a good time to encourage them to contribute via direct donations.

Another fun activity you can offer in tandem with auctions are raffles. Showcase some attractive prizes and offer deals for purchasing multiple raffle tickets. This is a great way to offer an extra source of revenue for your fundraiser. And best of all? Both raffles and auction campaigns can easily be set up and managed on the PayBee online platform!

Step 7: Hosting Your Silent Auction

Getting everything ready on the opening date of your silent auction can be an undertaking in and of itself. Here are the steps you really need to focus on when hosting a silent auction:

Setting up your venue

If you’re offering an in-person auction at a physical venue, you’ll want to get to your meeting area early to handle any issues. Be sure your event team provides plenty of volunteers to welcome attendees, register them, and handle ticketing.

Your venue should display all of your auction items (or large photographs of them) on tables in an attractive manner that allows for easy foot traffic. Double check to see that your bid sheets and display cards are properly set up.

You’ll also want to make sure to have separate areas ready for bidders to pick up their winning items and handle payments. Incidentally, the more forms of payment you can accept (credit cards, cash, Apple Pay etc.) the more convenient it will be for your bidders.

Offering mobile bidding

Mobile bidding is another feature that makes silent auctions more efficient. PayBee offers a PayBee App that lets your in-person attendees place their bids through their smartphones and other mobile devices. This technology is particularly helpful, since it:

• Increases bidding: Giving donors the option of bidding from anywhere in the room (or even from their homes if they’re attending virtually) just increases the likelihood that audience members will bid.
• Alerts bidders: Donors who use the PayBee App receive live bidding updates via text and email to let them know if they’ve been outbid — giving them the chance to raise their own bids.
• Simplifies the check in and check out process: Where before, bidders had to wait in long lines to check in and out of your events, mobile bidding lets them do all this from their smartphones. This helps reduce the demands on your staff, especially in this age of social distancing.
• Offers greater inclusivity: Allowing both in-person and online guests to bid at the same auction expands your bidding pool and engages your audience. Even if certain donors don’t have smartphones, you can have extra devices on hand at your event to keep everyone involved. Virtual guests can also participate via their laptops.

Giving bidders enough time

When it comes to planning the length of your silent auction, take into consideration whether or not you’re holding an in-person or virtual auction. For in-person silent auctions, three hours should be enough time to give your guests the chance to look over your items and place all of their bids.

However, if you’re holding a virtual silent auction, you can (and should) plan for much more time. We recommend starting your online silent auction 7 to 10 days in advance of your main fundraising event. This will give bidders plenty of time to place their bids via mobile device or computer from anywhere in the world, encouraging competition and driving up your selling prices.

Since hybrid silent auctions can take advantage of the same virtual space as online events, you can offer a 7 to 10 day long virtual silent auction for your hybrid event as well.

Encouraging more bidding

While silent auctions don’t always have the immediate energy of live auctions, you can still employ multiple strategies to encourage bidding. Consider using the following tactics:

• Encourage friendly competition: Bidders may receive live bidding updates that show the status of their bids, but your staff can also announce who’s in the lead for a hot auction item and encourage the other bidders to up their bids. Mention the bidders by name or — if anonymity is important — use their numbers.
• Offer a “tips and tricks” bidding workshop: Many guests participating in a silent auction will be first-timers — so offering a short Q&A session on how bidding works can help embolden them to bid more aggressively. You can point out all the web-based or mobile auction tools they have available and make this info accessible on an online form they can view on their smartphones.
• Promote the Max Auto Bidding Feature: One of the most useful silent auction tools PayBee provides is the “max auto bid” feature that allows guests to set up bids to be placed automatically at each bidding increment until their desired “max bid” is reached. The nice thing about this feature is it allows guests to participate without constantly checking their phones while increasing bidding activity in your silent auction. 
• Remind guests how their bidding helps: Going after a desired auction item might be motivation enough for many guests, but being reminded that the proceeds of the auction will fund community-based programs can inspire even more donations. Offer short, motivating speeches about the purpose of your auction and deliver them before and possibly near the end of the event.

Knowing when to end your silent auction

One of the most important things you can do to ensure the success of your fundraising auctions is to know when to end them. In the case of silent auctions, this usually means right before a live auction at your fundraiser.

Holding two auctions at the same time can divide your audience’s attention. This is problematic since you want your guests to be focused on bidding at your live auction and driving up prices there — and not be distracted by some last-minute bids at your silent auction.

For this reason, PayBee offers a customizable auction start/stop feature on its platform that keeps you in charge of your silent auction. You can also use the manual silent auction close feature from your virtual event control interface to make sure your event activities don’t overlap each other and distract your audience. 

It’s also important to know how to inform your guests that your silent auction has ended. Some nonprofits prefer setting a pre-planned end time for their silent auctions, complete with a countdown timer that can help drive last-minute bids.

Alternatively, you can make your silent auction more “spontaneous” by not letting your attendees know how much time they have — which can encourage regular bidding. Either way is fine — just know what your audience members prefer.

If you’re using bid sheets, you can collect them at the end of the auction and announce the winners of each item. If you’re using mobile bidding software, the system will automatically confirm the winning bids.

Step 8: Following Up with Your Guests

Your silent auction doesn’t end after the final item receives its winning bid. Winners still need to pick up their auction items. For in-person auctions, this is as simple as designating an area in your venue for collecting funds and distributing the items. Keep the following in mind:

• Set up your pickup area in advance: Create a curtained space where volunteers and staff can prepare auction items for pickup out of sight from your guests.
• Have all your equipment ready: This includes credit card swipers, receipt printers, and possibly even a cash box if you’re doing cash payments.
• Organize each auction item: Have each item packaged (if applicable) and mark them with a package number. You can also have volunteers on hand to mark each item with the bidder number as the winning bidder is announced. This will make it easier to distribute items.
• Establish a separate line from your checkout line: To avoid congestion, create one line for people picking up their auction items and one line for people just checking out of your fundraiser. Your guests will appreciate the greater speed and convenience.
• Have enough volunteers and staff on hand: Your volunteers and staff will need to package each item, hand them to each recipient, collect payment, and print out receipts.

For virtual auctions (or the online participants in a hybrid auction), you can arrange for winners to pick up their prizes at a designated spot or set up delivery arrangements. Auction items like electronic gift cards can even be sent via email.

Finally, make sure to thank all of your attendees for their participation. Sending thank you letters or emails to all of your guests is a great way to build better connections with your donors and supporters. And thanks to PayBee’s online platform, it’s easy to manage the logistics of making sure your entire audience receives follow-up communication. To build a loyal donor base, consider the following:

• Gather feedback: Your audience has a unique perspective on what worked and what didn’t at your silent auction. Include a link to an online feedback form in your emails that allows your guests to share compliments and detractions. All this will help you make a better silent auction next time.
• Share the impact made: Donors enjoy knowing the difference their participation made. Let them know how much money your silent auction made and where those funds will go. Most importantly, share the type of impact your donor-funded programs are making in the local community.
• Personalize your thank you notes: Automated technology allows you to ensure your emails are addressed to the right people, but if time and resources permit, go the extra mile. Send hand-written thank you notes to particularly generous donors or give them a phone call to let them know how much you appreciated their help. Anything that lets donors know they are seen and appreciated will help improve the loyalty of your supporters.

Handling Difficulties

No matter how well you plan your fundraiser and silent auction, unexpected complications inevitably come up. Here are just a few of the things you’ll want to watch out for — and what you can do to deal with them.

Technical difficulties

Since modern silent auctions are largely held online, experiencing a technical glitch is a very real concern. This can become a major issue, especially if you’ve arranged for most of your in-person and online guests to bid via their mobile devices.

To make sure technical difficulties don’t get too out of hand, have a tech support team on standby during your event. PayBee offers regular assistance for any technical issues you may experience while planning your event or during the event itself. Feel free to contact us with any questions.

In addition, make sure your volunteers and staff members are all familiar with the online platform being used for your silent auction. We recommend running a rehearsal of your event with all your volunteers and staff to ensure your equipment is functioning properly and everyone knows how to use the platform.

Low Attendance

Low attendance is an embarrassing and frankly painful issue nonprofits and charities experience with their fundraising events. There’s nothing worse than planning for a big turnout only to receive a small number of guests (and donors) at your fundraiser.

One useful way to prevent low attendance is to invest in an automated ticketing system like the one offered by Paybee’s online platform. PayBee’s system requires people who purchase group tickets to send out email invites to everyone in their group. Those who confirm their invitations must also provide their pertinent information, helping you prepare for them. In addition, PayBee’s system allows planners to send out reminder emails to table captains with seats to fill, motivating them to invite more guests.

One nice thing about silent auctions is that they can often last for days before your actual fundraiser, meaning if your attendance is low on the first day, you still have time to reach out to more people and get them to participate. Make sure to contact them in the way they prefer to be reached — social media messages, emails etc. — and keep a close eye on the guests who RSVP’d for your main fundraiser.

Ultimately, the best way to prevent low attendance is to learn from your prior fundraisers. Review past evaluations attendees filled out about your earlier auctions and events. Consider overhauling your marketing strategies. And consider the current economic climate — could some of your auction items be too expensive for your guests’ current budgets? All this needs to be taken into account when creating a successful silent auction. 

Creating Your Ideal Silent Auction

Hosting a successful silent auction requires plenty of preparation, but thanks to the strategies covered in this article, you now have a better understanding of the best practices to follow.

Invest in an effective event planning team that’s skilled in securing venues, obtaining quality auction items, and handling registration and marketing logistics. Then make sure their efforts are supported with a quality online platform like PayBee. The online tools offered by this software help reduce the time necessary for building your campaigns and make managing the actual silent auction event easier to manage.

PayBee’s online platform also collects information about your entire fundraising event (not just your silent auction) making it an invaluable resource for analyzing what went well during your fundraiser and what can be improved.

Spend time studying what event activities people participated in the most, how much they donated during each activity, and how much time they spent at each event. Having this information at your fingertips enables your event planning team to build more successful fundraisers by offering your supporters the convenient, fun experiences they want at an in-person, virtual, or hybrid event.  

To learn more about the online tools and software that can make your next silent auction more successful and easier to produce, sign up for a free demo of PayBee’s online platform. You’ll be able to participate in an actual live auction (complete with virtual money) giving you an inside look at what your audience will experience.

You’ll also be able to ask questions about hosting silent auctions and other virtual events to our team of experts which will help you create your own ideal events. Online tools are constantly being refined to help your nonprofit or charity, so sign up for a free demo and learn what we can do for you!

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