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The Ultimate Silent Auction Donation Ideas

Tulika Nair
If you are organizing a silent auction, and auctioning off donated items, then you would want to know what are the ideas that you can use to come up with items that people can bid for.
Silent auctions are a great way of raising funds for your organization and your company. The problem with obtaining donated items is that it can be a challenge to get people to donate the items. Also it can be a task understanding what are the items that can be donated at a silent auction. Here we give you different ideas that you can use.

Ideas for Donated Items for Silent Auctions
In order to get people to donate items for your silent auction, you will need to go out and contact people. It is impossible for one person to do this work, and you will need to get help from people for the same. The volunteers will be need to told about the number of donations that are needed and the area that they need to cover to solicit donations.
This way you will be able to cover a huge area and ensure that you do not miss out on possible donations for the silent auction. It may be advisable to send out a letter with the volunteers informing possible donors about your organization and the event in question.
Start the process of getting donations for the event a couple of months before the actual day of the auction. Here, we tell you about the different ideas for a silent auction that you can ask to be donated.

Sports and Hobby Classes

In a community or group, there are people who have always harbored interests in sports and hobbies.
A good idea to use for donation items for silent auctions are tickets to sport events like local league games. You could get coaching classes for sports like golf or tennis.
Other vouchers could be trial classes at dance or art and craft classes. All these are excellent donation items for silent auctions. If you are conducting this auction for your community, then you should easily be able to find people who are willing to donate free classes and coaching.

Gift Certificates or Travel Vouchers

If your silent auction is being held for a good cause and you are approaching corporates for sponsorship, then try and get them to make donations in the form of gift certificates or even travel vouchers.
If this does not work, another idea is ask around the organizing committee if anyone has a farmhouse or a weekend getaway cottage they can allow people to use as a gift they have bid for. You could have gift certificates like trips to a nearby factory that produces retail items, admission to a famous site, hot air balloon rides, tickets to a theater, etc.

Makeovers

Everyone loves makeovers, not necessarily fashion or image makeovers, while they may be a good idea.
You can contact interior designers willing to donate their services as auction item. Someone good at renovations could offer the same for a house project.
You could probably get a gym trainer to donate his time for a training session at the gym, or a nutritionist who can probably plan out diet plans. Other donation ideas could include training tips from pet trainers and sessions with a personality development professionals.

Chores

There is not one person on this planet who would want to spend their weekend doing chores like cleaning out the garage or tending the garden, or even repairing the roof. While these may not be conventional ideas for an auction, they could work very well.
Offer hourly vouchers for landscaping, certificate for car washes, vouchers that offer help in repairing stuff around the house. While these services may not seem like the most natural things to appear on an auction table, they will probably be the things that people bid for the most.
These are just some of the many items that you can opt to auction off. You can also choose to have items like organizing birthday parties, offering babysitting services, catering for parties, products and artwork by local artisans, jewelry by local craftsmen, etc.
Getting people to donate items or products for a silent auction can be a difficult task, but with these products on the line, you are sure to have people bid hugely for them.