Silent Auction Coordinator

This position is often also a Raffle Coordinator. It's good to note that the responsibilities of the Silent Auction Coordinator can be split up.

Hours required: a couple hours a week at least, then 10-20 hours the week of the event.

What ya gotta do

• Check out and update donation request documentation, like the Donation Request form and the Donation Receipt.
• Walk around to or call local businesses and request donations. Often this takes more than one try per business, and some businesses require (or may be more convinced by) a personalized letter at least 6 weeks before the event.
  • This script will give you some words to use when asking for donations over the phone. It's handy if you're passing some of the calling off to an adoption volunteer.
• Keep a running record of who's been contacted how many times, when to call back, etc. Spreadsheets are handy for this. This part is also important if more than one person is asking for donations around town so requestors don't overlap.
• When a business donates something, give them a donation receipt.
• If the item needs to be picked up, coordinate with some FG volunteers to pick it up if you can't. It's nice if a bunch of stuff can be picked up at once.
• Make a winner tracking sheet:
  • Keep a running record of what we've received on this winner tracking sheet. If we got something that's not fancy enough for the silent auction, but could go in the raffle, don't bother marking it on this spreadsheet page.
  • Put some spaces for the following info on this spreadsheet: Item, Description, Winner, Phone#, Value, Min Bid, Winning Bid, Paid, Contacted by, Picked up, Notes
• Make a bid sheet for each item, which includes info like: item number and description, value, mininum bid, and labeled places for people to write their name and contact phone number.
• Help set up the silent auction table during the event with the items (or copies of the items) and their bid sheets.
• Make phone calls after the event to any winners who didn't pay for their item at the event.

Additional raffle stuff

We usually sell raffle tickets about a month before big events, and advertise a nice computer as the grand prize. This is usually enough for people to be willing to spend $1 on a raffle ticket. The tickets are sold at the front desk and in the store, so they need special jars to hold the tickets, envelopes for the money, and hopefully a flashy poster advertising the raffle put up nearby.

Qualities that will make this job fun and exciting for you

• Outgoing personality
• You like to schmooze and convince people that Free Geek is worthy of their donation
• You want to make some connections in the community
• You know what types of stuff will be popular, and will make people want to fork over some cash
• You enjoy being organized and a little methodical
• You wanna do this job
• (If there's more than one person doing this job) You communicate well with others and are capable of setting up a tracking system that will enable intercommunication.

Note

I know, I know, this job seems like it has lots of paperwork involved with it. But really, most of it is schmoozing, and then there's 5-7 hours of getting all the paperwork straight at the end. Don't be scared.