Collecting High-Impact Items for Your Auction
By Whit Hunter
Want to build an effective fundraising campaign?
Our team is here to give you more details and guides on how to grow your fundraiser.

The first step for a successful auction is gathering a collection of high-impact items that will engage your donor base and raise a lot of money. Remember that both quality and quantity matter! While the types of items that resonate with your donors will vary based on your community, there are some general best practices to consider when gathering items for your auction.
Range of price points
It is important to have a range of items at various price levels for people to bid on that match their budgets. You want to have at least a few marquee items with a value over $500 (ideally 20%+ of your items would be in this category). Then the core of your auction items (ideally 40%-50%) would be mid-range: $200-$500. Finally, you want to have a healthy anchor of accessibly priced items ($30-40%) that are in the <$200 range. Every auction is different, but if you are starting from scratch collecting items, this is a good general guideline.
Engage Local Businesses
Local businesses are a great place to engage for requesting donated items as they often want to support their community and can benefit from the marketing of their items in your auction! From local restaurants, to golf courses, retailers, spas and hotels, thoughtfully engaging your local community is the ideal place to start building your successful auction.
Featured Experiences
Experiences are the top performing category across all of our auctions. Whether it is a destination trip or vacation home, golf foursome at a premier golf course, group wine tasting a vineyard, staycation at a local hotel or chefs table at a top restaurant, buzz-worthy experiences can help take your auction to the next level.
Want to raise more from your auction? Try BetterWorld’s Auction Tool for FREE!
Seamless online and in-person actions that raise more
Incredibly easy to set up, backed by an amazing support team
Thoughtful automations that save you dozens of hours
Thousands of dollars of “Instant Items” you can use in your auction at no cost
Services
While experiences are the top performing auction items, practical services are easy to justify for donors on a budget. Tax return services, massage therapy, yard-work, photography, landscaping, tennis lessons and even babysitting can be great categories to explore when building your auction list. The items that everyone needs will get a lot of activity.
Creatively Combine and Upsell
A gift-card to a local restaurant and certificate for a few hours of babysitting are each great on their own, but combined as “a night out on the town for parents” their value increases dramatically! Or say a local store offers a gift-card – with a little extra work that item can become a “private after-hours shopping experience with a complimentary bottle of champagne!”

Join 100,000+ amazing nonprofits, organizations, and fundraisers on BetterWorld

Let our FREE fundraising tools help you raise more funds with less effort