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Silent Auction Mt. Hebron High School
Ellicott City, MD



What's the Big Idea?
Hold a silent auction! What's a silent auction, you ask? Take a regular auction - where buyers bid against each other for items on sale - and subtract the auctioneer. You know, the guy up front who announces the audience's bids. Instead, in a silent auction, there's a sheet of paper that you record your bid on. The auction usually lasts a longer amount of time, so you can come back and see if you've been outbid by someone else.

The most heavily-contested item in Mt. Hebron High's silent auction was a student parking pass. Normally, only seniors are allowed to park at the school because there aren't enough spaces. The pass - which didn't cost the school a cent to put on the auction block - ended up selling for $200!



Tips to take to the bank...
Tips to take to the bank... •   Team up. Activities like silent auctions work best when you combine them with another event that lots of people are likely to come to. Besides giving your bidders something to do while they wait to see if they've won, it also helps increase your potential audience.

•   Target your fundraiser carefully. Silent auctions are typically used by non-profit organizations more than schools, because it takes more money to participate. If you do decide to have a silent auction, remember that your target market will probably be more parents than students, so advertise the right way.

•   All that glitters isn't gold. Things don't have to be expensive to be valuable - something like a parking pass could serve as a great incentive for your own fundraiser. Think about what students, parents, and community members would consider valuable.



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