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Mt. Hebron High School
Ellicott City, MD
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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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