A Higher Bid

A Higher Bid is the nonprofit school and organization guide to planning and executing more exciting, more lucrative special event fundraisers. In this book, award-winning consultant, fundraiser, speaker, and professional auctioneer Kathy Kingston shares her proprietary and proven approaches to audience development, board empowerment, leadership succession, guest cultivation and engagement, and donor development. You'll learn how live auctions, special appeals, innovative icebreakers, silent auctions, and new technologies can help increase revenue, and how to execute these events in a way that translates to a stronger donor base for long-term giving. Kingston describes how to match the guest list and catalog for better results, and reveals the strategies professional auctioneers use to curate the right auction items and discover the right people to generate optimum revenue and engage donors.

This book offers a fresh approach to fundraising, showing you how charity benefit auctions can be made a centerpiece of fundraising special events to drive both short- and long-term fundraising goals while providing a fun and inspiring opportunity to generate awareness and keep supporters excited about the mission. Using Kingston's proven framework, you'll learn effective ways to:

• Strategically increase high-profit revenue streams
• Increase your organization's donor base
• Empower the board toward efficiency and productivity
• Engage supporters more deeply and keep them invested

Donors are the lifeblood of any nonprofit organization, and sustainable revenue depends upon their high engagement and willingness to give. Well-executed benefit and charity auctions have proven to be effective fundraisers for nonprofits, associations, and schools of all types, and A Higher Bid is the expert guide to optimizing these special events for maximum impact.

Foreword xvii

Introduction xix

Section I Strategic Benefit Auctions: The New Catalyst for Philanthropy

1 The Shift: Event Transaction to Philanthropic Transformation 3

2 Bid High and Prosper: Are Auctions Right for You? 16

3 Energize and Empower Your Board and Team 33

4 Make Your Auctioneer Your Quarterback 47

Section II Designing Strategic Benefit Auctions

5 Attract the Right People First 71

6 Procure Incredible Auction Items 87

7 Make Your Show Flow 104

8 Communicate Donor Impact 124

9 Measure Impact 142

10 Leverage New Technology 155

Section III Conducting Strategic Benefit Auctions for Donors and Dollars

11 Optimize Silent Auctions for Loud Results 169

12 Maximize the True Worth of Your Live Auction 183

13 Ignite Generosity with Fund-a-Need Special Appeals 196

14 Add Strategic Income Streams (…and Fun) 211

Section IV Leveraging Strategic Benefit Auctions

15 Keep the Money Flowing 225

Acknowledgments 238

Resources 240

References 243

A Final Call: Giving Back and Passing Forward 245

Index 247

KATHY KINGSTON, CAI, BAS, founder, Kingston Auction Company, is an award-winning thought leader and consultant in fundraising and auctions. She has raised millions of dollars for non-profit and educational organizations in the US. Ms. Kingston founded the Fundraising Auction Academy to teach advanced fundraising and consulting to nonprofit executives, professional auctioneers and consultants. Kingston Auction Company is the premier resource for record-breaking fundraising auctioneers, education, and strategies.

A Higher Bid offers nonprofit leaders, board members, educators, auctioneers, and volunteers a hands-on guide that shows how their organizations can transform their lackluster benefit auctions into events that inspire an ongoing culture of giving. Written by Kathy Kingston-award-winning consultant, fundraiser, speaker, and professional auctioneer-this important resource introduces the author's unique auction philanthropy model that uses auctions as a springboard for greater fundraising opportunities and long-term donor engagement.

The author includes the questions to ask to help a nonprofit determine if an auction is the right fundraiser for their organization and reveals how the stakeholders and auctioneer can take on new and dynamic leadership roles. However, there is more to a successful auction than meets the eye. Consistently raising large amounts of money requires a multi-pronged strategic fundraising approach. Kingston defines the five pillars that define a strategic benefit auction: Find out what matters most to supporters; Invite them in; Inspire them to fall in love with your organization; Give them reasons to stay in love with your forever; and Invest in what counts and ignore the rest. By adopting Kingston's strategic design for an auction event, a nonprofit can create a unique blueprint that will target audience development and attract high-profit auction items. This unique approach incorporates techniques that communicate donor-centric marketing, has a method for measuring impact, and integrates the use of new technologies.

Step by step, A Higher Bid explores the proven methods that can be put into place when conducting an auction and other fundraising events. Kingston's approach gives nonprofit leaders a sure-fire strategy for inspiring an entire community of dedicated champions to rally around their cause. Once in place, this powerful group of energized supporters will give to an organization's cause year after year.

Using A Higher Bid as a roadmap, charitable and educational organizations can leverage the latest innovations in benefit auction strategies and technology to achieve record-breaking results and create a community of long-time supporters.

From the Foreword...

"Kathy's strategies led us to our unprecedented success in our fundraising event. In two short years, we went from $700,000 to $4 million. Now, through A Higher Bid, Kathy is sharing her game changing wisdom with you — the reader."
—Maureen Cottingham and Honore Comfort, Co-Directors, Sonoma Harvest Wine Auction

Additional Praise For A HIGHER BID

"What a gem of a book. A Higher Bid is a great resource for nonprofit administrators, development professionals, schools, board members, volunteers and donors."
—Lynn Sobel, Lynn Sobel & Associates, Full-Circle Philanthropy Development Consulting

"I was inspired by reading A Higher Bid. Kathy Kingston opens up the notion of the event becoming a centerpiece of donor engagement in the philanthropy cycle of the organization."
—Jack Good, Vice President, Peoples United Bank, Former Chairman of the Association for Health Care Philanthropy and New England Association for Healthcare Philanthropy

"This year alone, Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA) raised $500K in new money from new donors by implementing Kathy's strategies at events across the country. Readers of A Higher Bid can use these same strategies and tools Kathy taught us to drive revenue... We are no longer standing in the back of the room with our fingers crossed."
—Kristin Kaplan, National Director of Special Events, Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America

PRAISE FOR A HIGHER BID

"Kathy Kingston works magic in auction fundraising, and she's created magic in this book, because readers will emerge realizing that they are on an entirely new level of proficiency."
—Alan Weiss, Author, Million Dollar Consulting and The Consulting Bible

"Any fundraiser who doesn't read this book is in the wrong business."
—Stuart Paskow, CEO and Founder, Mitch-Stuart, Inc. Destinations of Excellence

"Kathy Kingston has helped hundreds of professional benefit auctioneers increase revenue for their nonprofit and school clients. Now she has written an excellent easy-to-read book, A Higher Bid, full of profitable, asy-to-implement ideas designed to help you do the same!"
—Hannes Combest, CEO, National Auctioneers Association

"If you've ever participated in a badly-organized, underwhelming fundraising event—and who hasn't—read this book. Kathy Kingston's practical wisdom, good humor, and generous spirit shine through on every page. You'll raise more money and, even better, you'll have more fun."
—Andy Robinson, author, Train Your Board (and Everyone Else) to Raise Money

"I'm SOLD! Filled with energy, enthusiasm and empowerment, A Higher Bid showcases ultimate strategies for fundraising professionals and volunteers alike!"
—Gail Feinstein, Vice President, Marketing/Community Relations, USI Insurance Services

"If your organization does special event fundraising (or wants to), Kathy Kingston's book is a necessity. Don"t waste your time reinventing the wheel; this book shows you the exact steps to create memorable—and profitable—events."
—Dorie Clark, adjunct professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and author of Reinventing You and Stand Out

"Kathy Kingston is at the top of her game and her book A Higher Bid will take you to the next level of fundraising"
—Paul C. Behr, past president, National Auctioneers Association