This article from OnPhilanthropy states some obvious facts that we tend to gloss over:
On the negative side:
- Auctions aren’t much good to corporate sponsors — a trivial ad for an expensive gift.
- Bidding is limited to those in attendance and during a limited time period.
On the plus side:
- They can raise non-trivial amounts of money.
- They are highly entertaining for the participants.
- They involve an exchange of value - making them one of the few truly “pleasurable” ways a donor has of giving.
The solution: online auctions because they eliminate the inefficiencies:
- More beneficial to corporate sponsors — the old clickable link.
- You increase the number of gifts.
- You get more bidders (and, theoretically, more money) because auction isn’t limit to those in attendance.
- The time period is expanded from 3-4 hours to 3-4 weeks.
Of course the article was written by someone who provides online auction fundraising services. Still, with auction software being included in what I call Fundraising suites, there is some merit.