Latest / Inspiring Stories / Roger Devine with Fresh and Fun Fundraising Ideas From School Auction dot Net

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Roger Devine with Fresh and Fun Fundraising Ideas From School Auction dot Net · Inspiring Stories

0:04
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the picture of the radiant.
0:26
Speaker 2: Rat.
0:28
Speaker 3: You readything to me?
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Speaker 4: Oh well, well.
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Speaker 3: Say, oh well.
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Speaker 4: Not a bad stop alone, I see.
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Speaker 5: So splash, So.
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Speaker 2: Along is it?
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Speaker 1: An Hey everybody, While you're gathering up that last cup
1:41
of coffee and get in your seats and getting comfortable,
1:45
ready to listen, let's listen to a little bit about
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Roger Devine as he has led a life based on service, community, communication, education,
1:58
and entrepreneurship. As the co founder of school auction dot Net,
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he has spent the last twenty years assisting and advising
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local and national nonprofit organizations and charities on how to
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grow their programs and ensure financial stability through fundraising events
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such as gala's auctions, golf tournaments, and trivia nights. We
2:26
all love a Trivia Night. Through his time at school
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auction dot Net, Roger has advocated for organizations to make
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their events equitable, accessible to supporters outside of the traditional
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top tier donors as a way of building a broader
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base of supporters. This attitude was born from the company's
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decision to focus on its marketing outreach to schools and
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ptas from experiences during the two thousand and eight recession,
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when many fundraising officers became weary of whether they fundraising
3:13
events could work in a time of economic uncertainty.
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Speaker 6: The school auction on net starts when I am working
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in the tech industry and I get laid off here
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in Portland, and around the same time, I had accepted
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the position that nobody else wanted to be the PTA
4:05
president at my kid's school. And I've had a long
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career in the software industry and during this time where
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I was helping out the PTA where I was PTA president,
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we needed to put on a fundraising event, and as
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a software guy, I started thinking about, Okay, is there
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software that can help us with this? And the answer
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was that yes, there is. But it really was the
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business models of everybody that was presenting it were really
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bad for schools. You know. They were fine for the
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higher end charities. We're talking about United Way, you know,
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American Cancer Society, Red Cross, those kinds of things. You know,
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there's a lot of companies that are vying for their business.
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There are a lot of companies that will design their
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software to get that end of the market. There really
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wasn't anybody focused down on the school's end of the market.
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Speaker 4: And.
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Speaker 6: So we start one. I started one with three or
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four other guys in town, and we were all kind
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of looking around for something to do professionally, and we
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had my business partners, their wives were staffing their upcoming
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fundraising auction. I had to do. I was pta president
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my kids' school. We got together and we built it
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for us. That's what we did. We built it for ourselves.
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And then afterwards it was like, well, you know, there's
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other schools out there. Let's see we can sell these
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to other schools, and so we have. We've made quite
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a business for the last twenty years of selling fundraising
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software to very grassroots oriented charities. I mentioned schools you
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know down here in the States, and it's the same
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up where you are in Canada. At a given school,
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there will be a parent group that wants that's concerned
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about how things are going at the school and may
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want to improve things at the school, may want to
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buy some computers for the lab or something like that.
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They will get together and hold these fundraising events every year,
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and we've made a We've had a lot of fun
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working with all of them to do those kinds of
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grassroots fundraising events. Yeah, a lot of fun.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I personally I enjoy working with the grassroots organizations.
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Is like it's it's you see the instant result, right.
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Speaker 6: It's great karma. I get to tell everybody you know,
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I may not be doing a lot of good directly,
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but I am helping people do a tremendous amount of
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good in this world and I expect to get into
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heaven as a result.
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Speaker 1: He man. Yeah, so it's so you you help them
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to use the software to develop auctions or how does
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that actually work?
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Speaker 6: Yeah, so there's a there's a format for fundraising events
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that kind of Coaliest maybe forty years ago for the
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idea of a fundraising gala. And at a fundraising gala,
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I like to describe these things as they're just like
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a department store, only they're only open for six hours
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a year. It's a party. It happens at a ballroom.
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And when guests come to this party, they do so
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knowing that they're going to be expected to donate money.
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They are going to be asked for money. And now
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the question is how do we ask them for money
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in ways that are fun, that are that are going
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to inspire them, that are going to move them to
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do so. And part of what coalesced in this idea
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behind the fundraising gala is that you could put together
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various types of fundraising ideas all in the same place.
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So if you've attended any of these events in the past,
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the most common thing to find at them as a
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fundraising vehicle is a silent auction, a bunch of items
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sitting out on a table, bunch of bid sheets sitting
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out table. People bid asynchronously. The items are donated, so
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everything that the guest pays word goes to support the organization.
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There's live auctions, there's raffles, there's special appeals, there's a
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variety of other things, and the fundraising gall is a
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place where an organization will pick those types of elements
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that they want to combine together into an evening that
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will appeal to their donor base, so that everybody can
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come together, have a good time, have some fun, reinforce
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each other's willingness to be good citizens, reinforce each other's
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commitment to philanthropy, and help raise money to support an organization.
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They're fun when done well, they can be expensive to
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put on, and so many professional fundraising organizations tend to
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not like them for that reason. But that's only because
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they're doing them at the American Cancer Society kind of level. There.
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They're putting on the kind of galls as you might
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see on a TV show. You know, we do see
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those every once in a while. I think the current
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season of Wednesday on Netflix has has Wednesday's mother chairing
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the gala at nevermore. So if you want to watch that,
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you'll you'll find the idea there. So these do appear
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in public, in the public consciousness, but schools know how
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to put them on in a really cost effective way.
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You don't have to do black tie, you don't have
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to you know, hold it at the most fancy hotel
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in town, et cetera. And they've turned this into a
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really durable, reliable fundraising method for these grassroots fundraising organizations,
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the kind that not can't necessarily afford to hire the
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best fundraising talent and are going to be doing things
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with volunteers, are going to be doing things with you know,
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committed people in the organization that are you know, a
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little further down the food chain, a little further down
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the org chart. And they're amazing. And the reason that
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I'm out talking about these again this year is well,
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a I have a company, you know, I soil Software,
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But also because I think events need to come back
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in a little bit better or a little bit bigger way,
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especially down here in the United States. This year, nonprofit
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fundraising has been turned upside down. I'm sure there are
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cross border effects here, but it all sort of starts
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at the beginning, and our government has decided to put
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under review and cancel a phenomenal amount of federal fundraising
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grants that are given to a lot of these organizations.
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If they're not going to get those, they need to
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do something else to make up the gap. Private foundations
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can only do so much, so you know, you got
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to turn to other fundraising efforts there. So part of
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what I'm doing is try and create some awareness around
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our company, but also I want to create awareness around
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the idea that you can step in and these things
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can be cost effective successful fundraisers for organizations that may
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not have anything else going on in the way of fundraising.
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Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I was gonna say that that with the
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with the way the terror for shall we say, uh
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sure going on because we're speaking in twenty twenty five,
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uh that the current United States president with him starting
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this terwer wars and turning off fundraising and everything for
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different things. And I was gonna say for some industries
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that are across border industries, which some charities include that
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that oh, now, what do we do for money?
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Speaker 6: You know? And any organization that has relied on the
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United States government for federal grants has been worried this year.
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They've all been a little insecure about where their fundraising
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is going to come from, you know, and it cascades down.
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There are other there are other entities in the fundraising world.
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There are private foundations, you know, run by philanthropic individuals.
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They're under a lot of pressure right now because they're
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being asked to pick up some of the slack here.
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And then you go down the line with other other
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things you're doing. You know, if you've got a development
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department that can, like I say, if you can find
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old people with fat wallets and get them to leave
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you in their will, then do that. That's a good
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thing to do. That works really well. But if you
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don't have all of those old people with fat wallets,
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you're going to need to rely on your grassroots supporters.
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You're going to need to let the community come together
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and tell you that you are important and that you
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are needed in the community, and fundraising events are you know,
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the way to get that commitment out of your supporter
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by your local supporter base.
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Speaker 1: Because we're in two different cities and also across the
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US border from each other. Also, I can tell you
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the tale of two hospice organizations and one one foundation
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has managed to find that person with the fat wallet
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who left them the endowment and uh, and they have
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what's called charitable trust. Ye don't ask me how to
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set one up. Don't ask me. Oh, you know, I
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got I just volunteer at the place, right And the
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other one has not did not get that doesn't have
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that endowment. And the one that doesn't have is really
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struggling to with fundraising and budgets and uh and very
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interesting board meetings over how to run the organization off
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of off of a budget.
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Speaker 6: You know. And well there's you know, there's a there's
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a trenremendous amount of for profit and nonprofit organizations who
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are navigating twenty twenty five with a lot more uncertainty
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than they used to. Many of us find this in
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our professional lives. That our professional lives, you know, we're
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playing by different rules, there's different different things going on
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out there. My my point today is that that does
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not and it seems like you know, you're you're reinforcing
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this here that does not exclude charities, That does not
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exclude the organizations that we're relying on to fill in
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gaps across the country, across our communities. You know, certain
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gaps really only get filled by people who are doing
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it out of you know, extra uh motivations, outside of money,
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extra profitable, you know, outside of profit. And we need that,
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we need that in our communities, and so we need
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to try to keep as many of these little grassroots
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organizations alive during this time period as we can. Unfortunately,
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you know a lot of them are just muddling through.
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Many nonprofit organizations are not terribly well funded. So you know,
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we're trying to get the worry out here that we've
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got effective tools for putting on effective fundraisers, getting them going,
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getting your community involved, getting them to reinforce that you
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at your organization is needed and should exist. There's a
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lot of nonprofits, a lot of charities that are having
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to confront the question of whether they are redundant or
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whether they are unnecessary, and you know, it's at times
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like this that you turn to your community for feedback.
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You turn to your community and you say, you know
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who's supporting us? You know, are we do? We do?
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We have a thing here, And I think you want
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more than just your volunteers hands in the air and
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they're cheap. You want them to support you with whatever
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they can in terms of money as well keep the
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organization running.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. At least we do this. Do you
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have a message for those charities that may think that
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they're redundant to the very big charity, but but maybe
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their work is more needed because that bigger charity doesn't
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have the ground reach that the smaller one has.
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Speaker 6: That's why the smaller ones exist. That's why we love
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working with the smaller ones because they fill in, you know,
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they fill in the littler gaps that the big guys
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don't bother with, right, you know, they're in here, they're
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they're taking care of things really in the community, which
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is why I think you got to turn back to
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the community in this point and you've got to say
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to the community. You know, you got to go to
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your community and your supporters and say time's tough. You know,
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we're scaling, We're in unprecedented times with regards to funding.
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We're going to turn back to something that we you know,
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left behind us a while ago. We're going to turn
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back to a community fundraising event because we need you
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guys to vote with your dollars, you know, vote with
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your dollars to keep us in place here. And I
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would say that there are a lot of redundant charities.
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Most oftentimes they can justify their existence by covering micro communities,
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you know, et cetera. But this is a time when
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a lot of them are going to have to reassess
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and see what's going on there and if they if
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they have to move on at this point, well that's
17:36
the historical moment we're in. But you know, I would
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like to offer them the bit of a lifeline ahead
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of time, to say, hey, let's see if we can
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go to the people who are most benefiting from your
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existence and their community, and let's see if it's a
17:52
valuable to them. You know, it very well may be
17:55
that we need to pause our work for a little while,
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but you know, let's not do that without giving everybody
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a chance to support us one most time.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's my experience that no matter how small
18:07
the work is, it hurts when it disappears.
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Speaker 6: It hurts when it disappears, always so. But you know,
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there is a question, and it applies in the for
18:18
profit world at companies that are trying to decide on
18:21
what projects they want to underwrite and develop, what kind
18:24
of products they want to take to market, et cetera.
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And it happens at charities too. You know, sooner or
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later you're going to be doing something and the market
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for your service becomes unattractive to provide, or it becomes
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diminished in need, and these things happen, and there's times
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where you have to reassess. I just don't want groups
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to have to reassess because the federal government told them
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they had to reassess. I'd like for them to keep
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going as long as they possibly can.
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Speaker 4: Do.
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Speaker 6: Not go gentle into this good night, Go back in
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out into your community and do what you need to
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do in order to stay stay afloat.
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Speaker 1: I agree with you one hundred percent there that it
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shouldn't be the government, it should be the community at large.
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Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely, this is us. This is this is what
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grassroots movements are all about.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So, so how does this, How does this actually work?
19:24
How do you get start to get the ball rolling
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so they get the funds in?
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Speaker 6: And yeah, it's a it's an interesting kind of thing
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because this concept of the fundraising gala, the fundraising event,
19:37
the fundraising auction, whatever it is you want to call it,
19:41
is at heart a simple concept. At heart, you're going
19:46
to have several moments during the evening where you're going
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to ask people for money. You're gonna have different mechanisms
19:51
for doing so. Maybe you're going to do a silent auction.
19:54
That's very common. What do you got to do to
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get a silent auction? Well, you got to go out
19:58
and get donated items. But then you also have to
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merchandise those items. You have to price those items, you
20:04
have to keep track of them, and you have to
20:05
provide a way for people to purchase them. In other words,
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a fundingsing auction needs an IT infrastructure. It needs a
20:13
platform underneath it that is similar to the platforms that
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are running your local department store. You know, we've got
20:20
inventory management, we've got payment processing, we've got all of
20:23
this kind of stuff. That's the product that I sell
20:26
to charities. It's not all that I do for them.
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We also give them a tremendous amount of advice and
20:32
education on ways to successfully implement each of these tactics,
20:37
but that's kind of like free consulting we give along
20:40
the way. Mostly we're giving them the platform that they're
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going to use to do their inventory management, do their
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bidding management, do their payment processing, do their ticket sales,
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do their guest management, so that on the night of
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the event, you've got a three and a half to
20:56
four hour event that runs very smoothly. The organization is
21:00
set up and ready for people to show up, and
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it processes them through the evening, presents the fundraising opportunities
21:08
in an elegant and fun way, gets people to participate,
21:12
and then collects payment on everything they do. It's an
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episodic thing. It's a thing that happens on a night, right,
21:19
and so there's stuff to be planned. You got to
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have a place to do this, You've got to have
21:25
the infrastructure underneath you. We tend to like to start
21:28
working with groups maybe three four months before their event.
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There's a lot of work to do to get ready
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for them, and then we'll be coaching them on how
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to conduct the event in the time leading up to it,
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and then we hold their hand through the event. These
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types of events have evolved over the years. There's different formats,
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there's new ideas inherent in them. You may remember a
21:53
few years back, we had a pandemic that did a
21:55
real number on our industry. We were talking about live events.
22:00
The pandemic did a real number on our industry. But
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what we did was we developed a tool to allow
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people to hold these types of events virtually, kind of
22:08
a specialized zoom where there was also bidding, you know,
22:12
and it was it was a lot of fun. But
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you know, we do it. We do adapt as the
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market continues to adapt h and the ideas continue to evolve.
22:23
As a fundraising tool, you know, we get to sit
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on the sidelines and watch as people try all sorts
22:29
of experiments and do all sorts of amazing things, and
22:32
we get to see what works and what doesn't work,
22:34
and then we get to emulgate that out through the
22:37
rest of the industry. So you know, that's kind of
22:40
our end of things.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, in a nutshell, Yeah, it still sounds like it's
22:48
a lot of work up front, but and then fun
22:51
on the night of in in a lot of benefit
22:54
later on it is.
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Speaker 6: And you know, not everybody is. Not every everybody is
23:00
a charitable volunteer. You know, not everybody is going to
23:03
be the person who volunteers hours to the charity that
23:07
they support, just like not everybody is going to be
23:11
able to donate money. But divide up your supporter base,
23:15
find the six or seven people that are willing to
23:17
donate some hours, and you can put one of these
23:19
things on with no training whatsoever. Really it's mostly just
23:24
throwing a party.
23:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:26
Speaker 6: So, if there's anybody that's in that situation right now
23:30
where you know, maybe the school you're just started, maybe
23:33
somebody you know went to the first PTA meeting of
23:36
the year and they volunteered to chair an auction and
23:39
now they don't know what to do next. Happens happens
23:42
a lot. You know, people like put up their hand
23:44
and they're feeling all good about it until they get
23:46
home and then it's like, oh no, what did I do?
23:49
And then they call me and then we get them,
23:51
we get them going.
23:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, I've been to a few of those
23:57
situations where it's like, uh, you know, to be totally
24:01
honest with you, our role is usually where where the
24:03
team that shows up to record the night, to document
24:07
and then use that documentation for the next.
24:12
Speaker 6: Year exactly now you're you're putting together you know, it's
24:16
it's really critical to have video at one of these
24:19
events if you absolutely can. And I'll tell you why.
24:23
There's a moment in the in these fundraising events, a
24:26
very effective moment of fundraising. It's called a special appeal.
24:29
It's a particular mechanism that gets employed in the middle
24:33
of in the middle of many fundraising gallas, and it's
24:35
usually worth about fifty percent of what they raise. So
24:40
it's an important moment. It's a moment that the organization's
24:46
management has been thinking about for months. This is an
24:49
important moment. It's gonna be about half the fundraising at
24:51
the event. You know, we got to get this right.
24:53
We got to get this right. We gotta get this right.
24:55
The generally, the executive directors of those organizations want to
24:59
make a they want to inspire everybody, and we tell
25:03
everybody like, oh, if at all possible, don't do that live.
25:09
Record it ahead of time so you can keep it
25:11
to ninety seconds and you don't bore all of your guests.
25:14
They're ready to give you money. You need to get
25:17
out of the way so they can do it. So
25:20
I love working with guys like you to just say, like, here,
25:26
do whatever you want to do. Just keep it to
25:28
ninety seconds, you know, and then we'll be fine. Yeah,
25:31
you know, and then we usually can work with that. Yes,
25:34
I'll tell you, you know, the minute and the minute.
25:36
If somebody gets up there and they start grambling for
25:38
ten minutes, it's like, I'm sorry, you've lost it. It's good,
25:41
it's over.
25:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got a point about that ninety second window.
25:47
It's like you either you stay in it and use it,
25:52
use it as most effectively as possible, or you go
25:56
over it and it'say, people start falling off.
25:59
Speaker 6: Yeah.
26:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:00
Speaker 6: Yeah. So anyway, the wide world of fundraising events kind
26:05
of fun.
26:05
Speaker 1: Huh yeah. So how about a couple of stories. What
26:11
are some of your favorite moments as you've done this
26:14
for twenty years.
26:18
Speaker 6: Well, my favorite moments always are the moments in the
26:25
event itself, and I'd love to go to events I
26:27
go to forty or fifty a year. The moment in
26:30
the event, usually right after the special appeal, when they
26:34
know they've raised a bunch of money and people are
26:36
still in the room. That's a moment of gargantuan happiness
26:42
and hope and joy. And you know, a moment that
26:46
you can be in where everybody is feeling optimistic and
26:49
hopeful and joyful about what they've just accomplished is a
26:52
great thing.
26:53
Speaker 4: Now.
26:54
Speaker 6: I've also had some funny moments when things go sideways.
26:58
Here's a fun one. I told you that these are
27:01
all about different ways to make money. One of the
27:04
ways you could One of the elements you could incorporate
27:07
into an event are games. And there's a particular game
27:11
you can play with all of your guests. It's very popular.
27:14
It's called Heads or Tails. It's a very simple game.
27:18
You sell opportunities to play the game. You sell them
27:20
like you know, tickets or whatever. Usually they're going to
27:23
be doing Marty Graw beats. So one opportunity to play
27:26
the game is one set of Marty Graw beats, and
27:28
you pay like five bucks for it or ten bucks whatever,
27:31
and you can buy multiple I'll go put a pin
27:34
in that, and then what happens in order to play
27:37
the game, the auctioneer stands up on stage and flips
27:39
a coin, and ahead of time, you have to commit
27:42
before he flips a coin, you have to either put
27:44
your hand on your head or your hand on your tail.
27:46
Don't put your hand on anybody else's tail. That's not allowed.
27:50
And then he flips a coin and whoever's hands are
27:53
in the appropriate place gets to stay in the game. Now,
27:56
if you guess tails and it came up heads, and
27:59
you had bought, say three sets of beads, you could
28:01
just take off set of beads and you could keep playing.
28:04
You know, it's like Cats and nine Lives, right, you
28:07
lost one live, but you can keep playing. This can
28:10
get problematic. I went to an auction where they did
28:13
not restrict the sale of beads to guests, and one
28:20
woman figured out the game. All she needed to do
28:24
was buy one hundred sets of beads and then she
28:27
would just outlast everybody and she would get the prize.
28:31
And this is you know, this is something that everybody's
28:34
kind of laughing about, this crazy woman wearing a hundred
28:36
sets of beads until it started and everybody figured out
28:40
that she was there to just basically eat their lunch.
28:43
And during the middle of this playing this game, people
28:46
start rioting. People are like booing this woman, and you know,
28:50
demanding that something be done, and that was kind of
28:53
a mistake. So if you're going to play Heads of Tails,
28:55
you know, limit the number of beads you sell per
28:57
person limited to three.
28:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
29:00
Speaker 6: So there's there's funny moments like that that happen all
29:02
over the place every time. One of the great uh,
29:06
one of the great stories I love to tell. We're
29:08
down here in Portland, Oregon, as I told you before
29:10
we started recording, and there was a period of about
29:15
two years here where you could not go to a
29:17
school fundraising auction without finding that some local provisioner, some
29:23
local doctor had donated a vasectomy to the live auction,
29:27
the live auctions where you're selling it in real time
29:29
with an auctioneer, et cetera. And you know, yeah, well
29:32
like a vasectomy, like okay, hey, And it was really
29:35
funny is that women did like crazy and the men
29:38
just kind of cringe, and you know, see they would
29:41
they would hold up a can of frozen peas or
29:45
a bag of frozen peas and sell the vasectomy there.
29:48
That was always kind of fun.
29:50
Speaker 1: That's pretty.
29:54
Speaker 6: It's kind of crazy.
29:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like and they say that we do crazy
29:58
stuff up here. In Canada. Wow, but that is a
30:07
very needed service, you.
30:10
Speaker 6: Know, yeah, thank you. We figure we're you know, we
30:13
figure we're doing a good job down here, and our
30:15
customers do tend to like us. And so you know,
30:19
if the people that you are engaged with here are
30:22
involved with anything like that, i'd love to talk to him.
30:24
You'll put my contact information down below, right.
30:27
Speaker 1: Well, i'd like your heads or tail thing because we
30:33
have a pier what's called the fifty to fifty and
30:37
it's a great way to tag onto that fifty to fifty. Yeah, now,
30:44
fifty to fifty ravels.
30:45
Speaker 6: Let's explain them, because there they are great. The idea
30:47
behind a fifty to fifty ravel is its spontaneous. You
30:50
bring a bag and you pass the bag around the
30:53
room and you say, folks, you know, we're gonna have
30:55
a raffle and we're gonna raffle off whatever's in the
30:57
bag here. So go into your wallet, tossing five bucks,
31:00
ten bucks, fifty bucks, whatever, you got, some raffle tickets,
31:03
you know, maybe a powerball ticket, whatever we got, toss
31:06
it in the bag and then we don't count. We
31:10
don't count at all.
31:10
Speaker 1: We just seal up the bag.
31:11
Speaker 6: And we hold the bag up and we have a
31:13
live auction, and we auction off the bag, and when
31:16
we do, we toss everything that's in the bag, plus
31:20
half of what was raised in the auction to the bidder,
31:25
and the remaining amount goes to the charity there. It's
31:29
an amazing way to do. You can do it with
31:30
the bag. You can do it without the bag. I
31:32
like it with the bag, and a fifty to fifty
31:36
raffle can be great. You can spontaneously put them together.
31:40
This is partly great because raffle prizes. I don't know
31:44
if you've ever actually put together a raffle. Raffle prizes
31:48
are a pain in the neck.
31:50
Speaker 5: You know.
31:50
Speaker 6: It's very, very hard to get something that's got enough
31:55
universal appeal for everybody and still be really sexy. Right
32:00
he wants to do so here's another tip from my
32:03
personal auction history. When I think this was a middle
32:06
school auction when my kid was in I don't know,
32:09
I say seventh grade or something, and I'm chairing the
32:12
auction for the middle school that year, and I got
32:15
a bunch of gift cards donated from random local businesses.
32:19
And these are the random local businesses that always donate
32:22
a gift card, you know, there's always like some roadside
32:26
attraction or some you know, fun market or some whatever.
32:32
Oftentimes you don't ever wind up selling these gift cards
32:35
for face value. They just don't go. They like there's
32:38
maybe one or two bitters on them, and they get
32:39
them for cheap. What I did with them is I
32:42
took all of these cards that were like thirty of them,
32:44
I stuffed them into a brown paper envelope. I called
32:47
it the Summer of Fun, and I made that my
32:51
Raffle Prize. It's kind of like a fifty to fifty raffle,
32:54
just a bunch of stuff dumped into the envelope and
32:56
nobody knows what it's worth. And I say, you could
32:59
win this. It's a ten dollars Raffle ticket. And then
33:02
all I needed I had put that in eight hundred
33:04
dollars worth of gift certificates. All I needed to do
33:06
was sell eighty Raffle tickets and I got full value
33:09
for all of those donated gift cards.
33:14
Speaker 1: That were bad, you know, yeah, not too bad.
33:16
Speaker 6: It's a decent way to do that.
33:18
Speaker 1: So so the gift card salad.
33:22
Speaker 6: Gift card salad, Yeah, absolutely.
33:28
Speaker 1: People they h oh, I was just at an event,
33:33
community event over the weekend, and you know, they collected
33:40
everybody's everybody's name, and they threw them all in the
33:44
bucket and they started pulling them out and started giving
33:46
away gift cards, and you be surprised at the amount
33:49
of competitiveness. Is like, oh, they got an Amazon one though,
33:52
oh they got this company to that company. And then
33:56
it's like there's some other like uh should we say
34:00
lesser stores and people, oh, well, more niche. You know,
34:05
even when my own wife won, she's like she was like, oh,
34:10
I didn't want that gift card. I want it. When
34:13
something it's like it's like, well, at least we got
34:17
a gift card, is my ass? Yeah, you know, I
34:20
can find a way to make that's an.
34:23
Speaker 6: Excellent That is an excellent way to deal with it.
34:27
There are a couple of other methods that are very similar.
34:30
I've seen one that works with an auctioneer. The auctioneer
34:33
will take the like five gift cards up onto the
34:36
stage at the podium and he'll do this, He'll put
34:39
his hand in front of his eyes and he'll say, folks,
34:42
the first I've got got a big get gift card
34:44
here for Applebee's for fifty dollars and the first bid
34:47
number I see when I open my eyes gets it
34:49
for fifty dollars, number three twelve. Hey, you just want
34:52
to give card, you know, That's another way to do it.
34:56
There are pickboards where you basically put everything into an
35:01
envelope and you just write the number on the outside.
35:05
Maybe you want to write the store on the outside,
35:07
but maybe you don't. Maybe you want to make it
35:09
like a you know, gave a chance, and these are
35:13
these are great ways to deal with some of the uh,
35:15
some of the gift cards that have more of a
35:17
niche appeal.
35:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. So basically what I'm hearing is is we have
35:23
to make the gala and the fundraising itself of some sort,
35:29
put some spin on it. It's fun and people just
35:32
want to join in.
35:34
Speaker 6: That's the whole rationale behind event based fundraising. Outside of events,
35:41
most of the time, what you're just what you're doing
35:43
when you're raising money. As you're asking people for money.
35:47
You know, I'm coming to you and I'm saying, would
35:49
you would you support our organization? Would you write me
35:51
a check for five thousand dollars? Would you put me
35:53
in your will, et cetera. And events aren't that. I mean,
36:01
there's some element of that, But events have got a
36:04
different thing here, which is that we're going to make
36:06
this fun. We're gonna make this the most fun you
36:09
can have while being asked for money. We want you
36:13
to relax. We want to commune with our supporters. Now. Obviously,
36:18
with something like a school or a church, you're already
36:19
communing with those people all the time anyway. But with
36:23
other sort of local charities, like say a humane society
36:26
or something, you know, people get to get together with
36:29
like minded individuals who all support a similar cause. They're
36:33
gonna have a good time doing it, and we're gonna
36:36
have a good time extracting money from their wallet. We're
36:39
gonna make it fun. We're gonna make it so they
36:42
don't even hear the vacuum cleaner just taking the money
36:44
out of their wallet.
36:45
Speaker 1: You know, exactly right. I like how you said extract, extract.
36:51
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I'm a I am an unrepentant fundraiser, you know.
36:55
I'm all about let's ask for the money when we
36:57
need the money and we have a good case to make,
37:00
you know, let's ask for the money. So the reason
37:02
guests are there. I like to never sugarcoat it. I
37:06
do not like to tell my guests that they are
37:08
coming to an event or or you know, I don't
37:12
like to downplay the fundraising and say, we're coming to
37:15
a fundraising event. You know, this is going to be
37:17
your way to help support our school, our church, our
37:22
you know, community center. I love working with all of
37:27
the community centers that we work with. There's one down
37:29
in Seattle, the Ethiopian Community Center. It's absolutely the center
37:33
of the Ethiopian community there. It's a real serious resource
37:37
for that community. They've been they've been around for a
37:40
long time, and they've been a customer mine for fifteen years,
37:42
and I couldn't be happier about having them as a customer.
37:46
I just feel like this is good work we do, right,
37:49
but it is work that is that I think has
37:52
to be funded at the community level in addition to
37:57
whatever we can get elsewhere.
37:59
Speaker 5: Yeah.
38:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, because you're starting to run out.
38:06
Speaker 6: Of time here, Oh sure, that's been fun.
38:09
Speaker 1: You know, I was gonna say it, it seems like
38:13
you're you're you're earning uh your angel wings, uh, one
38:17
charity at a time.
38:20
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't say that in public, but late
38:23
at night, I I sometimes pat myself on the back
38:25
a little bit. It's like, you know, I used to well,
38:30
you know, we all used to do things that we
38:32
didn't like doing. You know that that's part of the
38:34
working life. You get a job sometimes you don't like
38:37
I love my courage job, I love what I get
38:39
to do. I love my customers. So that's me and
38:45
nutshell kind of more.
38:47
Speaker 1: I always try to toss in a one personal uh
38:53
curveball of of of a question, sure, did you work
38:58
in this charitable space? Is like what what would you
39:02
like to see? Though the absolute end result be for
39:06
these charities in the in their communities around them.
39:14
Speaker 6: So the charitable community is at a grassroots level, the
39:18
local communities. What I really hope for them is that
39:25
I hope that they continue to find a way to
39:30
keep their donors engaged, stay optimistic on it, and allow
39:36
them to give you the feedback you need from the
39:41
community as to how you're doing. You know. I want
39:46
these organizations to thrive. I want them to be successful
39:51
in their fundraising, whether they do it with events or not,
39:54
whether they use me to help them or not. I
39:57
want them to be successful. In their fundraising, and I
39:59
want them to continue to tackle the problems that don't
40:05
get the attention of the rest of the world. You know,
40:09
this is why I do what I do, because there's
40:13
somebody out there and I have never even heard. I
40:17
had never even heard of the disease too worse sclerosis
40:20
before I started working with a charity that's out there
40:23
trying to defeat it. It's a very rare disease. Thank
40:26
god they're out there. You know, it's not sexy enough
40:30
of a disease to attract the attention of the big
40:33
pharma companies. So you know, thank god they're out there,
40:37
and I want them to continue doing this kind of work.
40:40
And so I want their communities to step up and
40:43
continue to support them full throatedly and put the wind
40:47
under their wings that they need to have in order
40:50
to do the important work they do. How's that for
40:54
an answer.
40:55
Speaker 1: That's a great answer. The best way is to get
40:57
a hold of you and work with you.
41:00
Speaker 6: Yeah, my website is simply school Auction dot net. No,
41:04
it's not a dot com, it's a dot net and
41:07
it's singular. It's auction auctions and you can go there
41:10
and you can learn about our software. My email address
41:13
is Roger R O G E R at school Auction
41:16
dot net. People can reach out to me anytime they
41:18
want to happy to talk auctions and we can get
41:24
their organizations going raising money.
41:27
Speaker 1: Awesome, Roger, thanks for joining us today. It's been uh,
41:32
it's been fun actually, and hopefully we've both to get
41:36
to raise a lot of money for our favorite charities.
41:39
Speaker 6: So exactly. Yeah, all right, thank you so much for
41:43
the opportunity. I really appreciate it.
41:45
Speaker 1: All right, and thank you everybody for listening today. And
41:49
go to school auction dot net and meet with Roger.
41:54
If you're working with the charity.
41:57
Speaker 6: Thanks help us to recording. Stop to cool.
42:10
Speaker 2: The bad.
42:14
Speaker 5: So I didn't know, so I wis you from action?
42:32
Speaker 4: So what.
42:38
Speaker 2: S this?
42:41
Speaker 3: He says?
42:44
Speaker 2: A reason.
42:53
Speaker 7: Backs you can't dress wait, so.
43:35
Speaker 2: See she got to stop.
43:57
Speaker 4: I know.
44:25
Speaker 1: The show has been produced by Depictions Media. Please contact
44:30
us at depictions dot Media for more information.