School auctions are usually run by a few willing PTA parents who plan, promote, and host the fundraising event. However, these individuals could most likely use a helping hand from other members of your School community—teachers and students.

Teachers have a unique perspective and could offer logistical assistance and insights into item research. Students have skills that they can use to make your fundraising night memorable. Both of these parties can add value by volunteering their time and talents. In this guide, we’ll explore creative ways your team can solicit their help. Let’s begin!

Leverage School Organizations

To involve students and teachers, take stock of your existing school organizations and communicate how they can help. Instead of reaching out to each grade individually, meet with student- and teacher-run organizations. This way, you won’t disrupt the traditional class schedule and can rely on specific groups to complete auction tasks.

SchoolAuction.net suggests looking into these groups to delegate your auction to-dos:

• PTA: PTAs are usually the ones throwing auction fundraisers. Meet with yours to devise an action plan to handle more big-picture responsibilities such as auction item management, venue selection, and auction software coordination. Then, discuss how you’ll divide up each responsibility among other teacher, student, or parent volunteers.
• Honor Club: Students in Honor Clubs are usually required to submit a certain number of volunteer hours to remain eligible. Reach out to Honor Club teacher administrators to ask for student volunteers for your upcoming auction.
• Student extracurriculars: Specific student extracurricular activities pair well with auctions. Plus, they enable students to showcase their talents in a way that boosts your auction results and benefits your entire community.
• Student council: The student council represents student go-getters eager to develop problem-solving and teamwork abilities. Give them lower-stakes tasks like social media management to practice their leadership skills.

Knowing you can rely on your school community is great, but how do you know which auction tasks to assign to which group? Read on to explore specific suggestions on involving teachers and students in three separate stages of school auction management—item procurement, marketing, and event management.

Item Procurement

Procuring items is arguably the most critical stage of school auction fundraising. The right items can cause a bidding war and raise major funds, whereas poorly sourced items can fall flat when presented. Because it’s an all-hands-on-deck process, you’ll want extra help from your school community to finalize your item list and raise as much as possible.

You can encourage increased participation by:

• Accepting select student artwork donations: From high school students especially, artwork donations can be appealing auction items. Reach out to your art department to select top art submissions from students. These can be paintings, drawings, sculptures, or pottery. Select the top two or three submissions and instruct students to provide a brief description of their work to be auctioned off.
• Hosting a teacher-only raffle: Teachers will most likely comprise part of your audience, but they are usually not the highest bidders. To get them more involved, host a teacher-only raffle. Choose an attractive prize like a lake weekend getaway, set a ticket price of around $25, and draw a lucky winner.
• Tapping into teacher networks: Certain auction items, like a specialized cooking class from a local chef, are easier to procure if you have connections. Reach out to your teachers to see if they have any professional, alumni, or personal relationships that you could leverage to add to your item list.

Try to avoid adding too many similar items when looking for auction items. For example, instead of adding two packages of concert tickets for attendees to bid on, you might opt for one concert package and one golf package.

Auction Marketing and Promotion

You’ll want to promote your auction to generate school-wide awareness and maximize event attendance. Promotional tasks are great ways for more students to get involved and use their social media and design marketing skills. If applicable, you can even partner with your school’s marketing or art clubs to create online and offline promotional materials.

Here are some student-focused marketing ideas you can leverage:

• Auction catalog materials: Photography departments can provide high-quality photos for online auctions. Your team can compile the photos ahead of time and place them in an auction item catalog for attendees to reference at the event. Or you can use them as a part of your online auction.
• Posters and signage: Partner with the art department to create signage to promote the upcoming auction. Large branded banners or even eye-catching, smaller flyers can be great additions to generate excitement for your event.
• Social media announcements: Solicit the help of students to create social media posts with countdowns, custom graphics, and fun captions to catch the interest of future attendees. You could even spotlight high-value items like a custom student painting.

In addition to posting on social media, NXUnite’s guide to marketing suggests sending out emails before and following your event. This way, your school can remind its community of the event date and thank all attendees promptly after the auction.

Event Management

Volunteers can assist with auction event management to make your fundraiser run smoothly from start to finish. If you decide to host an in-person event, volunteers can help organize and decorate your venue. For online auctions, they can provide technical assistance and item pick-up coordination.

Consider recruiting students and teachers to lend a hand with:

• Set-up and clean-up: Enlist student volunteers to ensure all tables and chairs are arranged properly and each item is displayed with plenty of space between them. Once the auction is over, instruct volunteers to help with cleaning up.
• Entertainment: Your school’s music department can perform during your event to liven up the atmosphere or provide background music if you decide to host a silent auction fundraiser.
• Thank-you videos: To recognize donors’ impact, invite students and teachers to participate in a thank-you video to show before you begin the bidding process. Interview teachers to highlight what makes your school special and why donor contributions matter.

You can adjust your video to explain how donated funds will benefit your school’s students. For example, if you’re raising support for a new building addition, you might recognize that this new addition will provide an enhanced learning environment for students with state-of-the-art technology or dedicated studio space.

Involving your entire school community can make your auction even more rewarding and remind bidders of the auction’s purpose to further school support! Look for ways your students and teachers can add a personal touch to the event, such as a thank-you video or short musical performance to spread school spirit.

About the Author: Roger Devine, Partner & Marketing Director at SchoolAuction.net

Roger Devine is a co-founder of Northworld, the developer and distributor of the award-winning SchoolAuction.net auction-management software. Before starting the company, Roger worked for many years in software, website development, and publishing. He’s chaired at least 30 auctions over the past 20 years (one loses count after a while), has served terms on the boards of several area non-profits, loves all dogs on the planet, and lives in Portland, OR.

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