The 2009 Spring Season, which we arbitrarily assign from February to the beginning of June was bookended by two events that were visibly and dramatically down. With those two glaring exceptions, most events with which we are familiar equalled or surpassed previous years.
The two events that tanked were the Naples Wine Auction and Auction Napa Valley. Both of these events had raised millions of dollars in previous years and “tanked” is a relative term. They both made $5 million in 2009. Still and amaxing return.
Naples was down because everyone was still tring to grasp the extent of the financial downturn and they are also located near the heart of Bernie Madoff country.
Auction Napa Valley shot itself in the foot. Attempting to manage expectations they announced in advance that they would be happy with 50% less than the previous year. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophesy!
The lesson everyone in fundraising needs to keep to the fore is that audiences are less forgiving. If you give them an excuse NOT to give you money they will take it. The well-to-do are being hit up for donations more than ever. If they don’t make a donation to you, they are not going to keep the money, there is a whole list of potential charities out there waiting to earn that donation.
I BELIEVE THAT, TO A GREATER EXTENT THAN EVER BEFORE, YOUR EVENT HAS BECOME THE AUDITION THAT PROVES THE EFFICACY OF YOUR ORGANIZATION.
If you fail the audition they will find another cause.
I mentioned that most of our events this spring have equaled or surpassed last year. This is bucking the National trend. As far as I can tell most fundraising auctions are reporting a decline of 20-30%, with the exception of school auctions which seem to be holding their own.
One reason our events are doing better than average is simple evolution. We have been in this business for many years working with every concievable type and size of fundraising auction. Every year over 80% of our events are repeat business (It would be even high except for bringing in new auctioneers). If a charity has a problem with their event, bad sound for example, and hasn’t fixed it in two years, we will probably stop working with that event. It turns out that we have been in the excuse reduction business all these years.
Do not be afraid of putting on your event. It has all the potential it ever had. It will just take hard work. On the other hand it was never easy.
