LOOSE ENDS: A shout-out for silent auctions!

By Pam Hersh Special Writer
    In case you haven’t heard, listen up.
    The “silence” in silent auction has been sold to the highest bidder and replaced by the in- your-face auction — still different from the guy-with-gavel-on- a-podium auction, but no longer as quiet as the silent auction of years past.
    Having attended four silent auctions associated with four fundraisers in the past few weeks, I have concluded that the silent auction, at one time a rare and understated commodity, has evolved into a ubiquitous and noisy fundraising technique featuring talkative crowds of people bidding on items, as well as persistent and persuasive auction organizers who work the crowds before and during the events to get as much money as possible for their worthwhile charities.
    I have never been a fan of the dinner dance avec-silent-auction fundraiser, which generally silences any attempt to engage in conversation. Guests are forced to sit at a table either too noisy, thanks to the hyper-amplified music, or too empty, thanks to people heading to the dance floor. The silent auction provides a wonderful diversion for those people like me who are hyperactive and enjoy interacting with my friends and neighbors.
    I love to stroll around the auction room, lust after a few items, observe who is bidding on what, and talk to people in a non-music blaring environment. Standing with the foodies bidding on restaurant packages, I learn about the best new restaurants in the area. The travel items have the potential of revealing the most gossip, i.e., last month I found out that a friend was divorced and bidding on a romantic get-away for her and her boyfriend.
    I tend to gravitate toward the arts and literary sections of the auction tables, because the conversations accompanying the items are as fascinating as the items themselves. People in Princeton, being well connected in the cultural world, have anecdotes about meeting/knowing famous artists and authors.
    The highlight for me was when I was told by a Princeton author that Vladimir Nabokov and I share the same perceptual syndrome, “grapheme or color synesthesia,” a neurologically based phenomenon in which letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored. The lowlight for me occurred when I got caught up in a bidding war for two Chinese prints and subsequently suffered a humiliating defeat. I hovered over the prints all night, even missed dessert, but then had to wave the white napkin of surrender, because the bid-up price far exceeded the money in my checking account.
   Although the not-so-silent auctions I have recently attended (Friends of the Princeton Public Library, the Auxiliary of University Medical Center at Princeton) appear to come off so effortlessly and seamlessly, I know from watching the extraordinary volunteers who organized these events that the effort is enormous.
    An Internet search for silent auctions comes up with many links to manuals on how to organize a silent auction. But Sue Burton, the co-chair with Pat Peach of the Auxiliary’s “November Night,” and Julie Borden, in charge of the auction for the Friends of the Library, could collaborate on a Princeton manual of silent auctions. With collective experience of working on about 30 silent auctions over the past several years, Sue and Julie could be the Dear Abbys of the silent action cottage industry.
    Basic pointers include:
    1. Make the items look good, no matter what you personally think of them. To encourage donated gifts, as well as to attract bids, it is important to provide an excellent vehicle for the donors (the retail donors) to advertise/market their goods and or services, i.e., the write-ups in the auction booklets are crucially important, including the Web information which should include links to reviews/ descriptions of the items.
    2. Create unique auction items by packaging different goods and services and events.
    3. Have something for everyone, all price ranges — fun, funky, faux to the elegant, expensive, real.
    4. Avoid items with an easily definable market value. Most people want a bargain, so the best items are those with no precise market value, thus the advantage of the “packages” with multiple goods and services. Even though there are some individuals whose prime motive for bidding is to make a donation, most want the item — at a good price — and then a few get intoxicated by the bidding batter, as I did.
    5. Make the artist set a minimum bid for his/her artwork. If the artist fails to give a minimum bid, setting the minimum bid too low can be insulting to the artist, and if the price is too high, it’s pointless in terms of selling the item.
    6. Seek out the unusual, unavailable elsewhere. Such items might include front-row center graduation tickets, personalized autographed items from famous authors and artists, an opportunity to create your own perfume fragrance.
    Since these auctions are such financial and social successes, I suggest keeping the volume up on the silent auction by creating the perpetual auction of a few special items over the course of a few months, instead of a few hours. The location for these auctions should be within the organization raising the money, thus encouraging people to hear the mission of the organization loud and clear.
A longtime resident of Princeton, Pam Hersh is vice president for government and community affairs with Princeton HealthCare System and a former managing editor of The Princeton Packet