Running a charity auction sounded simple enough, didn’t it? I met with my supervisors today and was very overwhelmed with their expectations of this event. Everything has to be sponsored. This includes food, alcohol, a venue, catering, small prizes and $10, 000 worth of products to be auctioned off on the night. Then I’m told that I have just over a month to make it all happen, and that my supervisors are so busy that they don’t have much time to spare to assist. Yeah, not too much pressure for my first day at all!
After accepting the challenge I set about compiling a database with hundreds of Perth-based businesses and their contact details. I write up an event plan, and set about contacting businesses for sponsorship.
I begin ‘cold calling’ businesses. I seem to get nothing but ‘NO’ in return. Instead I decide to email them my sponsorship requests so that I am able to get a word in before they tell me they are ‘already committed to other charity organisations and won’t be able to take another on board’. Even my emails receive few responses.
I am extremely overwhelmed about this task, especially seeing as I have such a huge responsibility of getting the event off the ground. I’m literally calling fifty businesses a day with no positive responses. I still don’t have a venue, and as we all know, if you don’t have a venue, you don’t have an event. I’m not quite sure if there’s a venue manager in Perth that would be willing to offer up their venue for free for an entire evening during peak wedding season. I just don’t think it’s feasible.
Even if I do secure a venue, I still need to get free catering, alcohol and prizes to auction off on the evening… and that’s just the beginning! While a venue is my main priority, I have continued contacting businesses to tell them about the event, but haven’t had any sponsors jump on board yet.
If you have any brilliant ideas gang, keep me posted.
-Carmen.
1 comment:
WOW sounds like you have a difficult task! My first solo event was for a not for profit organisation also, however they had already started building relationships with their suppliers. I am also involved in a not for profit organisation that is only new, so I know how hard it is to get a response when you are asking for everything for free!
I find that a good prize is two nights accommodation for two. Try calling some places in margaret river and maybe even further south. I have used this before.
I also called a caterer "Maurizio Restaurant" Perth, who said they sometimes do offer catering donations depending on their schedule. I didnt use them however, because I had only three days to give notice for my event! The number for Maurizio is 9228 1646 - if you are interested!
Caterers will be the hardest thing to get for free! Generally they include staff for servers which will bump up the cost - if you can establish a volunteer base to serve food and beverage this will cut your costs greatly.
I received wine from Madfish and beer from Little Creatures - call the distributor directly and only request one brand. Tell them you will happily sponsor their brand.
I was also very lucky to receive anything I wanted from a party hire company as a donation. This made it easy to get glasses, tables, wine buckets, bins, red carpets, ballistrades etc. etc.
It is important when doing this kind of event to establish sustainable relationships with suppliers that you can use in the future. Maybe once you have received a few donations you can use this as a selling point to other companies you wish to use.
Good luck! Im sure everything will get easier once you receive those first few donations!
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