Events on a Shoestring: High-Impact Auctions for Small & Mighty Teams

Tiny teams can do BIG things—with the right workflow. We know that many fundraising auctions are put on by small but mighty teams (or maybe even a single person wearing a lot of hats!).

When your team is small, it’s vital that you focus on building strong workflows using templates, outsourcing, and automation to keep your team from being overwhelmed and overworked. Having good partners like Get Fully Funded and Auctria is key to a small team’s success!

Get Fully Funded knows how to break down your big goals into small steps, making it easier to scale your fundraising successfully. Auctria provides a platform designed with fundraising auctions in mind, so each of our tools is built to support you every step of the way. With their coaching and our tools, even the smallest team and pull off a successful event without the stressing and guesswork.

Start by:

1. Using Templates and Other Resources
2. Outsourcing Where Possible
3. Use Automation

Did you know there is a plethora of free information on the internet about how to run a successful fundraiser event and fundraising auction? Of course, not all information is created equal. You should always vet your sources and seek out organizations that you trust—like Auctria and Get Fully Funded! Get Fully Funded has tons of great resources available for free on their website, including blogs, guides for beginners, and more. Auctria also provides extensive free resources on our website, including blogs, templates, and more! You can access sample auction item donation request letter templates here. They even offer a free demo of our program so that you can test out the features and see if it will work for you and your team before spending any money.

Exploring free resources can take time, and not every resource may be a good fit for you and your organization. However, investing the extra time in gathering these free resources can pay back dividends in preventing unnecessary spending! In the case of a free demo, it will also allow you to make sure you’re making the right choice before investing in a tool, so you can budget your limited cash confidently.

Plus, once you find some solid resources for you and your team to use, you’ll be able to build a solid workflow and plan for your event and fundraising auction! Planning is key to putting on a successful fundraiser, whether your budget is $1,000 or $100,000. If you don’t plan properly, your event will flop—even with the biggest budget in the world. So remember, investing this extra time up front will keep things running smoothly so that you can focus on increasing those donations and creating a special experience for your supporters!

When you have a small team, it’s easy to feel like you have to handle everything yourself. Thankfully, that’s not true! There’s lots of partners out there, ready and waiting for you to reach out so that they can help you put on the best possible event. As you work through your planning process, it’s important to take stock of the skills, passions, and talents of the people on your team.

Do you have a particularly extroverted teammember who’s good at reminding you to keep the attendee experience in mind? Hand off some of the event planning details to them, allowing them to take the lead on creating a fun, engaging event that attendees, sponsors, and volunteers will enjoy! If they have a good time, they’ll likely donate more and return to attend future events.

Do you have a teammember who loves the nitty gritty details? Let them loose in Excel and have them manage the budget, the sponsor and vendor communications, or any other moving parts that take a lot of attention to stay on top of. A detail-oriented teammember will keep you on top of deadlines and make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

However, as you’re planning and working with your team, you may find that there are some tasks that no one is interested in or well-suited for. This is the perfect opportunity to outsource that task to an outside partner who can ensure it’s taken care of for you! For instance, many teams lack someone with the interest or experience to design a website. Your website is key for communicating information, managing ticket sales, taking donations, and more—so it’s important to give it the attention it deserves. Many teams reach out to Auctria for their fundraiser website needs for exactly this reason!

As the event grows closer, the number of details you and your team will need to juggle will only increase. Final confirmations need to be sent to sponsors, ticket sale updates should be posted to your socials, last-minute fires need to be put out—the list is never-ending. Managing all the moving parts can be overwhelming even for a large team, so smaller teams may have to work even harder to make sure that everything comes together successfully.

In moments like this, automation is your best friend! By automating what you can, it will free you up to focus on the more complicated issues that may arise. For instance, you can automate many of your communications with your ticket holders and other attendees! With Auctria, you can send branded transaction emails, shareable e-tickets, and real-time text messages to keep them engaged—whether they’re attending, bidding on your fundraising auction, or donating. Transaction emails are automatically sent to keep everyone informed. If you’re running a bidding system, Auctria will automatically send texts for outbid notifications, payment links, and more. Since these are standard communications during fundraising events, it’s easy to let automation do the heavy lifting for you! And this ensures that your attendees, bidders, sponsors, and volunteers all stay in the loop throughout the event.

We’re only scratching the surface here with tips to make your event planning process easier, even on a tight budget or with a small team. You can check out some of the resources linked in this article for more free tips, or reach out to Get Fully Funded and Auctria to see how we can help take the stress out of your event planning. We hope the tips in this article help get your started, and reassure you that even small teams with limited budgets can put on successful, polished events that raise money for their organizations!

Auctria is a powerful engine to organize and run your event and auction fundraiser. From in person events to online and from the first donation to the final collection, Auctria helps you stay on top of the details so you can focus on maximizing your fundraising. Since 2011, over 50,000 event fundraisers have used Auctria to raise over one-billion dollars.