I have heard it all. From virtual fatigue, to no one has money, to no one will attend a virtual auction or an in-person benefit auction due to restrictions. Well, you are completely wrong! As of this writing, I have conducted five benefit auctions 2021 and all of them have far exceeded expectations. They have…

Have you conducted your first virtual benefit auction? Or have you held out hoping that even though it’s been a year without that big benefit auction, you can get back into a room of hundreds of donors again? Well, if you did go virtual, the results say you were VERY smart to do so and…

America is ready to bust out for vacation and it will be doing so throughout the USA. With borders closed to Europe and Canada, Americans are going to be spending the summer and fall of 2021 traveling within the United States. With closed borders and precautionary measures for distancing, families are feeling safer traveling within…

“If we make them cry, they’ll give more.” I have heard that so many times in the last 15 years. But it is wrong. The essential message of the Fund-a-Need is to show your donors the power of their money. It is to connect them to how their donation has created significant change for your…

Scared. Nervous. No idea. These are the words I have been told about trying to conduct a virtual benefit auction. Actually none of those descriptions should describe your first virtual auction. Virtual auctions raise a lot of money. They do so by connecting to more people because of streaming on the internet. They allow bidders…

October is here! Seven months of staying within your confines has really put birthday, anniversary and most of all vacation plans on hold… or worse. Cancellation! There is great news. You are not alone in dreaming about taking that vacation. A survey conducted by travel research firm Longwood International finds that: * 66% of Americans…

As the calendar closes in on mid-August, plans for getting students back to learning are settling whether they are in the school building or learning from home. This means we are inching closer the Fall benefit auction season. From my conversations with clients and prospective clients there is no doubt that the “show MUST go…

Where the pre-produced event is a safety net to make sure that all goes right, the live event can be a wild card. Now, you may say to me that you were conducting a live event with a thousand people in the room and all went pretty well. Yes, that may be true, but that…