Since charity auctions are crucial for raising essential funds for your organization, it’s important to consider all aspects of your event throughout your planning process — especially who’s going to help you execute an outstanding event. When hosting an auction fundraiser it’s critical to have the appropriate amount of help. Here are a few tips to help you recruit volunteers for your next affair and best utilize their efforts.

Tips for Finding Volunteers

Start the process by identifying potential volunteers already in contact with your organization. Reach out to your supporters, their friends and family, your current volunteers, and staff. Make sure you touch base with alumni of your program, and the people in your organizations’ neighborhood. It’s also very important to maintain communication with others who have been affected by the cause for which you’re raising money. When you contact these individuals, make sure you have a compelling message that’s simple and focused. And, be sure to directly ask for what you need…Volunteers!

To take your search to the next level, try one of the incredible software programs created specifically for non-profit organizations. VolunteerHub, for example, provides a leading volunteer software for non-profits and other organizations. Instead of trying to manage all the volunteers you’ve recruited on your own, you can let VolunteerHub’s cloud-based approach to volunteer management give you more time and flexibility to focus on other aspects of your event. Visit VolunteerHub online to learn more at http://www.volunteerhub.com.

How Volunteers Can Help During Your Event

Volunteers can do far more than just help setup your charity auction fundraiser. Volunteers can help set the mood of your event, too. If you’re looking for a more polished atmosphere, ask that your volunteers come dressed professionally. This can add a whole new aspect to your event and raise the bar to make it look more professional. If you’re going for a more laidback feel at your event, arrange a color or common theme for your volunteers to wear; this way they’re easily definable and easy to locate for help and questions that may arise.

Volunteers can help heighten energy, organize your materials, keep an eye on important or valuable items and maintain order throughout the event. It’s important to always keep an eye on bid sheets, so this is another way to utilize your volunteers. Also, listening to the crowd and responding to what’s going over well (or not so well) is imperative and a great use of your help. And, don’t forget, volunteers can help you find a very important resource: more volunteers!

How Volunteers Can Help After Your Event

Breaking down your charity auction and carefully packing up auction items is critical at the end of an event. This is a great time to utilize your volunteers to help repack items that need to be returned and to make sure money was exchanged where necessary. The end of an event can be a hectic time, so it’s great to have extra hands available to double check items and bid sheets to make certain everything is in order.

Encourage your volunteers to blog about your event, or to post about its success on their various social networks, to help raise awareness for your next event. Lastly, distribute thank you letters to your volunteers to send out to your bidders, as well as the individuals who attended the event to thank them for their participation.

Give these ideas a shot to boost your volunteer count, and we’re sure you’ll be impressed by the increase in numbers and efficiency. Lastly, be sure to utilize your social media networks to blog about your event’s success. Check out and add A. S. Charity Fundraising to your circles on Google+, follow us on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook to get some more great ideas!

By LisaMarie Ianuzzi, Charity Fundraising Assistant

Autograph Store Charity Fundraising addresses the KONY 2012 Video and the Power of Social Media.

Over the past two days we’ve witnessed the tremendous power of social media for charity fundraising with the KONY 2012 campaign. Three young filmmakers who traveled to Africa in 2003 in search of a story created the video. What started out as an adventure became serious as the trio stumbled upon Africa’s longest-running war, involving Joseph Kony, a brutal killer who along with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) abducted more than 30,000 children in northern Uganda, forcing them to murder their families — the boys becoming child soldiers and the girls sex slaves.

Through the use of social media and exceptional videography, the not-profit group Invisible Children launched their KONY 2012 video and went viral with over 38 million views in just two days. This video has touched many and shed light on a critical issue in Africa. It also shows the power that we, human beings, have to create change where we want it and to forge strength in numbers by utilizing our everyday social media tools. There are more people on Facebook than there were on the planet 200 years ago. By means of our social networks, we have our own platform to voice our opinions and to connect with others on a grand scale.

KONY 2012 is an important movement because it’s not just about the group Invisible Children, but about every group trying to make their message heard. It gives us hope that, with everyone’s effort and by pulling together, we can change a lot more than just Uganda and the LRA, but that we can create the momentum and encourage others to support all these important causes. We all hold in our hands and at our fingertips the power for change. Not only has social media changed the way we communicate and learn, but now it has changed how we take action.

The team at Autograph Store Charity Fundraising would like to encourage you to watch and share this video on your own social networks. Take control and help make a change.

By LisaMarie Ianuzzi, Charity Fundraising Assistant

Do you like winning cool FREE stuff? Well, Autograph Store Charity Fundraising is giving away cool FREE stuff all weeklong, starting next Monday, February 20! We’re giving away FIVE fundraising items next week leading up to The Academy Awards, so play our Oscar Trivia Contest with us and your friends on Facebook, and you could win big!

It’s that time of year again — Oscar Trivia Time! Last year we held our inaugural Oscar Trivia Contest for our Facebook fans, and we’re doing it again this year. Our phones rang off the hook all that week from contestants calling in to see when our next trivia question would be posted and what the daily prize would be. Well, this blog will give you a sneak peak of this year’s prizes and could possibly provide a helpful hint or two for your trivia success!

Every day next week from February 20 through February 24 we’ll post one tough trivia question. (For those of you on the West Coast, don’t worry we’ll wait until you’re up! The trivia questions posted every day may or may not have to do with the fundraising item being given away, but it will be helpful to brush up on a few facts about them.

Here’s just a taste of what we are giving away…

One item features the autograph of a prominent American actress and director noted for promoting humanitarian causes. She has three adopted children and three biological children with one of the hottest actors around.

Another item is autographed by an actor who was raised in England, Portugal and California and was the seventh actor to play Batman (aka: Bruce Wayne) in a live-action film.

A well-known actor who formerly held the World Record for Most Weight Gained for a Movie autographed another piece up for grabs. He gained over 60 pounds for this role!

That’s just a taste of the fundraising items we’re giving away next week, but you have to be a fan of Autograph Store Charity Fundraising on Facebook to participate in next week’s Trivia Contest. Remember to check frequently throughout each day for our daily trivia question to pop up, and make sure you’re the first to answer correctly. And, don’t forget to share this blog on Facebook, Twitter and Google+, so you can play against your friends and they can get in on the action! Good luck next week!

By LisaMarie Ianuzzi, Charity Fundraising Assistant

Every great non-profit understands the importance of marketing its charity auction fundraisers, and Autograph Store Charity Fundraising is here to help many of those great organizations bring their fundraising ideas to life. As the world continues to make advances technologically, we’d like to highlight three important social media outlets to consider using when planning your next auction fundraiser.

Google+

Despite the initial buzz and anticipation that’s built up around Google+, it appears this network will still take some time before it comes anywhere near overthrowing the more well-established networks, like Facebook and Twitter. But remember, Google is a powerhouse on the Web, so now’s a perfect time to get your organization started with an entity page. Cool, new features from Google+, like video hangouts and “circles” won’t fly under the radar for long. Since it’s synced up with Google Calendar, Google Docs, and other unique Google-operated programs, Google+ may prove to be a very effective and useful outlet in due time.

Twitter

If you’re trying to spread the word about your upcoming charity auction, what more could you ask for than real-time updates? Twitter constantly features live streaming updates to let the entire world know exactly where you are, what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, and so on. A great way to get the buzz going around the community is to promote your event on Twitter through daily posts highlighting all of the great fundraising ideas you’ve incorporated into your event. This will be sure to engage your potential attendees, as well as boost attendance and anticipation as the date draws closer.

Facebook

Last, but certainly not least… Over 500 million users are on Facebook every day, which means this is your ultimate opportunity to promote your organization’s next major charity auction. By creating Facebook groups, events, and fan pages for your organization, you can easily draw attention toward any upcoming events you have planned. Facebook is constantly striving to create the ultimate social networking platform, and there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t use it to help your event reach it’s maximum potential.

We hope these helpful hints on implementing social media into your event promotion plan prove useful. Utilize these unique (and free!) resources to get the most out of your latest and greatest fundraising ideas, and don’t forget to add Autograph Store Charity Fundraising to your circles on Google+, follow us on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook!

By Devin Noonan, Social Media Coordinator