How to get local businesses to donate auction items: the ask, the letter, the follow-up

Every local business is asked for donations more often than you think. A bakery on a busy street in a town of thirty thousand will field somewhere between twenty and fifty requests a year, most of them a photocopied letter addressed to nobody in particular. The ones who say yes to you will do so because your ask was personal, specific and easy to close. That is the whole method.

Work out how many asks you actually need

Start from the catalogue. A typical evening wants twelve to twenty lots. Warm asks, where the person asking already knows the business, convert at roughly one in three. Cold asks convert at closer to one in fifteen. So a committee working mostly warm doors needs a list of forty to fifty businesses to fill twenty lots, and a committee working from a street directory needs two hundred and will be exhausted by March.

Allow three to four weeks for the whole cycle and start eight weeks before the event. Any tighter and the follow-up call lands in the same week as the deadline, which is the week everybody sounds pushy.

List the warm doors before the cold ones

Before anybody approaches a stranger, write down every business already connected to your community: the sponsor on the shirts, the parents’ and members’ own companies, the café the team drinks in, the accountant who does your books, the printer who did last year’s programme, the supplier who delivers to your kitchen.

Then divide the list so that each business is approached by the person who knows them best. One asker per business, recorded somewhere everyone can see. Being asked twice by two different volunteers is the single most reliable way to turn a probable yes into a polite no, and it happens to nearly every committee in its first year.

The secretary of a hockey club went back through the spreadsheet after a successful evening and found that twenty-two of the thirty-one donations had come through six people, all of whom had asked somebody they already knew. The remaining nine had taken nearly a hundred cold approaches. They restructured the whole effort the following year around the six.

Ask for one specific thing

Do not ask whether they would like to donate something. That hands them a decision with no edges, and undecided people say no by not replying. Ask instead whether they would consider donating a dinner for two, or a haircut and colour, or an hour of legal advice.

A specific suggestion does the thinking for them, signals what size of gift is normal, and is easy either to accept or to counter with something better. For most small local businesses the sweet spot is a gift worth €50 to €150; for a larger firm or a member’s own company, €150 to €400. Vouchers and services beat stock, because a voucher costs the donor only their margin, and only if it is redeemed, and it brings the winner through their door.

The letter

Under two hundred words, sent by email or handed over on paper. Everything in square brackets is yours to replace.

Subject: Donation request for the [organisation] auction, [date]

Dear [name],

I am writing on behalf of [organisation]. On [date] we are holding a fundraising auction at [venue] for around [number] guests, nearly all of them from [town]. We are raising [amount] to [one specific, concrete purpose].

I would like to ask whether [business] would consider donating a lot. What I had in mind is [the specific suggestion], worth roughly [€X]. If something else suits you better, I would be glad to hear it.

Every donor is named in the printed catalogue, on the page for their own lot, and on the screen during the evening. Within a week of the auction I will send you the price your lot fetched and the evening’s total.

If you are able to help, could you let me know by [deadline, about three weeks before the event]? I can collect at a time that suits you, and all I need is a photograph and two lines of description, which I am happy to draft for you to approve.

Thank you for reading this.

[Your name], [role], [organisation], [phone], [email]

Why each part is in there

• A concrete purpose. New changing room floor, not supporting our activities. People give to a thing they can picture.
• The guest number. It tells a business what exposure looks like without you having to claim anything.
• A named amount. It removes the fear of being asked for something enormous.
• A deadline and a named person. A request with no closing date sits in a drawer indefinitely.
• The offer to collect and to write the copy. Businesses drop out at the effort stage far more often than at the generosity stage.

Hand-deliver where you can. A letter passed across a counter with two sentences of conversation outperforms the same letter by email by a wide margin, and it takes an afternoon to do twenty.

Follow up once, and only once

Most yeses arrive after the follow-up rather than after the first ask. Seven days later, the same person calls in or telephones and says one thing: did you get a chance to think about the auction? Then stops talking. Do not restate the case; they have read it.

If it is a no, thank them warmly and keep them on next year’s list. Circumstances change and a business that declined in a bad quarter often gives generously two years later. If it is a yes, confirm in writing the same day, covering the item, its retail value, who collects it and when, and exactly how they will be credited.

The awkward cases

• They offer something you cannot sell. Two hundred branded pens, or a €10 keyring. Accept it graciously and use it as a table gift or a raffle line rather than a lot. Bundling three such gifts into one basket also works.
• They want more than a mention. A firm expecting a banner and a speaking slot is offering sponsorship, not a donation. That is a different and often better conversation; hand it to whoever handles sponsors.
• They ask for a receipt or a charity number. Have the answer ready before you start asking. Tax treatment of gifts in kind varies by country and by the donor’s own situation, and the honest reply is usually that you can provide written confirmation of the gift and its value, and that their accountant decides the rest.
• The promised item never arrives. Set an internal cut-off ten days before the event. Anything unconfirmed by then comes out of the catalogue, with a friendly message saying you will hold it for next year.

Close the loop within a week

Send every donor the price their lot fetched, the evening’s total and a genuine thank you. A donor who learns that their €60 voucher raised €140 for the club will say yes faster next year, and will usually give something bigger. This one email is the cheapest fundraising you will ever do, and almost nobody sends it.

Once donations are confirmed, each lot gets its own page with the donor credited by name, visible to every guest bidding from their phone. The organiser guide has worked examples of lot descriptions, the walk-through takes the build in order, and what it costs is on the pricing page. If you are collecting for a school, a sports club or a service club, the notes for schools, clubs and associations and service clubs cover who tends to say yes in each case.