2008 Auction Decompression

The Stats:
items for bid - 34
total amount if everything was auctioned at starting bids - approx. $4500
avg price per item - $132
items sold - 16
non-SPACE people that showed up - around 22
raffle items - 5 local restaurant gift certificates, 2 Christmas variety baskets and 1 wedding variety basket - all sold
net amount raised - approx. $1800 - this was after we paid for the rental of the location, all ice cream supplies, and getting pizza for the students that came early to help.
advertising budget - $0.00 - craisglist, facebook, sort-of-postcards, word of mouth, three signs the day of the event
item with the most bids - manicure and pedicure gift certificate.
other items with lots of bids - car detailing service, variety gift basket donated by Panera Bread and mobil car oil change.

[We are probably leaving the items up for bid for another week. More info on that later.]

What We Learned:
- People in your community can donate lots of time within their gifts or skills. Lots of students and leaders in SPACE donated lessons for kids - like soccer, swimming, golf, piano, guitar and circus skills [stilt walking and balloon animals - isn't that cool?] The challenge is getting the word out to enough people and helping them think creatively within their talents, skills and passions.
- A project like this will work a lot better if elements of it can be broken down for specific teams to own. This is, of course, way obvious, but sometimes, when you do things for the first time, the biggest learning will come if you have to execute with a small, tightly integrated team, instead of farming it out to a lot of people.
- A fundraising project of this scope may be too much to ask our team leaders to jump in with. Besides running with their teams, they have a lot going on.
- This event has been one of the catalysts for the GCC leadership to think about policies about fundraising for our whole community - a healthy byproduct.
- Like many things with SPACE, we had to operate with limited information, since this was something new. Those are very valuable experiences that catalyze learning, growth and passion.

On to our next project - Mission Advance, one of my favorite things SPACE has birthed.