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Q&A With a Charity Auctioneer: Comp Tickets - Yay or Nay?

5/23/2018

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Q: Should we give out comp tickets for our yearly gala?

Answer:

I hate comp tickets.

They are the worst idea in the entire world.

Charity events are about raising money, why on Earth would you give tickets away for free? In my opinion, there is no good reason to give away tickets to any charity event.

When you give away free tickets a couple of things happen:

  1. You devalue the ticket and your event.
  2. It’s unfair for those who bought tickets at the market price.
  3. You are giving away money and losing out on revenue.

The assumption that people are going to spend money once they are in the room is 100% not true. People attending with comp tickets are usually there to party or promote themselves, not to help your organization.

It doesn’t matter if you have butts in the seats, it matters if you have the right butts in the seats. You need people who care and have the capacity to give. You will lose money with comp tickets, because most of those time people with comp tickets are not going to spend money at your event. If they had the capacity to give, they would have purchased a ticket. And, while they may care deeply about your organization, if they cannot donate, they are costing you money by attending your events.

I regularly work with the Children’s Museum of Sonoma County on their annual gala event. To make their event more successful we looked at data on who attended and made a gift over a three year period. We found that about 200 people consistently bought tickets, came to the event, and did not donate a dollar. For the next year’s event, we made two invitation lists. The priority list included everyone who had attended and made a gift over the last three years. Everyone else was put on a secondary list. The secondary list did not receive personal invitations to the event, but they did get the announcements on social media. Our aim was not to encourage the secondary list to attend. The first year we did this, we increased the fundraising from approximately $100k to $160k, with less butts in the seats.


A committed room of people who care and donate is really inspiring. It creates a feedback loop that promotes giving in others. We have only invited people back to the event if they have consistently donated over the years. We have a smaller list of people but the Children’s Museum of Sonoma County continues to grow their fundraising by about 10% a year.

Stop giving away comp tickets. Focus on the people who care about your nonprofit organization and have donated to you in the past. Hosting a small event does not mean you will raise less money. A room full of energized and engaged donors will always make your fundraiser successful.

Check out my post on hosting successful house party fundraisers for examples of how smaller events can still raise big money.

For more than ten years, fundraising expert Abra Annes has been a leader in the nonprofit world, consulting with top nonprofit organizations and, speaking at national and local conferences. As one of the top charity auctioneers, Abra has conducted hundreds of charity auctions – raising millions of dollars for a variety of nonprofits, schools, and charity organizations every year.

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Abra is a member of the National Auctioneers Association and is one of 28 people in California to have their Benefit Auction Specialist designation. A gifted public speaker, she regularly conducts workshops on fundraising auctions, and is a sought-after speaker at fundraising events both locally and nationally as well as an active participant in the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
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Q&A With a Charity Auctioneer: Staff Expectations

5/16/2018

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I'm starting a new series call Q&A With a Charity Auctioneer. Each week I'm going to answer one question that comes up a lot when working with my clients.
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Q: What are your expectations for staff in terms of support/participating in paid organizational events?

A: People are not going to like this answer.

Your staff, if they want to attend an event as a guest (meaning they are not working the event), should be expected to pay for a ticket. I have worked far too many fundraisers where the staff treated the event like one giant company party.

A simple and easy solution is to create a staff-priced ticket. Staff-priced tickets should still cover the price of their meal and a portion of the event expenses. You should not be losing money on ticket sales. Ever. For any reason, but especially not from your staff. Staff-priced tickets do two things. First, when staff pay for their own tickets they have to buy-in to the event and are guaranteed to show up and appreciate it. Second, it shows fiduciary responsibility in the eyes of your board and your donors. Your organization is not losing money on any of your guests and your staff are not being given a free ride.

If your staff cannot afford a ticket and would like to work the event, they should be given free access. However, they should be expected to work the entire time. They do not get any of the benefits of being a guest. They are not seated at a table, they are not given the same meal as a paying guest, and they do not get to leave the minute the event ends.
 

In order to be successful with staff working the event for free, set clear expectations in advance. Make sure everyone understands what working the event means. The goal of having staff work an event is not that they get free entry into your fundraiser, but rather that your organization saves money by not hiring event staff.
 

It is my opinion that when staff choose to, or are expected to, work an event they should not be expected to participate in any fundraising activities at the event. They have donated their time rather than their dollars.

The Gray Area

Many nonprofits struggle with navigating the gray areas of this topic. Do people who donate auction items get free tickets? Do people who help set up and create decorations get free admission?

I don’t have answers for every possible situation, but, for me the most important factor to remember when navigating this gray area is that this event is a fundraiser, not a party. The most important factor of any fundraising event is who is in the room. When the room is filled with people who are there because they received comp tickets or because they donated a few hours of their time, you will end up with a room full of partiers instead of donors.

My advice is to draw a hard line in the sand and stick to it for all your major fundraising events. For other events, feel free to invite anyone and everyone, including your volunteers.

For more than ten years, fundraising expert Abra Annes has been a leader in the nonprofit world, consulting with top nonprofit organizations and, speaking at national and local conferences. As one of the top charity auctioneers, Abra has conducted hundreds of charity auctions – raising millions of dollars for a variety of nonprofits, schools, and charity organizations every year.
​

Abra is a member of the National Auctioneers Association and is one of 28 people in California to have their Benefit Auction Specialist designation. A gifted public speaker, she regularly conducts workshops on fundraising auctions, and is a sought-after speaker at fundraising events both locally and nationally as well as an active participant in the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
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