Rondaph- We recently just completed our Silent Auction which is held in conjunction with a Carnival. Games and Food ticket sales typcially bring in about $2500 while our auction brought in 10K this year! We have a student body of just over 200 K-5 students. I actually work for a travel company and could not get my own bosses to donate. Unfortunatly items that have Hard costs to a company are harder to get than say a gift certificate. I also had a corporate list that I did a mailing to and they only one I received anything from was Chrysler.
Your best bet, even thought they get hit up by everyone, is your local businesses. People are more familer with their services anyway and can justify it easier to them selves.
One thing that we did that was a HUGE success was themed class baskets- rather than a class art project. We choose themes for each class- Italian Lovers, Movie Night etc and asked each parent to donate something towards the theme. With 11 Classes and Baskets we raised close to 900 on just the baskets!
Rondaph,
do a search on these boards for "donation lists". There are several posts that include addresses for more nationwide companies. Some will donate some will not. But it will take a lot of sending out letters, following up and waiting and seeing. From our experience, it just takes a lot of hours dedicated to finding those donations. The more help you have, the better.
Our school held our first silent auction last spring. We did well (almost $6000) for our first one. We had baskets and art projects from each classroom, principal for the day and other ideas like that, and we received great support from the local businesses. We also received small donations from our local pro sports teams. Our community is quite small so there is only so much the businesses here can offer. I am trying to find out if there are travel agencies, cruise lines, hotels, etc. that donate family vacations or get away week-ends. We really would like to have some larger prizes. Our goal is to eventually get rid of the typical fund raisers and just hold 1 raffle and 1 auction each year as our money makers.
