Friday, February 25, 2011

Venue Resolution

We're staying at the place we originally booked, after lengthy debate.  This is a little disappointing to me, not in that I dislike the building, which I believe is a lovely place to have an auction. No, it's because this effectively caps our attendance at a level lower than I was shooting for.

I had hopes we could raise the attendance and thus raise the number of silent auction items (I always aim for the number of items to be 80-85% of the number of bidder numbers, so as to promote competition). But my aspirations have been met with some resistance from the parents on my team who have been at the school longer.  They claim our school doesn't really have a lot of people who come and bid, not a lot of parents with money; its a middle school and not an elementary, etc.

It's the tyranny of low expectations - too often in a situation like this, you perform down to the expectations, rather than exceeding them.  I really think this is the wrong way to go with a fundraiser - especially one that is as local in nature as a school auction.  This is last type of philanthropy people give up when they cut back - the giving that directly affects their community (and their kids!).

But I'm one voice out of several.  I now turn my attention to making sure we exceed these expectations, within the limitations of the ticket count available to us.

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