How much can an arts organization raise with a silent auction?

Short answer: the subscriber base, the board's networks, and whether the artists shared it with their own audiences.

Working it out from subscribers and a board

A small warm list, a well-connected board, and artists with audiences of their own.

• Subscribers and members, segmented by how long they have renewed
• Single-ticket buyers, which is a much larger and colder list
• Board members, times the contacts each can personally open
• The artists' own followings, which reach collectors the organization does not

The fourth input is the one that is genuinely additive. An artist sharing their donated lot reaches buyers who have never heard of the organization — and offering that sharing is a real benefit to give the artist in return.

What moves it

The artists' own followings

Collectors who have never heard of the organization, reached through the person who made the work. Genuinely additive, and a real benefit to offer the artist.

The board

Arts boards are unusually well connected and frequently joined expecting to open doors. Ask each for three names rather than for help.

Single-ticket buyers

A much larger list than the subscribers and much colder. Worth segmenting rather than mailing as one.

Whether the work was priced properly

A reserve protects the artist and raises the total. Underpricing does neither: pricing and reserves.

Setting the goal

Name an artistic cost — a commission, a guest artist, a set, a season of the education programme — and publish it. Arts budgets are opaque to outsiders, and a specific figure for something people can picture on a stage or a wall does more than a general appeal.

Goal and budget mechanics: fundraising goals and budget.

General information, not legal or tax advice. The treatment of an artist's donation of their own work differs from a collector's donation of the same piece, and appraisal and substantiation rules are technical — artists and donors should take their own advice.