How much can a Boys & Girls Club raise with a silent auction?

Short answer: whether the board worked its own networks, and whether the member-year figure was published prominently.

Working it out from the board outward

A Club's reachable audience is a town, and the board is the route into most of it.

• Board members, times the businesses each can personally approach
• Corporate partners — and their employees, who are a much larger number than the companies
• Alumni, if any list exists; and member families as community supporters
• The cost of one member-year, which is your unit and your headline

The member-year figure does more work than any other input here. Publish it, name items with it, and set the goal in member-years — it converts an abstraction into a purchase one person can make.

What moves it

The board

Clubs are unusually board-driven and a Club board is typically business people who joined expecting to be asked. Three named businesses from each board member reaches further than staff-led procurement does.

The published member-year figure

It converts an abstraction into a purchase. Publish it, name items with it, and report in it: programme sponsorship.

Corporate partners' employees

A corporate partner is a company, not a person. Their staff are a much larger audience and asking for the internal channel costs one sentence.

Alumni, if any list exists

The most credible voice available. Start the list this year regardless of the campaign.

Setting the goal

Express it in member-years — "forty kids for a year" — publish the per-member figure and its basis, and report in the same unit afterwards. It is one of the cleanest goal structures a youth organization can use.

Goal and budget mechanics: fundraising goals and budget.

General information, not legal advice for your Club. Affiliate obligations, brand standards and youth protection requirements come from your national organization and your own policies — your executive director and national contact decide how any of this applies.