How cancer support organizations get auction items donated

For letter structure, follow-up cadence and tracking, see how to get silent auction donations and the donation request letter template.

Captains first, then the clinical community

1. Team captains and their teams

Send one message to captains asking two things: what do you or your employer do, and would you ask three people you know? A captain's network is people with a personal reason to help, and the organization has no route to most of them.

Make it easy to say yes: a short form, a deadline, and a line they can forward unedited. Captains are already carrying a fundraising ask; do not hand them a second project.

2. The medical and wellness community

Oncology practices, infusion centres, physiotherapy, massage, counselling, gyms and studios, salons, nutritionists. Many of them treat the people at your event and very few are ever asked to contribute to it. A practice donating a service is giving an appointment slot rather than stock.

Keep the ask clean of anything that could look like a referral arrangement, and describe the donation factually on the item page.

3. Event sponsors and near-sponsors

Businesses that sponsored, and the ones that declined a tier because of cost. The second group is the opportunity: an item donation gives them the listing and the association at a level they can approve without a meeting. Ask them specifically.

4. Supporters with something to give

The holiday home, the boat, the trade skill, the quilting. Ask the registration list directly and name examples — people do not volunteer a lake house in response to a general request, but they will offer it when they see it listed as the kind of thing you mean.

5. The town

Restaurants, retail, services. Lower yield per approach, good basket filler, and best done once you know what gaps you have.

What to offer

The item page listing, a post to the event list, inclusion in what captains send, and a receipt. If your organization prints a programme or has banners at the event, say so — for a local business the association with a well-attended community event is the part they value.

Be accurate about your organization's structure. If funds pass to a national body, say so in the acknowledgement rather than leaving a business to assume.

Timing against the event

Procurement should finish before the final push on team fundraising begins, so the two are not landing on the same businesses and households in the same fortnight. Six to eight weeks out for local businesses; earlier for anything regional.

Committee structure: committee and volunteer roles. How the two campaigns fit together: teams and auctions together.