How much can a fraternal lodge raise with a silent auction?

Short answer: the members who actually turn out, times the businesses each personally knows — plus whoever uses the hall.

Working it out from an ageing membership and a building

Size against the members who actually turn out, not the roster — and against the community already inside the hall.

• Members who attend, times the businesses each has known for decades
• The auxiliary, which in many lodges is the more active body
• Groups that use the hall — scouts, recovery meetings, pantries, blood drives
• Past and lapsed members, of whom a long-established lodge has more than current ones

Then add the input that is not a number: whether the community has ever been told what the lodge funds. A town that sees a closed door and a car park cannot be expected to fund work it has never heard of.

What moves it

Saying what the lodge funds

The single biggest change available. A community that has never been told what the lodge pays for cannot be expected to fund it.

The hall's other users

Scouts, recovery groups, pantries, blood drives — communities already inside the building and never asked.

Members' own relationships

Thirty and forty years of knowing the town's business owners, unwritten and unworked.

The auxiliary

In many lodges the more active body, with its own membership and its own networks.

Setting the goal

Name the charitable work — scholarships awarded, families assisted, equipment funded — publish the figure, and report in the same unit. Keep it entirely separate from anything about the building, in the goal and in the accounts.

Goal and budget mechanics: fundraising goals and budget.

General information, not legal or tax advice for your lodge. Whether contributions are deductible depends on your exemption classification and on the purpose the funds are used for — this is exactly the situation to put in front of your own adviser and your grand lodge before telling anybody anything.