How fraternal lodges get items donated

For letter structure and follow-up, see how to get silent auction donations and the donation request letter template. For a lodge the letter matters far less than who hands it over.

Ask the members what they can make and do

Start inside, at a meeting, with the direct question. A lodge roster typically contains carpenters, electricians, plumbers, roofers, mechanics, cooks and retired professionals, and almost none of them have ever been asked to donate a skill.

Twenty minutes at one meeting generally produces half the catalogue — and it is the half nobody else in town can supply.

Build the relationship list

• Write down every business anybody has a relationship with, and who has it
• Assign each to exactly one member, in writing
• Record the outcome and keep the list beyond the officer year
• Nobody asks outside their assignment

Officers rotate annually in most fraternal organizations, which makes the written record more important here than almost anywhere. A lodge with forty years of relationships and no list loses them one funeral at a time.

The order

3. The auxiliary

In many lodges the more active body, with its own membership, its own networks and frequently more willingness to organize. Ask them early rather than late — and consider whether they should be running it.

4. Groups that use the hall

Scouts, recovery meetings, quilters, pantries, blood drives, community classes. They benefit from the building directly and their members and leaders are a warm, unasked audience.

5. Past and lapsed members

Numerous, still fond, and rarely contacted for anything. A lodge with a long history has more former members than current ones.

6. Businesses members have used for decades

Worked through assignments. In a small town this is the whole method.

7. Other lodges and service clubs

Reciprocal donation and promotion, at no cost to anybody. The Elks, Moose, Eagles, Masons, Rotary and Lions in the same town are not competitors in any way that matters.

Lead with the charitable work, not the lodge

A business asked to support the lodge is being asked to support a members' club. The same business asked to support the scholarships the lodge funds, with last year's figures, is being asked something entirely different.

Give every solicitor half a page: what the lodge funded last year with numbers, what this auction supports, which entity receives, whether contributions are deductible — accurately — and that nothing identifying may be said about anybody the lodge has helped.

Timing

• Twelve weeks — classification and deductibility settled; grand lodge approval and emblem rules confirmed
• Ten weeks — members asked at a meeting for skills and relationships; assignments made
• Eight weeks — auxiliary; members work their assignments
• Six weeks — hall user groups, past members, other lodges
• Four weeks — wider community
• Two weeks — catalogue closed; nothing involving regalia, ritual space or membership

Place it away from the lodge's own established events, which the same members already staff.

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.

Committee structure: committee and volunteer roles.