Fraternal lodge auction item ideas that actually sell

For the general list, see our 100+ silent auction item ideas. A lodge has three assets nobody else in town has: a building, a kitchen, and a membership of people who can build things.

The hall

• Hall hire for an event — a party, a shower, a meeting, a wake
• The kitchen for a day, for a caterer or a community cook
• A hall booking package with the lodge catering it
• Table and chair hire, which small events genuinely need
• Parking or storage, where the lodge has spare

Hall hire is the item to build, and not only as a lot. Every winner is a household that discovers the building exists and can be booked — which is the rental income the lodge actually needs.

The kitchen and the cooks

• The lodge catering a meal at somebody's home or workplace
• A dinner for eight cooked and served in the hall
• The famous thing — whatever the lodge is known for cooking at its annual event
• A cooking lesson from whoever runs the kitchen
• A pig roast, a fish fry or a barbecue delivered to a party

Lodges know how to feed three hundred people and rarely think of that as a sellable skill. A catered event for a business or a family is a straightforward sale with a good margin.

Members' skills

• Trades — carpentry, plumbing, electrical, roofing, painting, a day's labour
• Professional services from members
• Handmade goods: woodwork, metalwork, preserves, quilting
• A member's cabin, boat or holiday property
• Snow clearing, yard work or a clear-out crew

A lodge membership is unusually rich in trades, and this is the most under-listed category in every fraternal auction. It takes one direct question at a meeting.

Local history

• A framed reproduction of a historic photograph of the town, from the lodge's own walls
• A talk or a walking tour on local history from whoever knows it
• A reproduction of an old lodge photograph showing the town's past businesses
• A commemorative item made for an anniversary

Reproductions rather than originals, and check first — some historic material is jurisdictional property rather than the lodge's, and some is not for public display at all.

From the town

Restaurants, retail, services and experiences, sourced through members who have known those businesses for decades.

What to check or keep out

• Regalia, ritual objects and jewels, which are generally not auction items and frequently not photographable
• Access to closed rooms or ritual spaces, which is the lodge's leadership to decide and usually no
• Historic material that belongs to the jurisdiction rather than the lodge
• Membership, or anything resembling a path to it — which somebody will suggest and which is not purchasable
• The name and emblem on merchandise without authorisation
• Gaming formats bolted on without checking licensing
• Anything identifying a person the lodge has quietly helped

The membership one matters. Fraternal organizations have their own admission processes for good reasons, and an auction lot that touches them undermines the thing the lodge is.

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.