130,500 causes · $320M raised · 4.7 since 2009
Hospital auxiliary fundraising auctions
A separate organization with its own membership, its own network and often its own funds.
Free for up to 20 items Unlimited bidders No credit card required
A hospital auxiliary is usually a distinct organization: its own officers, its own bylaws, frequently its own bank account and gift shop revenue, and a membership with decades of relationships in the community. It is also, in a lot of hospitals, the group least involved in the foundation's largest event.
Three questions to settle first
1. Whose auction is it?
If the auxiliary runs its own auction, the auxiliary receipts the bidders and the funds are the auxiliary's until its board directs them. If the foundation runs it with auxiliary help, the reverse. Both work; deciding late does not.
2. Where do the proceeds go?
Auxiliaries commonly fund specific things — equipment for a named unit, a scholarship, a service the hospital does not budget for. If the auxiliary is raising, that designation is theirs to make. Agree it before the auction page describes a purpose.
3. Are we running one campaign or two?
The failure mode is the auxiliary and the foundation each running an auction in the same season, approaching the same businesses and the same donor households. One campaign with both networks promoting it raises more than two competing ones.
What the auxiliary brings
- A membership with long community relationships, which is a procurement list
- Volunteer hours during the working day, which foundation staff do not have
- Gift shop and retail experience, which is genuinely useful for item presentation
- A promotion channel into a community segment the foundation's donor list misses
- Institutional memory about which businesses have given before and when to ask
That last one is worth asking about explicitly. Auxiliaries often hold decades of informal knowledge about local giving that exists nowhere in the foundation's CRM.
Dividing the work
- Auxiliary: community procurement, item entry and presentation, volunteer staffing on the night, thank-yous to local businesses
- Foundation: board and major-donor items, compliance conversations, the donor list, gift processing and acknowledgements
- Both: promotion, because the two lists overlap less than either group expects
Recognition
If the auxiliary supplies the volunteer hours and a large part of the catalogue, say so publicly and specifically. It is the cheapest thing on this page and it is the one most often skipped.
Procurement order overall: getting items donated. Committee structure: committee and volunteer roles.
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Frequently asked questions
Is the hospital auxiliary a separate organization from the foundation?
Usually yes — its own officers, bylaws, and frequently its own bank account and gift shop revenue. That determines who receipts bidders and whose funds the proceeds are, so settle it before the auction page goes live.
Should the auxiliary and the foundation each run an auction?
No. Two auctions in the same season approach the same businesses and the same donor households. One campaign with both networks promoting it raises more than two competing ones.
What does the auxiliary bring that the foundation does not?
A membership with long community relationships, volunteer hours during the working day, retail and presentation experience, a different promotion channel, and decades of informal knowledge about local giving that exists nowhere in the CRM.
Who decides where auxiliary-raised funds go?
The auxiliary's board, if the auxiliary is raising. Agree the designation before the auction page describes a purpose.
Ready to start your auction?
Name it now and set it up later. Free for up to 20 items, unlimited bidders, no credit card.
Free for up to 20 items · Unlimited bidders · No credit card required