How medical research foundations get items donated

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

Start with the laboratories

The access lots are the catalogue's distinctive category, they cost nothing but staff time, and they come from inside the institution rather than from donors.

• Ask principal investigators directly, not through an administrator
• Ask each how many tours, lunches or shadowing days they will do, and treat it as a cap
• Find the good communicators — one enthusiastic scientist is worth six reluctant ones
• Clear anything involving laboratory access with safety and the institution first
• And schedule around grant deadlines, which dominate a researcher's calendar more than anything else

The grant deadline point is the practical one. A researcher three weeks from a major submission will say yes and then be unreachable.

The order

2. Affected families and their networks

The most motivated group, with extended families, employers and communities behind each one. Ask for contacts and networks rather than only for items — and never approach somebody in active treatment for administrative help.

3. Clinicians and the professional network

Doctors, nurses and allied professionals connected to the field. They give, they attend, and their own networks are substantial — with the firm rule that nothing clinical becomes a lot.

4. The institution's wider community

Universities and academic medical centres have facilities, events, courses, libraries and collections that make excellent lots and cost nothing.

5. Scientific suppliers and instrument companies

They sell to your researchers and understand the work. Equipment, sponsorship and sometimes substantial support — a straightforward commercial relationship.

6. Industry, with the policy settled first

Pharmaceutical, device and biotech companies fund research, and the transparency, conflict of interest and promotion questions are settled before an approach rather than after an offer.

7. The general business community

Standard, and last — for the ordinary lots that make the catalogue browsable.

Brief solicitors on the claims line

The briefing that matters most here. Half a page: what the foundation funds and what a unit costs, that nothing may be promised about cures, timelines or treatment, that nothing identifying may be said about any patient, and that anything clinical is out of scope.

A volunteer who tells a business that their donation will help find a cure has made a claim the organization cannot stand behind, in good faith and in the organization's name.

Timing

• Twelve weeks — laboratory access lots agreed with investigators and cleared with the institution; industry policy confirmed
• Ten weeks — affected families, for networks and contacts
• Eight weeks — clinicians, the institution's wider community
• Six weeks — scientific suppliers and industry
• Four weeks — general business and gap-filling
• Two weeks — catalogue closed; every claim checked by somebody scientific, and every consent verified as current and specific

Work around grant submission deadlines and academic terms, which govern researcher availability far more than the fundraising calendar does.

General information, not legal or medical advice. Claims about research outcomes, treatments and trials are regulated in ways general fundraising copy is not, and patient privacy carries obligations beyond ordinary consent — your own counsel and your research leadership should read anything public before it is published.

Committee structure: committee and volunteer roles.