How mentoring organizations get auction items donated

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

The order

1. Current mentors

Screened, trained, committed adults who already give you their time. Ask what they do and whether their employer matches — most programmes have never asked either question of anybody.

Ask individually and for one thing. A mentor is already giving you the scarcest resource you have and should never feel the ask is a second obligation.

2. Former mentors

The list to rebuild if you have lost it. A match ending is not the relationship ending, and someone who completed a year of mentoring is warmer than any name you could buy. Start recording an exit contact and permission when a match closes.

3. Mentor applicants who did not complete

Under-used and slightly awkward, which is why nobody does it. People who applied and did not finish screening, or who withdrew for time reasons, frequently still support the cause and can give money or items when they could not give hours.

4. Employers with volunteering programmes

Ask for three things in one conversation: mentors, a match sponsorship, and the internal channel to promote the auction. Offer the training item in the same meeting — it turns a donation request into a two-way arrangement.

5. Service clubs and congregations

Several service organizations have youth mentoring in their programme focus and are looking for a project with a named cost. A match is exactly that shape.

6. Referring schools and agencies

Not usually donors, but a promotion channel and a source of introductions to local businesses that support youth causes.

7. The high street

Last, for filler.

Give solicitors a boundary sheet

Anyone asking on your behalf will be asked about the children. Write half a page before anybody approaches anybody: what the programme does, what a match costs, what may be said about mentees (nothing identifying), and what a sponsor does and does not receive.

A volunteer without those words will improvise a story to make the ask land, which is exactly how identifying detail escapes.

What to offer

The item listing, a post to the supporter list, recognition at the recognition event, and a receipt from the correct entity — the affiliate or the parent agency, named accurately.

Timing

• Ten weeks — boundary sheet written and approved by your safeguarding lead
• Eight weeks — current and former mentors, individually
• Six weeks — employers, with the training offer attached
• Four weeks — service clubs, congregations, high street
• Two weeks — catalogue closed; every item read by the safeguarding lead

Committee structure: committee and volunteer roles.