How recovery organizations get auction items donated

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

Brief solicitors before anybody asks anybody

Two things a volunteer needs and will otherwise improvise.

What may be said. Nothing identifying about any client or former client, no numbers that could identify somebody in a small town, and the organization's own preferred language. Half a page.

That the ask is alcohol-free. Every solicitor should know to say so, because a business's first instinct is to offer a bottle and the graceful moment to redirect is in that first conversation.

The order

1. The sober economy

Non-alcoholic drinks producers, sober bars, mocktail programmes, speciality coffee roasters, sober social clubs. Growing fast, seeking exactly this association, and almost entirely unasked. Start here because nobody else has.

2. Employers who hire in recovery

Second-chance hiring is a live priority for a widening set of businesses. Lead with the workplace consultation you can offer, then ask for an item, a match and their internal channel.

3. Treatment and legal partners

Treatment providers who refer, drug court staff, defence and family attorneys, probation services. They see the same people and are rarely approached — keep the ask clean of anything resembling a referral arrangement.

4. Health and fitness businesses

Gyms, studios, race organisers, outdoor outfitters. A recovery community engages with fitness unusually strongly and these businesses respond well.

5. Congregations and service clubs

Both fund concrete provision with a named cost. Several congregations run their own recovery ministries and are natural partners.

6. Families and supporters

Their own businesses and professions. Ask as supporters — never in a way that connects them to somebody in the programme.

7. The wider community

Restaurants, retail, experiences. Last, and check every one for a drinks component.

Screen the catalogue as it arrives

One person checks every donated item for an alcohol component before it is listed. It hides in places committees miss: a restaurant package with a wine pairing, a hamper with a miniature in it, a cruise sold on its drinks package, a cookery class that pairs each course.

Catching it at intake is a polite redirect. Catching it after listing is an item pulled in public by a recovery organization, which is a worse story than the lot was worth.

What to offer

The item listing, a mention to the supporter list, recognition at the event, a receipt — and for a non-alcoholic producer or a sober venue, genuine association with a recovery community, which is what they are actually looking for and is worth more to them than the item cost.

Timing

• Twelve weeks — compliance sign-off on outreach; solicitor briefing written
• Ten weeks — the sober economy, which is a new relationship and takes longer
• Eight weeks — employers, led with the consultation offer
• Six weeks — treatment and legal partners, fitness businesses
• Four weeks — congregations, service clubs, community
• Two weeks — catalogue closed and screened item by item

General information, not legal, clinical or compliance advice for your organization. Confidentiality obligations for programmes holding treatment records are particularly strict and are not the same as ordinary donor privacy — your compliance officer and counsel decide how any of this applies.

Committee structure: committee and volunteer roles.