Successful silent auctions depend on your ability to procure exciting, high quality items - and few items generate as much buzz as incredible vacations. Today we are excited to unveil our brand-new line of Luxury Properties for 2018-2019 designed specifically for the silent auction tables.

Winspire is proud to present a free recording of our recent webinar, "10 Deadly Sins of Charity Auctions (and how to prevent them),” featuring our good friend and renowned fundraising auctioneer, Danny Hooper. In what could easily fill a 2+ day workshop, Danny covers the following topics: The Do's & Don'ts of organizing your program Proper timing and sequencing of your live auction Commonly missed revenue opportunities Silent auction boo-boos Dangers of losing control of the audience The high cost of using an unqualified auctioneer How to avoid the 10 most costly mistakes ...and more! This is a must-watch for anybody associated with a fundraising auction who wants to achieve record-breaking results at their next event and develop a foundation for successful event fundraisers for years to come.

We are thrilled to welcome Summy Lau as the newest contributor to Winspire News! With a background in nonprofit development, publishing, copywriting and design, Summy joins the Winspire creative team with loads of practical experience that will help shape the content and resources delivered to your email inbox each week. Summy’s experience in nonprofit fundraising began in 2011 when she joined the development department of a nonprofit serving Chicagoans experiencing homelessness. “The organization does amazing, transformative work in the community, and for my first assignment, I was thrilled to help organize their annual 5K run,” recalls Summy.

Winspire and Greater Giving are collaborating on an exciting free webinar for anyone involved with organizing charity fundraising events. Featuring: Join us on February 11 as Tracey Lorts, Community Marketing Manager at Greater Giving, and Ian Lauth, Creative Director at Winspire, discuss how to best utilize unique travel in nonprofit fundraising events based on the experiences of over 20,000 successful charity auctions! Thursday, February 11th 11am - 12pm PDT

A successful charity auction relies on your ability to procure exciting and appealing auction items for your donors to bid on. Even with a dedicated and knowledgeable auction committee, this can be a daunting task. One way to simplify your procurement efforts and boost the overall revenue of your event is by presenting your guests with a generous offering of both donated and consignment auction items.

We are excited to announce the winner of our first Donation Give-Away drawing of 2016! Morgan Stewart of San Francisco, California will be using the $1,000 Fairmont gift card donated by Winspire to help raise money for California State Parks Foundation (CSPF) where she works as Special Events Coordinator. CSPF is a member-supported nonprofit dedicated to protecting, improving and advocating for all of California’s state parks. Their mission is to deliver innovative solutions to create an excellent parks system by facilitating park improvements, inspiring stewardship, supporting partners, advocating for sound policies, and connecting people to parks. "Over 75 million people visit California's 280 state parks each year," Morgan explains, "so it's our goal is to ensure that the natural beauty, rich culture and history, and recreational and educational opportunities are available for everyone to enjoy now and for generations to come."

There’s an old adage in web marketing that “content is king”, meaning that if you have great content (e.g. blog posts, videos, resources, etc.) on your nonprofit blog or website, you’ll attract more visitors, build a stronger following (i.e. more donors) and ultimately increase your ability to make an impact. There is one major caveat, though: If your non-profit communication content is buried beneath bland headlines, your target audience may never discover the greatness of your blog posts and articles!

What a year it has been! So many new and exciting things are happening in the event fundraising world, and we have the articles and resources to prove it. For this post we compiled a list of the top six most-viewed Winspire News articles from 2015... but our helpful content didn't stop there. This year we dedicated ourselves to covering a wide range of topics designed to help nonprofit professionals improve everything about their fundraising events. We discovered the top 12 charity event themes and paired them with auction items, highlighted best practices for promoting a fundraising event, published a variety of interesting nonprofit infographics and discussed the importance of tapping into donor travel budgets. It has been an honor for all of us here at Winspire to be a part of your fundraising journey and help with so many incredible events in 2015. Here's to another successful year!

You are probably familiar with this common scenario: You’re going along planning your event, the venue has been secured for months, auction items have been procured, programs printed and everything seems to be in place... until you realize that you are running out of space for your silent auction tables! You have more items to put out, but there isn’t enough room for additional tables - and getting more space does not appear to be an option. What should you do?? Before you panic, ask yourself a few questions… Are you sure you can’t get more space? Where are the bars located? Can they be moved? Is there another room, hallway or outdoor area that you can use? How about making “islands” of tables in the middle of the room? As you assess your event space and look for solutions to add more tables, let's make sure the tables you already have set up are done so properly...

You've got enough on your plate with planning your upcoming charity auction, so it's easy to forget some of the tax and compliance standards that are required to run a legitimate fundraising event in your state. Such standards include charitable solicitation registration requirements, special event insurance, documentation for each transaction, accounting requirements and even specific regulations regarding sales tax. The following infographic lays out a few of the key items to bear in mind as you plan your next charity auction event.

Throughout the year, Winspire provides resources to help you and your Nonprofit with maximize your event fundraising revenue through live and silent auctions, raffles and our no-risk travel packages. As we get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving this Thursday, we thought we’d take a stab at talking turkey and share some information graphics (a.k.a "infographics") that may be of interest to you. Below we threw together six of our favorites from around the web. Definitely check out the “How to Fold A Napkin Turkey” section and use it to impress your guests or maybe the in-laws this year. We hope you enjoy, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!! - Your Winspire Team