Author Info

Fundraising auctions are about raising money, of course. That’s the primary mission. But you can raise money a bunch of different ways, and if you’re...

11 Silent Auction Software Platforms to Reach Your Goals

There are a multitude of ways to fundraise with a SchoolAuction.net. From galas to online auctions, donation campaigns, and fun runs, there are numerous options...

This is a guest blog, by Jay Love of Bloomerang

This is a guest post by Sandra Davis of Donorly

This is a guest post by Glen Greenstone, of CircuiTree

We update our software every week - usually the updates contain only minor enhancements and bug fixes, and mostly go unnoticed. That won’t be the...

It’s no mystery that students’ parents are busy and virtual tools have made online events easier than ever to host. However, running a virtual event...

Whether you’re a parent of a student or a faculty or staff member, you’ve likely faced the stress that comes with running a successful school...

Let’s talk about how procuring auction items has changed in the time of COVID-19.

In our last post, we discussed how to use Item data from your previous event(s) to improve your procurement and pricing strategies and make more...

Every auction generates data. You probably already review your sales data to gauge the success of your events. But delving even deeper into your data...

For obvious reasons (we’re looking at you, Covid-19), we’re focusing our blogging on online auctions these days. Many of you are converting your galas to...

“Are my online auction settings right?” Our support team sees variations of this question a lot. And we’re always glad to take a look at...

Due to the COVID-19 induced economic downturn, many businesses and families are struggling to make ends meet. And nonprofits are struggling to support their communities...

Whether you are holding your fundraiser in-person or online, it’s pretty common to want to show your supporters how close you are to your fundraising...

If you’ve converted your event to an online auction, or if you were planning to run an online auction to begin with, you may be...

Some organizations are considering cancelling their gala events due to the coronavirus. That’s a difficult choice to make. And as we mentioned in the email...

As we discussed last week, you can easily convert your gala to an online-only event. And because of the Covid-19 crisis, many of our customers...

Update: here is the missing link from the email: https://support.tofinoauctions.com/hc/en-us/articles/205140305-Editing-the-Privacy-Policy-and-Terms-

Online. It’s a word we use a lot in our lives; an adjective that modifies hundreds of our daily activities: shopping, dating, meetings… and auctions,...

When you decide to hold a gala auction fundraiser, you know you have to have to have auction items, and you have to have guests...

One of the really great things about this business is working with all of you. Really - think about it. By definition, our customers are...

The most common conversation I have with prospective customers surrounds one particular aspect of our product design: it’s a annual plan, which allows you to...

Have you checked out DonationMatch yet? I’ll give you a moment. Do come back, though: we have a very cool program going on with them...

Happy New Year’s, everyone.

We’re rolling out new code this afternoon, including an adjustment to our new catalog display. Some of you have been unhappy about the way item...

UPDATE : We still don’t have word as to what went wrong at the data center, but all sites are back up and running. For...

So in my last blog post, I told you about some new code that we have been working on. Most of the time, we release...

The thing about software is that it’s never done - we have to keep listening to what our customers like and don’t like, what they...

Special Appeals (aka Paddle Raises or Fund-A-Need) are a staple of fundraising auctions. Mobile Bidding is a popular auction trend. Are they compatible?

Yay for checklists! They are oh so helpful especially on event night. This supply checklist gives you one less thing to worry about while you...

Having a photo station at your event can be a fun, entertaining addition to the night. One option for would be to hire a photographer...

We use Amazon’s AWS service to serve the item images on your auction sites. We also use two other services that rely on it heavily:...

Last summer, we re-jiggered the feature sets for our annual plan levels, adding significant new mobile-bidding features to our Plus and Premium annual plans. We...

From time to time, I’m going to post questions sent to me from auction chairs about our product or company, along with our answers.

Last night, we rolled out three greatly-anticipated upgrades to our software that should make your life as an auction chair easier. We’re excited about these,...

Auction longevity is certainly a sign of success, but it can also lead to stagnation. After a few years of hosting the same event, your...

It’s time. The changes we’ve teased for a couple of months now are being released. You can read about them and see screenshotson our support...

New! Vanco now allows refunds processed through third party software so you may now issue refunds in a single step, directly from the Order. The...

Here at SchoolAuction.net, we’re continuously upgrading our auction software throughout the year, and this summer, we will be rolling out some awesome upgrades. In addition...

This summer, we’re going to be rolling out many improvements to our mobile-bidding system; we’ve received some excellent feedback from the mobile events of this...

We’ve been asked often by the schools who use our software how to set it up for online scrip ordering. We used to discourage this,...

I love checklists. And with a large, complicated project like planning an auction, they can be incredibly useful.

So, I’m the marketing guy here. And that means that I’m supposed to find all sorts of ways to advertise and promote us and toot...

This week’s update adds a new field to the Item Edit Screen - the Will Call Flag. This allows you to note whether an item...

This week, we are releasing two new features to the software that we think will make many of our experienced customers very happy.

Update: 2/21/16: It’s all fixed now. You can go back to using the green help widget on the side.

If you have used our software in the past 7 years (and you aren’t based in our hometown of Portland), you probably found us through...

Most weeks, we release a code upgrade. We don’t blog about these regularly (although I probably should), because most of the time (at least during...

No doubt about it, Mobile Bidding has been the topic of the past couple of years around here. We spent a lot of time thinking...

Every SchoolAuction.net, Tofino Auctions, and PartySupporters.com auction website is it’s own e-commerce store. And in the world of e-commerce, we have to stay vigilant with...

Our servers will be unavailable this Wednesday (9/2) from 12:00 am to 2:00 am and Thursday (9/3) from 12:00 am to 2:00 am (all times...

See if this scenario sounds familiar: your school community holds an annual gala auction, at which the classroom projects produced by the students are always...

Executive Summary:

For many years, we have worked very hard to maintain compatibility with as wide a range of web browsers as possible. We know that many...

Frequently, school auction chairs talk to me about the pressure they face to make their fundraisers inclusive - to lower ticket prices, load up the...

We love to see our customers include games in their fundraising auctions. There are classics like Heads or Tails, and then there are ones that...

Setting a School Fundraising Auction Budget: A Novice Guide

First of all, my apologies - this is long for a blog post. But I want to put it here, so we can engage in...

Finding silent auction items is one of those tasks that many auction teams ask for help with. If that includes you, listen up.

We’ve added a setting so you can choose to organize your web catalog by item name, number, category or by designating your items to display...

This is a guest blog, by our friend Mike Hanley. Thanks, Mike!

If you’re already a customer of ours, you probably know a few things about us:

In the next couple of weeks, we will begin updating all SchoolAuction.net event sites that have been established for future events. This update (two years...

True facts: I was an English major in college (Trinity University, class of 1988), and after graduating, I moved to New York City to work...

If you are going to hold a Live Auction, you really should hire a professional auctioneer. You may think that there’s not much to it...

Yahoo made some changes to their security settings in the past two weeks - which is blocking emails being sent with a Yahoo “from” address,...

I talked a bit the other day about how in high schools, the auction-team is often a coalition of volunteers supporting specific clubs or teams,...

My son (my only child) is a High-School Freshman this year. Which means that this is the first year that I was On The Team...

The widely-publicized vulnerability in Open SSL has affected most e-commerce web applications on the Internet, and our software is no exception. We have been working...

I talk to auction chairs just about every day. And although we do talk a lot about the SchoolAuction.net software, we also talk about general...

There is really only one downside to web-based auction software - you need an Internet connection at your venue. Most of the time (here in...

Every day (weekends included), we are available to our prospects and customers, to answer questions and provide help on a wide variety of fundraising topics....

Over the next 20 months or so, most merchants in the United States who accept credit-card transactions will be upgrading their card-reading equipment, to enable...

Silent auction tables can get crowded. One solution is to put your description sheets on the table in a standing position. There are many ways...

Online auctions may appear to be an easy, convenient way to raise money for your school or organization. But the truth is that online auctions,...

From the moment you purchase our software, we’ll offer you opportunities to learn how to use it. However, we know that regardless of how much...

Running a school fundraiser can be a lot of work – we know; we’ve done it ourselves. We’ve also helped a lot of other fundraising...

We are big fans of Sherry Truhlar of Red Apple Auctions; she always has worthwhile nuggets to share for the greater good.

Our company, and our product, grew out of a desire to make a difference in our school communities, to support quality education; and to offer...

“Come join our team, we’re really making things happen for our kid’s school!”

Auctions are fun – at least, they should be fun. Buying stuff can be fun as well (there’s a reason we have more of it...

It’s a new year and for many of you it’s the time when your benefit auction planning and implementation strategies really start ramping up! In...

So, that stunk.

Status Update: 9/10/2013

This week my son started high school. And naturally, the school that he is going to uses our software to run their auction, and has...

So… about that person or people you have up on stage, recording live auction bids and paddle raise pledges? You should think about who they...

UPDATE: Fall 2014

This, the last post in our Dream Team series, focuses on a key role which supports the efforts of every other team member: Software Lead....

Today’s post picks up where we left off a few weeks ago in the_Building Your School Auction Dream Team_ series, in which we are outlining...

Our one-of-a-kind fundraising software is designed to make guests happier and results better for hard-working volunteer teams. To that end, we are excited to announce...

Who doesn’t love a good party?

Auction items are procured, decorations are up, the band is at the ready… but without people in those seats, all this preparation is for naught....

If you’ve been following this blog series, by now you’ve filled several sections in your teambuilding binder with job descriptions for key positions in the...

It’s our 5th in the Building Your (School Auction) Dream Team blog series, and today we’ll focus on filling the position of_Sign-up Party Procurement Chair._...

This series – Building Your School Auction Dream Team- is intended to help you identify WHO are the people in your community who have the...

Auction season is winding down. Rather than packing away those event notebooks prematurely; however, remember that next year’s momentum is built upon this year’s organizational...

Today’s post, the third in our series titled Building Your School Auction Dream Team, will outline a key position in your overall Auction Committee Organization...

If you are reading this blog, chances are you are already one of the 20% who makes 80% of the action happen. If you’re in...

For many of you auction night has come and gone… and you’re already looking ahead to next year.

We’ve developed software that will effectively support you in carrying off a successful school auction fundraiser. And… it has lots of other wonderful bells and...

In our last blog we talked about the most important pieces of information to have with you on Auction night. In today’s post, we’re adding...

The Auction is over… but what about the leftover items?

It’s event night.

Chairing an auction is a huge commitment and an even bigger job - you are a hero for stepping up!

How much time is typically spent by new auction volunteers calling, emailing and digging through binders and notes to find important contacts and information?

Remember what it was like, the first time you got involved in the auction planning process? If you recall the process being easy and seamless,...

“Come join our team, we’re really making things happen for our kid’s school!”

This week, along with several security- and performance-enhancements, we’ve enabled the following:

This week, we applied a security upgrade to some of the code libraries that SchoolAuction.net and Tofino Auctions are built on. It was an important...

As much as volunteerism can leave us feeling alone and overwhelmed, there is nobility in the labors of love we undertake on behalf of children,...

A great measure of our success is when you tell other schools and organizations about your success with our software.

If you’re like many of us, you attend at least one benefit auction – in addition to the one you are helping to plan –...

Because school auctions are generally run by volunteers, record keeping systems are often makeshift and handed down through loose leaf binders and sticky notes. Sound...

Let’s face it, there’s a lot to do to make your fundraising event a success. Chances are, right now you’re up to your armpits in...

I’m a big fan of Sherry Truhlar of Red Apple Auctions, and today the Nonprofit Spark podcast featured this interview with her. It is really...

Hi, I’m Delila Olsson and, along with being a mother and small business owner, I am a professional volunteer and the newest member of the...

You may have noticed a few new changes on your site:

A couple of weeks ago, there was news that Square, the innovative payments processor that makes those iPhone-based card-readers one sees at coffee shops everywhere,...

Square has been a disruptive force in the merchant-processing business since its emergence a couple of years ago. And since you can use just about...

If you print posters or postcards or flyers to advertise your auction, you probably already print the URL for your SchoolAuction.net website on them. Consider...

As a profession, auctioneering has long had performance tied to compensation. Auctioneers have based their worth, literally, on their ability to market and sell assets...

We got some very exciting news this week - SchoolAuction.net was named a Top Product of 2012 by Christian School Products magazine.

Most people reading this blog are helping with the planning of an auction.

We need to apologize to all of you who were working on your auctions this past week, and tried to get help by emailing us....

Holding an auction is an effective and fun way to raise money. For colleges and universities, it can be a great way to get the...

This one may be something everyone other than me figured out long ago, but I’m still pretty excited to have discovered it.

We use a support-desk system called Zendesk, here at SchoolAuction.net World HQ. Today (1/21/12), they have scheduled maintenance from 4PM-6PM PST (00:00 - 02:00 GMT...

It’s THE perennial topic - getting items for your silent auction. People who have done it a few times have a list, a letter that...

Are you coming to the North American Jewish Day School Conference? If so, stop by and see us in the Marketplace - we’ll be running...

More ideas from our incredibly creative, fun, customers. Have any Nights of your own to add? Add a comment below…

Many of our customers are either gung-ho about doing an online auction, or curious about it. It’s one of the reasons they like our software...

“Procuring auction items” is often seen as the biggest challenge for a school auction team. Here are three tips that can reduce the stress of...

Picking the right school auction theme can inspire your volunteers, give you an focal point for your procurement, and even help sell tickets. So it’s...