How to run a small silent auction with no app and no budget

The silent-auction software you find on Google is built for a 400-person gala with a paid event planner. Most silent auctions are a PTA with 30 baskets on folding tables in a cafeteria, run by two volunteers who also made the baskets. This is the guide for that one.

Get the items

Ask, do not buy. Local businesses give gift cards for the goodwill and the tax receipt; parents give what they have (a weekend at the cabin, a home-cooked dinner for six, a guitar lesson). The items that raise the most money at small auctions are experiences and anything from the teachers: a “principal for a day” or a pizza lunch with the kindergarten teacher will out-earn a $200 blender every time.

Group small donations into themed baskets (movie night, coffee lover, car wash kit). A basket worth $80 gets bids; six $12 items do not. Aim for 20 to 50 lots. Fewer than 15 and the room is done in ten minutes; more than 60 and nobody sees the back table.

Set the numbers

• Starting bid: 30 to 40 percent of the retail value. Too high and the sheet stays empty, which scares off the next person. Too low costs nothing, because bids will climb.
• Minimum increment: about 10 percent of the starting bid, rounded to something people can do in their head. $5 for a $40 basket, $25 for a $250 weekend.
• Buy-it-now (optional): about 150 percent of retail. Some people would rather pay and stop watching the sheet.

Paper or phones?

Paper bid sheets work and cost nothing. They also produce the three classic problems: illegible names, the pen fight in the last two minutes, and the hour after the event spent working out who won what and chasing them for money.

Phone bidding fixes all three. The trick is to do it without making anyone install an app or create an account, which is where the big platforms lose a PTA crowd. The way that works: a table card next to each item with a QR code. Guests scan it, see the item and the current high bid, type a name, an email and a bid, done. If they are outbid they get an email. At close, everyone who bid gets an email saying whether they won.

That is exactly what RealBid's silent auction does: you type the items in, it prints the table cards with QR codes, bids are live at once from any phone, and winners are emailed when the clock runs out. It is free and there are no fees on bids.

The room

• Put the table cards at eye level, not flat on the table. A card at an angle on a small stand gets scanned.
• Put the best items in the back. People walk the whole table to get to them.
• Announce the close three times: at the start, 15 minutes before, and 2 minutes before. Most bids land in the last ten minutes.
• Have one volunteer who does nothing but help people scan. Grandparents will need it, and they bid high.

Closing and getting paid

With paper, collect the sheets at the bell and read the winners out loud. With phones, the board closes itself and the emails go out. Either way, have a checkout table ready with a card reader (Square, PayPal Zettle, a Venmo QR code on a sign) and the items bagged by lot number. Most people pay on the way out if you make it easy; the ones who leave early get an email with what they owe and where to pay.

Keep a one-line rule on every card and on the sign at the door: “Highest bid at 8:00 pm wins. Winning bids are a commitment to pay tonight.” That sentence prevents the one conversation every organizer dreads.

After

Thank the donors by name, publicly, the next day. Tell them what the item raised. That is the whole reason a business will give again next year. Keep the list of what each lot sold for; next year's starting bids come from it.

Set up a silent auction on RealBid: type the items, print the cards, bid from phones, winners emailed. Free, no account for you or your guests.