Looking for a fun and creative way to raise money for a church or community service group?  Try a blind auction.  It works best as an annual seasonal event or by combining it with another fundraising event. The idea is simple instead of admission every person attending the event beings a wrapped present.  Some gifts should be prohibited, like adult novelties, alcohol, and prepared food.  Organizers may want to encourage a gift minimum but be wary of adding a gift maximum.  Generous donors will donate large ticket items and increase the excitement and bidding for late gifts.

As guests arrive have a volunteer take the gifts – recording the donor’s name- and assign the gifts a number.   You may want to ask the donor’s to compose a short hint about the mystery gift.  Then the volunteer place their boxes on a prominently placed display table so that charity bidders can inspect them and speculate on the contents.   Whether the organization decides to use a traditional auction format with an auctioneer or silent bid auction fundraising the real fun of the event come from the mystery and the good natured competition.   Organizers should make sure that all guests have time to pick up the gifts and investigate them before the bidding.

Donors should be honest in writing their hint cards but encouraged to be deceptive in wrapping the gifts.  Weighing boxes to disguise the contents and using boxes that are large but contains smaller boxes or paper will elevate the element of mystery.  Discourage the use of gift bags because they are harder to secure.

On the subject of gift bags an alternative to the mystery gift auction is the gift bag grab event.  The gift bag grab has donors bring a gift in a bag for admission giving the bag to a volunteer who places a random number under the bag.  Donor’s then bid on the number not the bags with an option to place the item back up for auction after the item is revealed.