Run Paddle Raise or a Live Auction at your Event

As you consider the different ways that your organization can raise money on-site at your event or gala, you might decide to include a "Paddle Raise" portion to your event, where you invite your guests to give at specified levels. You may also decide to hold a Live Auction, in which an auctioneer (and we do recommend hiring a professional) leads your guests through a bidding process on items or packages.

Both a Paddle Raise and a Live Auction can be easily supported by your BetterUnite system.

Before your event, you will want to set up your Guest Experience page, where you will list Paddles Up levels, Live Auction items, or both, and other ways your guests can participate or give. Go to your Event page and, under Action Center, select Edit Event.

Go to Event Offers and create Giving Levels for your Paddle Raise amounts. For example, your Paddle Raise ask levels might be $20,000; $10,000; $5,000; $2,500; and $1,000. If you are going to make the Giving Levels available to guests to view and select through their Guest Experience page, you might want to add language and a title, even images or short videos to each Giving Level. Alternatively, you can create the Giving Levels and mark them as Hidden, so that only users in your BetterUnite account will be able to add the Giving Levels to the Guest Carts through Quick Add.

By listing out the pre-determined giving levels, you can make Quick Adds as paddles are raised at the event.

If you are entering Live Auction items, you will want to leave the Amount field blank so you are able to fill it in once the bidding on your item is complete.

You will need to purchase or create "paddles" - numbers on (fairly large) cards that can be held up by your guests to indicate their bid on an item or their giving level.

Make sure to collect preauthorizations of credit cards prior to your Event (How do I pre-authorize guests so I can charge them at the event?) as your guests purchase their tickets and as they Register for the event.

After your auctioneer has completed the Live Auction or Paddle Raise (or both), you can enter the giving levels or add paddles up to appropriate paddle numbers in the Guest Cart. Refer to article How to run a Live Auction for further details on Live Auctions.

You are then able to check-out your guests live at the event using our fast and responsive Guest Cart function (including adding in offline payments if someone gives you cash or writes a check in person) or you can check-out your guests after the event. Refer to article Guest Cart sfor further details on how to check out from Guest Carts. Your guests pre-authorization will last for two months following your event.

Thank you for reading! Let's go do some good.