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We recently wrote an article on this topic. The Definitive List of Silent Auction Items | Blog | AcceleventsIt boils down to 5 main topics:TravelOutings & ExperiencesSports tickets & memorabiliaMusicFoodWe also put an article together specifically for school auctions. 5 Tips for a Successful School Fundraiser | Blog | AcceleventsIn general, we have found that experiential items outperform material items again and again. Experiential items create memories and journeys for your guests that start during your fundraiser and continue throughout the duration of the item. Such great experiences will form lasting connections between your donors and fundraiser, as donors will quickly begin to associate their fun memories with the moment that they won the item at your event.

Why not?Given the shit that’s gone down at top U.S. universities with the affirmative action circus at Harvard and now this whole admissions scandal in the last two weeks at a number of other top U.S. academies?Why fuck around in half-assed fashion with the mere corruption of these once venerated institutions?And not instead go the whole hog with neither pretense nor shame with the institutionalization of corruption?I mean let’s not play around son, let’s go the Full Monty and run the academy like a mercenary business.One can already see the promos -“Degrees for sale. Very limited supply! Come get them. Promotional discounts for first-time buyers!”But that’d be just one-half of the joke.Tell me now - Would you care to spend a few million dollars if the International Olympic or Nobel Prize committees started offering extra medals on the market on auction?No?Why not?Isn’t an Olympic medal or a Nobel Prize a mark of the highest and most prestigious achievement on the face of the planet?Because you know everyone else would view that medal you bought as being worthless.When I see the resume of a student who graduated from say Harvard U, these are the two key things which come first to mind -This person must be highly intelligent to manage to get admitted there.This person has access to a powerful network largely formed during their years at that university.More than half of the value from that degree comes merely from being admitted as a vetting process. Because while these institutions certainly have fine teaching and facilities, their primary calling card is the caliber of their students. Students who would have done very well at other institutions anyway.If you sold off say a dozen places in an open transparent auction, those students are marked right at the start as duds.Do you see what I’m getting at now? You think their names won’t be known? You think that information which is freely available won’t be scanned for within minutes by anyone in the future looking at a resume with that university listed on it?I can tell you quite bluntly that after the affirmative action debacle at Harvard in which the admissions data clearly showed that black and Hispanic students were admitted with far lower scholastic standards than Asians, I will henceforth not view graduates from those racial categories with the same lens as an Asian student.How could I? Because Harvard itself has branded them as sub-par.This auction will then be putting that on steroids.What of the network value?You realize how miserable the kids who’re caught up in this ongoing admissions scandal are going to be? Their classmates know that they don’t have the intellectual caliber to be there. And that they’re sitting in those halls only because Mom and Dad bought them that spot.Then it matters not whether the buying is done illegally or legally.The act of buying in and of itself has wrecked that social capital.It’s like someone asking me -“Would you want your daughter to be a prostitute depending on whether that profession is legal or not?”The point is not about the legality of that profession, it is that I don’t want my daughter to be a prostitute either way.Aside from the fact that it would erode the credibility for these institutions as ‘degree shops’, those degrees would be worthless in the eyes of future employers and those kids would spend four years as miserable outcasts.Now there are super-rich businessmen and world leaders who donate a ton of money to institutions and then get their progeny admitted. But it doesn’t fool anybody. Everyone knows the reason why those kids are in those institutions. And then every once in a while it completely blows up in their face like with the London School of Economics admitting Saif Gaddafi (the running joke became that the ‘L’ in LSE stood for “Libyan”).Yet even in these cases, there is at least some room for cover for these kids because there wasn’t a formal process that their parents bought those seats at the university. Their friends and families can hope to say“How do you know they got that place ONLY because their parents were donors? Do you know their grades or scores?”But now with an auction?All of that cover will be thrown away.That person will walk around being spoken of in the same fashion as if you walked around with an Olympic gold medal which everyone knew that you purchased on auction.In summary, it would be the buyers in that auction who would be fools.

Hello!The answer is absolutely! They just don’t care.Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about the cultlike, little-red-MAGA-hat, rabid and dangerous mass of citizens who reject rationality and worship the grounds Donald Trump walks on. No. I’m talking about his real base, the most dangerous one…Meet the multinational corporations, the big banks and other Wall Street firms and financial players. Together, they form the most influential force in American life, all but controlling the political system through a sophisticated network of donors, lobbyists and think tanks. While it is true that Trump has his detractors within the small club of the ruling class — think Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Michael Bloomberg — the preponderance of the economic elite enable Trump, whether or not they like him. This remains true even as he provides presidential encouragement to racism, threatens to undermine the institutions of democratic governance and commits human rights abuses at the Mexican border.For all the paeans to "diversity" and "multiculturalism" in company brochures and television advertisements, big business will continue to protect Trump. Its unpaid employees in the Senate — meaning the entire Republican caucus — is currently working overtime to ensure his acquittal, because Trump's policies are a massive boondoggle for them.Throughout his first term in office, Meany writes, "Trump fed the richest in society in the currency they prefer — dollars — and he fed his fans lower down with a temporarily effective substitute – recognition."The acknowledgement and solace Trump provides for the insecurities and prejudices of the little-red-hat boys conceals the true beneficiaries of his presidency. It should not come as a surprise that the White House has turned its back on beleaguered small towns throughout the Rust Belt, where the rural poor and middle-class families dangle over the edge of financial ruin. Instead, to return to Jesse Jackson's analysis, Trump has "done everything big business wants." [Report] Trumpism After Trump, by Thomas Meaney | Harper's MagazineRemember how Trump and his minions touted the tax cut? That socialistic giveaway to the wealthy has cost America $1.9 trillion. For that same staggering sum of money, the Trump administration could have forgiven all outstanding student debt, created a system of affordable child care for working parents, and eliminated tuition at community colleges. What We Could Have Had for $1.9 Trillion - Center for American ProgressCorporations that profit in the hundreds of millions, including FedEx, General Electric and Netflix, pay no taxes under Trump's plan, while 10 million Americans of average means, especially those with a significant amount of income deriving from freelance work, actually saw their tax bills increase. Here’s the link: Trump tax ‘cut’ actually increased taxes for 10 million American families, report findsIn one of his rare moments of honesty, Trump reportedly told a group of millionaires at Mar-a-Lago, "You all just got a lot richer," boasting about his tax policy. Wages have increased at miserly rates over the past few years, and have not yet reached their pre-2008 crash levels. The president could not make the same boast to his screaming fans in Youngstown, Ohio, or Anderson, Indiana, or any of the other former manufacturing towns that voted for a resurrection of greatness. "You all just got a lot richer," Trump tells friends, referencing tax overhaulMeanwhile, Trump, his party and too many dimwitted commentators throughout the media trumpet the soaring stock market as evidence of a "booming economy." In reality, it is proof of Trump's fealty to those who can afford to purchase condominiums in one of his buildings.Fifty percent of Americans own no stock, and 75 to 80 percent of all stocks are in the portfolios of the top 10 percent of income earners. The fluctuations of the Dow, despite all the gleeful pronouncements of newscasters, have little to no bearing on the average citizen, most especially the unemployed workers desperately hoping for the return of a shuttered steel mill or decommissioned coal mine. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said cheering for soaring stock prices while wages stay low is 'inequality in a nutshell.' We made 6 charts to show why she's right.As the Senate trial of Trump's crimes has devolved into a farce, and with the outcome of the 2020 presidential election disturbingly unclear, there is no task more important than imposing limits on corporate power. "Money talks," as the old phrase goes, and right now it is speaking in defense of Donald Trump and his entire class, and drowning out the voices of freedom, justice and decency.If Trump had only his sycophantic voters, pathetically still chanting "lock her up!", he would have retired to his garish, Liberace’s fantasy palace long ago. Instead, the rich donors who have funded Trump’s half-billion-dollar war chest are shielding their servant from a conviction in the Senate, while attempting to buy his re-election in November. As long as they continue to pile up more treasure, they will be willing to put American land, law and lives on the auction block. Trump Campaign and R.N.C. Raise $125 Million in Third Fund-Raising QuarterSo no, it’s not the Trumphadi, who speak the fluent azzhole dialogue of the own-the-libs Trump Party and masters of slavish Donald über Alles suck-uppery who will make the difference come November third, but the shameless hucksters at Fox, other degraded conservative media, and the crapulous grifting enterprises aka corporate America, who is Trump’s most powerful base and a force to reckon with…Sources: everyone linked in the text and Trump's real base isn't the famous "white working class" — it's the billionaire class