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I was recently invited by the wonderful Dave Geada to participate in his informative webinar with FASO "How to Grow Your Collector Base Creatively - Partnering With Charities". It was an interesting chat and got me thinking more about "Going, Going, Gone!", tips for working with charity auctions and what has worked for me.
I am primarily a portrait artist, based in California, working usually by commission over the last almost quarter century alongside many charities and their auctions. It has led to increased income, helped spread my network, all the while enjoying the experience of collaborating with others. I have mainly focused on three types of charity tie-ins.
A donation of a $1,000 gift certificate to the overall cost of a portrait commission, mostly offered to silent auctions, with a sample portrait displayed with mini brochure to go.
A 50/50 tie in with a charity's Gala Auction Night where the charity and I split the proceedings. Pre-Covid, I always aimed to attend these live auctions, flying in if necessary. There is usually a pre-auction package sent to charity attendees with my upcoming donation listed. If the losing live bid is close to the winner, sometimes I offer to paint that one too if the winning bidder is ok with that.
A tie-in with a large charity to sponsor an art show/reception/art project. I was fortunate to work with FOOD Share in Ventura County, California, feeding the food 'unstable', during the course of a public art portrait project I had started in 2010 with a local newspaper and radio show. This charity worked with me creatively and funded a catered reception for 500 people (through a donation to FS from Heifer International) at the Museum of Ventura County's event pavilion. The major buzz that this charity helped me generate, even hiring a press agent for me for the upcoming show, resulted in the Museum and its board taking the 58 life portraits I painted into its permanent collection. A year later the Museum hosted a solo show for me of this portrait series, including an artist talk. In return, I referred to FOOD Share's work in interviews and speeches and gave a percentage of show poster sales and book proceedings.
I would suggest if you are new to the idea of auctions, start out locally and then branch out. I started with school auctions. I had younger kids at the time and I realized these yearly auctions were going on all the time. I like to paint kids and kids' parents are the main crowd at these auctions! Swim where the fish are and this was all downstream for me. Here are a few other things I have learned.
Start donating to an auction's silent auction first, then build to the GALA live auction. Experience grows fast. It's the same format at auctions every time. I suggest building a really solid foundation with auction organizers at the national level before you fly in, resulting in a real likelihood of you getting sales.
Always work with an auction contract with the charity and insist on an agreed listed minimum bid for your donation. You don't want your landscape to sell for $20. That's useful to no-one, especially you. Make sure you are put into the auction catalog as part of your investment of time. It's a great way to get your artwork in front of free eyeballs. Make sure to check in online ahead of the event to check that you are indeed listed with a link to your website and sample painting. These days auction previews are often online ahead of an event. We are now of course seeing galas held remotely online due to Covid, but the live auction will certainly return at some point.
Establish a direct 'in person' phone relationship with the auction chairperson away from email. This is really important as the auction folks need to know who you are, not just some faceless artist donating. I am not a big fan of donating artwork completely for free. The late Calvin Goodman, who wrote the famous "Art Marketing Handbook", use to say you can donate a "free" item to an auction, say a 'head and shoulders' portrait, or house painting commission, and then when you see the client in person afterwards, you can "upsell" to a larger portrait, or a larger fine art painting commission. With respect to Calvin, I have found this difficult to pull off and it has not worked for me, but it might for you.
Try to control as much as possible the auction elements and get an actual painting into the auction room, rather than print, hopefully on your own display easel. My portrait sample size is preferably 22 x 28". Auctions are limited in room size somewhat so that is something to think about. Silent auction tables like small paintings. I have in my contract that I want to display my sample, provide my own easel and cards.
I have done auctions all over greater Los Angeles County for many years. Gala auctions are often on the weekend. If I wasn't attending the event, my sample drop-off would be Saturday around noon usually, and I would pick up my sample around 11:00pm, if it was not too far away. Oftentimes you can arrange with the auction committee to return the unbid on painting or sample to its HQ and pick up on the weekday. Don't wait too long to pick it up.
Be prepared to trudge sample paintings and easels through the back doors of hotels. It's not glamorous work! I now know my way around the back exits of a lot of hotels, free parking, a.k.a. no valet fees, including that famous Beverly Hills 'pink' Hotel.
Aim to attend auctions! Organizers love having the artist in the Gala room. Watch who is bidding on your painting or commission. Try to reach them with your biz cards. I will do anything I can, walk across uncleared auction tables, to get to the auction winner. People do have buyers' remorse sometimes when the Chardonnay wears off, but if they have actually formed a bond with you it's more unlikely. If you can't reach the bidder, speedy follow-up is crucial after the auction with your key auction contact within a few days. Find out who bought your painting or commission and their phone number and call them 'yesterday'.
It's good to do your homework. I always check who the auctioneer is ahead of time and introduce myself at the beginning of the auction to check he has my bio correct. Be prepared to be suddenly introduced to the room by the auctioneer and stand up. This is not a time to be shy. Don't be afraid to ask ahead if there are any other artists offering the same as you at the auction, especially at silent auction. I pull out these days if there is. I have showed up more than once to find myself positioned next to another portrait artist. This doesn't work for either of you. You need to be THE only portrait artist in the room, or the ONLY fabulous still life or landscape painter if you are offering a substantial donation.
Sometimes you will be asked by the organizers to attend and also then be asked to cough up the ticket attendance price. These aren't usually cheap. I say no to this. Our work takes a while to complete with many hours going in so I think our actual art donation is enough. If you are in the live auction, this isn't usually an issue. One can also offer to pay just the actual hard cost of the event ticket covering your food and place setting. I think that's fair.
It's important to prepare for anything. I can't tell you how many times I have shown up at a noon drop-off after a long drive from my house and the auction organizers are in a complete flurry of activity- sometimes a bit of power-playing going on with their co-organizers over floral placements. I am often at this point the last person they want to deal with. Take your time to approach if you see they are in that heightened state and be super polite and thoughtful. The approach is always: "Let me help YOU to get ME out of your hair in the quickest way?"
I have also learned to say no if things really aren't feeling or looking the way I want in the auction run-up. If people don't get back to me in the pre-run when they said they would, then that tells me the auction is probably not going to work in my favor.
Inevitably, there are going to be problems once in a while. People are often enjoying cocktail hour at these events and are distracted chatting with friends. I have had people buy the gift certificate toward a commission thinking they are getting the whole thing for the price of the certificate. This is why the paper trail with the organizers is super important. Keep copies of your paperwork too. You can then refer the purchaser back to said charity and it is the charity's place to refund the unhappy person, not yours. The good news is few people will ever go back and ask for a refund from a charity and you, the artist, can sweeten the blow. I will always apologize for the misunderstanding, offer the person something from my studio, a small study painting, gift card set, even a single life portrait-sitting instead which I always enjoy. Did I mention a free model?
I always want to get in and out of the event and its details ASAP, so I can move on to the next. I don't get involved with painting deliveries from the evening's auction sales. Let the winner take home the painting after payment to the charity at the event's end. If there is some problem with a large landscape purchase too big for their Hummer, I let the winner work it out with the auction folk.
There are no shortcuts. The auction circuit requires experimentation and hard work to see what works. I once tied in with a huge organization that represented many charity auctions through Southern C.A. I thought I had won the jackpot. They do all the leg work for you! Well, guess what? I never got a single commission from this company and it lost my beautiful portrait sample of a little boy and had no idea what had happened to it. Years later I got a call out of the blue from some very excited lady who had bought this sample in a garage sale a few counties away from me for three dollars.
Lastly if you didn't donate, don't be obliged to fulfill a mistaken offering. I had a couple of auctions re-list portrait certificate donations from the previous year, unbeknownst to me, and they were purchased. The organizers of course had no idea how it happened, and were quite disbelieving that I didn't wish to honor something I hadn't given permission to. I did offer something in return to help with the situation. You got it. A life sitting. | 