20 Premier Silent Auction Software Solutions to Grow Revenue

Your nonprofit’s team has been working day and night to bring your silent auction to life. You’ve procured the right items, marketed your event online, and booked a venue. But once the event day rolls around, you quickly realize you don’t have any of the technology you need to make sure your silent auction goes off without a hitch.

Silent auction software is an often underrated tool that all nonprofits should add to their tech stack. Not only will the right platform help you with day-of event logistics, but it will also make the entire auction planning process, from donor communications to item tracking, a breeze.

Here’s our round-up of the top silent auction software and support tools that can take your event to the next level:

Explore the top solutions from top to bottom or jump to the products that interest you most. We’ll also cover a few silent auction software FAQ and best practices for building a solid silent auction software toolkit. Let’s get started!

OneCause: Best Silent Auction Software for Planning & Management

OneCause is the leading silent auction software on the market. With its full suite of tools to plan and manage your events from beginning to end, the OneCause platform is a game-changer for auction events of all types and sizes. In fact, OneCause has helped over 10,000 nonprofits reach their fundraising goals, collectively raising over $5.7 billion for causes around the world.

Unlike other platforms, OneCause is built for flexibility and gives your in person or virtual auction attendees more options and methods to engage with your mission than ever before. With bidding right on supporters’ smartphones, push notifications for their favorite items, and fixed-price purchases, it’s easier than ever to get involved.

This kind of positive, streamlined experience for bidders generates more engagement, bids, and revenue for your silent auction. As a result, your nonprofit can confidently lead any silent auction and skyrocket your fundraising potential.

Top Features

As an all-in-one fundraising solution and silent auction software, OneCause has everything you need to succeed. Let’s take a closer look at the user-friendly tools that make it easier for your nonprofit to host auctions and easier for your supporters to get in on the bidding action.

Event Management

The OneCause Fundraising Platform offers a variety of flexible and modern event management features, including the ability to create a fundraising microsite, sell tickets and manage RSVPs, facilitate contactless check-in through QR codes, manage and procure your silent auction items, and much more.  You can also take any event online with the help of built-in livestreaming tools.

Mobile Bidding

Forget disorganized paper bids! With OneCause, you can make the entire bidding process convenient, simple, and rewarding with advanced mobile bidding capabilities. Guests can let mobile bidding do all the work for them by automatically setting them as the next highest bidder based on the maximum bid they’re comfortable giving.

OneCause also sends your attendees outbid notifications to pull them right back into the bidding auction and keep energy levels high. Best of all, the software isn’t just limited to auction participation. Supporters can also use it to purchase fixed-price items, take part in raffles, and give during your donation appeals. This ensures that everyone can engage with your cause and push your fundraising goals forward, whether they’re bidding or not.

Item and Package Management

With OneCause, you can streamline the item procurement process by generating solicitation letters to corporate sponsors, tracking the status of your items, logging each item’s location, and bundling multiple items into packages. Plus, you can customize starting bids and minimum raises.

Gamification

Infuse some friendly competition into the bidding process to keep energy levels high! OneCause empowers nonprofits to display scoreboards with the top bidders or table teams, highlight donation progress with a fundraising thermometer, and use engagement drivers like live chat. And, with outbid notifications, you can always keep your bidders on their toes.

Price

OneCause offers multiple pricing packages to meet your nonprofit’s fundraising and auction needs, with Essentials, Professional, and Enterprise packages available depending on the extent of the tools you’re looking for. Explore the OneCause Pricing & Packages page for more details.

Auction Packages: Top Silent Auction Software for Diverse Travel Packages

Auction Packages is designed for nonprofits that want to auction off amazing experiences risk-free. Your organization can choose from over 150 auction items and packages that are best suited to your fundraising goals. From there, you can reserve the auction items, offer them at your event, and then report on what sold so the winning bidders can redeem their packages.

Top Features

Auction Packages offers the following features and benefits to nonprofits:

• Variety of auction items: Auction Packages offers multiple items that will appeal to your bidders and boost your fundraising revenue. These include international travel, concerts and shows, golf, skiing, safaris, spa packages, and more
• Risk-free procurement: With Auction Packages, you only have to pay for the packages on which you generate a profit. This ensures that your nonprofit won’t unnecessarily spend your hard-earned funds on items or packages that your supporters don’t want.
• Team of fundraising specialists: Deciding what items are right for your nonprofit is a big responsibility. Luckily, Auction Packages will pair you up with their fundraising specialists so you can strategize together to choose exciting packages. Plus, their team of specialists will work directly with trip winners to ensure all of their booking and travel needs have been met.

Auction Packages also allows nonprofits to customize any of their packages to better meet their supporters’ needs. This flexibility ensures you’ll be able to auction off experiences that your guests will love.

Price

As an auction item consignment service, packages from Auction Packages are free to offer at your silent auction. Then, once you drive home a profit, you’ll pay Auction Packages for the price of the package. Learn more on their How It Works page.

Winspire: Top Silent Auction Software for Flexible Item Procurement

Winspire is a top silent auction software solution that offers unforgettable auction packages you can offer at your event. Select from more than 200 unique experiences, offer them at your auction, and then tell Winspire how many times you sold each package so the winners can begin redeeming them.

Top Features

Winspire can step up your next silent auction experience through the following features:

• A full staff of nonprofit fundraising and event professionals: Your organization will be paired with a personal event consultant who will provide you with valuable advice on how to maximize your event’s revenue and make your auction a success.
• Ability to sell multiple experiences: Rather than having one winner for an amazing trip, allow multiple people to win the same experience. This allows you to double, triple, or quadruple your auction earnings and make multiple guests happy.
• Hands-on approach: Winspire will take care of everything for your winners, handling their reservations and ensuring their trip can go off without a hitch.

Winspire even offers virtual experiences, like online cooking classes, to meet a wide variety of donors’ interests. Plus, they also take a risk-free approach, meaning you don’t have to pay a penny for their packages until you earn back a profit.

Price

As an auction item consignment service, packages from Winspire are free to offer at your silent auction. Simply tell Winspire how many packages you sold and pay the starting prices, but keep all your profits. Learn more on their How Winspire Works page.

CharityACE: Top Silent Auction Software for High-Quality Travel Experiences

CharityACE provides a one-stop shop for some of the most dependable and desirable consignment options across the industry. From a 7-night vacation in Italy to a snowy getaway in the mountains, CharityACE has a variety of packages that will maximize your auction’s success.

Top Features

As one of the top package and item providers, CharityACE helps you nonprofit boost your ROI with the following key features:

• Supportive team: The CharityACE team assesses your needs and takes a strategic approach to filling holes only when it makes the most sense for your event and audience. They ensure that your goals are met, your donors are happy, and your mission is supported.
• Strict vetting process: CharityACE only offers high-quality packages from the top providers, ensuring that your winners have smooth and positive travel experiences after the event.
• Custom packages: Take any of their already established travel packages and customize them to better suit your nonprofit audience’s interests.

CharityACE also provides you with all the marketing materials you need to pique your supporters’ interests in the various packages and inspire a bidding frenzy.

Price

As an auction item consignment service, Charity Ace provides a free consultation and a quote for the packages of your choice. You’ll have to pay this amount back after your event. Visit their How it Works page to learn more.

Booking Entertainment: Best Silent Auction Provider for Event Entertainment

Booking Entertainment helps clients worldwide book the biggest names in entertainment. Operating for almost 30 years, this agency serves nonprofits, corporations, and more. Whether you’re looking for singers, bands, DJs, speakers, or comedians, this silent auction provider can secure the entertainment you need to delight your event’s guests.

Top Features

As a top silent auction provider, Booking Entertainment helps plan event entertainment by:

• Highlighting availability and pricing information for any entertainment act
• Providing customized recommendations of entertainment options for your event
• Negotiating the best deal for your nonprofit on your behalf and securing the necessary contracts

This agency has plenty of expertise working for nonprofits and understands the delicate balance between raising funds and spending your budget. They also offer full turnkey service for events, ensuring that your silent auction’s performance or entertainment portion runs smoothly.

Price

There is no upfront fee to use Booking Entertainment’s services, and if the agency doesn’t book an act for you, their service is free. If you do book an act through them, prices vary, and their fees are built into the overall price they quote for the entertainment.

Boardable: Top Charity Auction Software for Virtual Board Management

Your board plays a critical role in the success of your fundraising events and campaigns, from soliciting donations from major donors to approving the budget for galas and auctions. As a result, you’ll need a way to keep board members engaged and streamline their workflows. With a virtual board management platform like Boardable, you can make it easy for board members to collaborate, no matter where they are, and take action to support your silent auction planning.

Top Features

Boardable’s features can empower your board members to take a more active role in supporting your auction efforts with multiple collaboration tools, including:

• Agenda building tools: Use one of Boardable’s many customizable agenda templates to focus on what’s most important and structure your meetings.
• Productive meetings: Boardable offers built-in virtual conferencing so your members can work together on planning your silent auction and ensuring the budget is ready to go.
• Centralized document storage: Rather than digging through endless online files, simply use Boardable to upload important documents and securely store them for future reference. When you need to pull a document up, use the search features to quickly find the details you need.

Plus, Boardable is mobile-friendly, ensuring everyone can check-in and get involved from home and on the go.

Price

Boardable offers a free version, but if your nonprofit is looking for more extensive tools and features, you might want to choose from their Essentials plan starting at $17.99/user per month, Professional plan starting at $26.99 per month, or their Enterprise plan (custom pricing). Explore their pricing page to learn more.

DonorSearch: Top Charity Auction Software for Prospect Research

Not sure how to determine your guest list for your upcoming silent auction? DonorSearch can help. DonorSearch specializes in prospect research for major donors. Their software incorporates a combination of philanthropic and wealth databases to determine both an individual’s capacity and affinity to give.

Top Features

To determine the donors who are most likely to take part in your auction and place larger bids, leverage these key DonorSearch features:

• Largest philanthropic database: DonorSearch has data on your donors’ past charitable giving information, nonprofit involvement, business affiliations, real estate information, and more, helping you to pinpoint the donors who will make the biggest difference at your silent auction.
• AI capabilities: DonorSearch uses advanced machine learning to remove the veil around your donors’ behaviors. Through their predictive modeling tools, DonorSearch will provide you with fundraising predictions and recommendations about specific individuals to guide your cultivation and stewardship efforts.
• Data visualization: Using its suite of visual data representations, DonorSearch provides a complete picture of donor and prospect data. This way, your nonprofit can better understand your donor base’s giving potential and determine ways to move them along the donor journey to larger donations at your auction and beyond.

DonorSearch’s screening has a 90-100% accuracy rate, ensuring that you have the most accurate picture of your donors and can create a data-driven strategy to connect with prospective major donors.

Price

Request a demo to learn more about how DonorSearch can support your prospect research.

MarketSmart: Top Nonprofit Auction Software for Connecting with Major Donors

MarketSmart takes a data-driven approach to help you build stronger long-term relationships after events like silent auctions. Focused on major donor and legacy donor prospecting, their tools help you make the most of your auction efforts for years to come.

Top Features

MarketSmart offers the following intuitive features to foster connections with your top donors:

• Data analysis and outreach automation: Generate a 360-degree view of your big bidders, including their interests and how much they want to give. With these insights, you can dramatically strengthen your stewardship strategies and increase your chances of making successful asks down the line.
• AI-powered communications: Keep leads warm with automated and personalized email drip campaigns that sustain their interest.
• Proprietary scoring platform: MarketSmart ranks your donors so you can prioritize prospects most likely to make a major or legacy gift now or in the future.

Before any major fundraising event, MarketSmart can help you cultivate your relationships with more efficiency and less manual effort, saving time all around.

Price

Contact MarketSmart to learn more about their software and pricing.

Double the Donation: Top Nonprofit Auction Software for Matching Gifts

Matching gift programs are one of the most underutilized but easily obtained forms of corporate philanthropy. Double the Donation’s matching gift software allows donors and supporters to check their eligibility for a matched gift. Eligible supporters can ask for a match from their company for donations made during your silent auction.

Top Features

Double the Donation can help you accelerate your fundraising for your upcoming silent auction and beyond through the following tools:

• Auto submission: Allow eligible donors to get their gifts matched right from your donation page through auto submission. This makes it easier for your donors to play a more rewarding role in your organization and ensures that you’ll receive the support you need to power your mission.
• Data analytics: Receive real-time data summaries on what percentage of your gifts are matching gift eligible and what your biggest revenue opportunities are. This way, you can have a birds-eye view of how your fundraising efforts are performing and make adjustments as needed to boost your number of matching gifts.
• Automated emails: No need to manually remind your supporters about matching gifts! With Double the Donation, you can automatically send custom emails to match-eligible donors with matching gift forms and instructions.

Incorporating matching gifts into your silent auction strategy is a great way to double the revenue of the donations you receive and power more good in your community.

Price

Double the Donation offers a 360MatchPro Standard plan, starting at $2,500/year, and a 360MatchPro Enterprise plan, typically starting at $30,000/year. Visit Double the Donation’s pricing page for more details.

Cathexis Partners: Top Silent Auction Provider for Fundraising and Technology Consulting

Although they’re not a software provider, Cathexis Partners offers consulting services to support the technology selection and implementation process for your nonprofit’s next silent auction event. They’ve worked with over 1,000 nonprofits in North America, empowering them to handle their tech stack efficiently and impactfully.

Top Features

Here are a couple of the top services offered by Cathexis Partners:

• Software implementation: Cathexis Partners helps you select software that fits your nonprofit’s needs and set it up according to your organization’s requirements and preferences.
• Software support and training: This provider also offers support and training for using your new software effectively and troubleshooting any issues you encounter.

On top of software-specific services, Cathexis Partners also offers database management, website design, and online fundraising strategy.

Price

For pricing, contact Cathexis Partners to get a quote.

Virtuous: Top Silent Auction Software for Donor Management

If you want to leverage the data you collect during your auction, it’s important to invest in CRM software. Virtuous is a top nonprofit CRM that is easy to use and offers smart analytics that suggest next steps (e.g., who to contact and when). This way, you can get in touch with your donors after your silent auction and retain their support.

Top Features

Virtuous offers the following top-of-the-line features to organize and leverage your donor data:

• Email integration and marketing automation: Cultivate relationships with each auction event attendee by automating personalized communications with them and keeping them involved with your nonprofit beyond the event.
• 360-degree donor views: As part of their robust CRM, Virtuous will create donor profiles that you can monitor in a customized dashboard. Here, you’ll be able to view key supporter details like their preferred mode of communication, donation history, demographics, and more. Then, you can use this information as part of your stewardship efforts.
• Online giving tools: If you want to raise revenue before your silent auction, you can use Virtuous to create donation pages, track donations, and power off confirmation emails and receipts. This will help to improve the donation experience while giving supporters another way to give to your organization outside of bidding.

Virtuous makes it easy to stay connected with your supporters long after your silent auction is over. With high retention rates, you can develop a sustainable donation pipeline for your organization.

Price

Virtuous offers several different plans, including the Starter Plan (ideal for small nonprofits that have under 5,000 contacts), the Platform Plan (ideal for growing nonprofits that have between 5,000 and 30,000 contacts), and the Enterprise Plan (ideal for large nonprofits that have anywhere from 30,000 contacts to millions.) Explore the Virtuous pricing page to learn more.

DonorPerfect: Top Silent Auction Software for Fundraising Campaigns

DonorPerfect is your fundraising success partner. Over 50,000 nonprofit professionals trust its software to save time, raise money, and inspire donors. If you’re looking for a provider that will help you manage your donor data and fundraising campaigns in one place, this software is a great option.

Top Features

Here are a few of DonorPerfect’s top features:

• Donor profiles: Build familiarity with your loyal supporters with thorough profiles that include pictures, the number of years donated, lifetime giving total, and other metrics and indicators.
• Task management tools: Delegate, manage, and automate your day-to-day tasks with calendar reports, automatic assignments with due dates, and personalized pipelines of approaching deadlines.
• Reporting: DonorPerfect offers unlimited custom reports and 70+ standard reports showcasing essential metrics to ensure your team makes informed, data-driven decisions.

With DonorPerfect, managing tasks related to your fundraising campaigns and events will be easier than ever before.

Price

For pricing, contact DonorPerfect to get a quote.

DonorDock: Top Silent Auction Software for Donor Outreach

DonorDock is a CRM software solution that allows all of your data from your auctions to flow into one place, giving you more time to focus on building relationships with your attendees. From there, easily communicate with your attendees using personalized email templates, automated messaging, and more.

Top Features

DonorDock offers the following top features to make sending post-event communications to attendees a breeze:

• Prebuilt email templates: DonorDock takes the guesswork out of designing an effective email by offering a variety of templates to choose from to meet your different communication goals, from appeals and updates to newsletters.
• Automated thank-you messages: As soon as you receive donations, DonorDock will store this information in its database and power off automated, custom thank-you notes to your supporters as well as receipts acknowledging their contributions.
• Reporting and email analytics: Leverage DonorDock to check how your emails are performing at any time with insightful metrics and adjust your communications accordingly to better meet your supporters’ interests.

DonorDock also lets you create well-designed donation pages to collect revenue before, during, and after your silent auction. Plus, among its many integrations, DonorDock integrates with OneCause to provide a cohesive fundraising experience for you and your supporters.

Price

DonorDock offers a free plan with limited features, or a Lite plan ($79/month), Essentials plan ($119/month), and Professional plan ($239/month) depending on how many emails you plan to send and number of advanced tools you’ll need. See their pricing page to learn more.

Salesforce: Top Silent Auction Software for Data Collection

Salesforce is a top nonprofit CRM solution that allows you to cultivate life-long relationships with your supporters. Using their software for your auction, you can reach more guests, create stronger relationships with your supporters, engage your community, and streamline your internal processes.

Top Features

As one of the leading CRMs, Salesforce offers nonprofits like yours a variety of key features to better engage with donors:

• Unified view of your organization: Get a complete picture of how your nonprofit’s fundraising and marketing strategies are performing at any given moment, learn more about your supporters’ giving behaviors, and use these insights to power automated donation appeals.
• Donor-centric experiences: Salesforce helps you manage major donor relationships and use their past activity to guide your relationship-building. Plus, you can use source codes to track how individual appeals perform across different donor segments, messages, and channels. Then, make changes as needed so your appeals better resonate with supporters.
• Built-in customization: Customize Salesforce to meet all of your nonprofit’s individual needs, including a comprehensive view of every interaction you have with your auction guests. Then, use this knowledge to boost your outreach, improve your donor management, and organize your events with your audience in mind.

Salesforce offers the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), which gets organizations up and running on the platform by addressing the highest priority needs of nonprofits. Build deep relationships with your donors using a system built for nonprofits so you can keep up with your auction attendee data and spend the time where it matters most: raising funds for your mission.

Price

The Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack is free to adopt for most organizations. However, the implementation and customization process can become quite expensive. This option is recommended primarily for larger organizations. Try out a free 30-day trial to see if the NPSP is right for you.

Civic Champs: Best Silent Auction Software for Volunteer Management

Civic Champs provides the solution for recruiting, engaging, and retaining volunteers, ensuring you have the support you need for your upcoming event. Founded in 2019, this provider is dedicated to igniting volunteer service, strengthening nonprofits, and improving lives and communities. Now, they help nonprofits across 30+ states manage their volunteers.

Top Features

Civic Champs offers the following features to streamline the way your nonprofit interacts with volunteers:

• Manage volunteers: Access volunteer profiles with personal information and emergency contact information, track their activities and hours, and message volunteers to keep them connected.
• Schedule volunteers: Use participant, location, shift, role, and onboarding information to create volunteer events. Then, send out registration links for volunteers to sign up for opportunities online.
• Coordinate event volunteering: Allow volunteers to check in and out of volunteering events efficiently through the kiosk or mobile app, so you always know who’s on deck and ready to help out.

Plus, Civic Champs offers micro-donation features, which help your nonprofit raise funds from volunteers at the moment they’re inspired to give.

Price

Civic Champs offers a range of pricing options based on the number of active volunteers your nonprofit has each year. For 1-49 volunteers yearly, the price is $49 a month.

Bonfire: Top Charity Auction Software for Merchandise

Bonfire is a merchandise fundraising platform that helps organizations fundraise online and order custom printed materials directly. Specializing in t-shirts, Bonfire provides top-quality merchandise that you can brand to your organization and auction off during your event.

Top Features

Bonfire offers the following features to augment your auction fundraising strategy with merchandise sales:

• eCommerce storefront: Sell all of your merchandise in one designated hub that supporters can access on desktop or mobile. You can even add your branded colors and typography to your store so supporters can feel confident that they’re contributing to your nonprofit.
• User-friendly t-shirt design tools: Develop customized tees that feature your logo, color scheme, fonts, and other branded elements. Upload your own shirt designs or access Bonfire’s database of 500 free customizable t-shirt design templates.
• Peer-to-peer fundraising support: Want a way to bring in extra revenue before your silent auction? Ask loyal volunteers to design their own shirts and sell them in exchange for donations to your cause.

With Bonfire, you’ll be able to catch your supporters’ eyes with well-designed apparel that will serve two purposes: raising money for your organization and spreading awareness for your cause when individuals walk around wearing your merchandise!

Price

Bonfire comes up with a quote based on how much it costs to manufacture and print your custom tees. As a special perk for nonprofits, Bonfire will reduce your processing fees from 8% to 3.5%. Check out Bonfire’s pricing calculator to see what your shirts would cost your organization.

Mailchimp: Top Charity Auction Software for Email Marketing

Mailchimp is an email marketing platform that can help you market your silent auction. Use their all-in-one platform to target supporters who would be most likely to attend your event and make sure they receive the information they need, including how to register, recommended attire, and the event location or livestream link.

Top Features

Mailchimp has a number of features to streamline your email communications, including:

• Email builder: Leverage Mailchimp’s drag and drop editor to easily add headings, body text, images, videos, and more into a well-designed email format that will drive conversions.
• AI capabilities: Mailchimp’s AI tool analyzes thousands of data points at once about your supporters and then generates suggestions for crafting effective emails.
• Advanced analytics and reporting tools: Gain powerful insights into your email marketing strategy’s performance so you can make informed decisions about next steps.

Using Mailchimp, you can understand what your audience likes, collect data about your contacts, and turn this into action. Promote your auction across several channels, including email, social media, and more for the greatest impact.

Price

Mailchimp is free to start using to promote your silent auction. However, tiered paid packages offer more advanced features and support for larger organizations. See the Mailchimp pricing page to learn more.

GivingMail: Top Silent Auction Software for Direct Mail Marketing

When hosting a charity auction, reaching and engaging wide audiences is key to your success. GivingMail offers a range of direct mail marketing and fundraising tools for organizations of all shapes and sizes.

Top Features

GivingMail makes it easier than ever to engage with supporters offline through the following innovative features:

• Fundraising templates: GivingMail offers a number of templates to meet your nonprofit’s various needs, from making an annual appeal to a matching gift appeal. Access their ready-to-go fundraising packages and simply customize your copy and logo to add a branded touch.
• High-performing donor lists: If you’re a smaller nonprofit, you might not have a large enough support base to consistently perform well during your fundraising events and campaigns. Tap GivingMail’s vetted donor lists to acquire new supporters and earn more for your auction.
• Fast sending time: Once you submit your custom touches, GivingMail will take care of sending out your direct mail in as little as 10-14 business days.

Organizing and sending out direct mail can eat up way too much of your nonprofit’s time. Instead, work with a service like GivingMail to streamline your approach and watch the donations roll in.

Price

Schedule a meeting with GivingMail to learn more about their pricing and see what their software can do for your nonprofit.

KindKatch: Top Silent Auction Software for Audience Engagement

KindKatch is a video messaging solution designed to make managing your upcoming silent auction easier and amplify your donor engagement. With KindKatch, you can curate personalized videos and easily share them with your auction attendees to inspire giving.

Top Features

Generating high-quality and motivational videos is simple with these KindKatch features:

• Content database: Film highlights from events, such as your upcoming silent auction, and store this content in a designated hub. Repurpose this content in your marketing strategy and use it to encourage donors to sign up for future events and donate to your cause.
• Mobile app and desktop portal: KindKatch allows nonprofits to share videos from the KindKatch mobile app or desktop portal in just moments. Supporters will receive this content directly by email or text, keeping them tapped into your organization at all times.
• Customized landing pages and CTA buttons: With KindKatch, you can also create personalized landing pages with persuasive CTA buttons to drive actions like donating.

Consider using KindKatch to send off compelling fundraising videos that appeal to your donors in advance of your silent auction and encourage them to attend and give.

Price

KindKatch has multiple packages, including the Standard Pricing plan at $101/month that includes 2,500 MMS/SMS texts/month and 10,000 emails/month, the Pro Pricing at $254/month that includes 5,000 MMS/SMS texts/month and 25,000 emails/month, and the Enterprise plan (with custom pricing) that offers 7500+ MMS/SMS texts/month and 37,500+ emails/month. Visit the KindKatch pricing page to learn more about these options.

MemoryFox: Best Silent Auction Software for Storytelling and Video

MemoryFox is a top software solution for nonprofits whose goal is to bring their clients’ missions to life with powerful stories collected from their community. These stories make great features at any event, including your silent auctions, as they demonstrate the impact you’ve made on your supporters and beneficiaries. Assisting over 400 mission-driven organizations in collecting more than 100,000 videos, photos, and testimonials, MemoryFox is a valuable partner in the space.

Top Features

When you work with MemoryFox, you’ll access the following features:

• Guided content collection: Build branded campaigns and distribute them to your community. Supporters simply click the link to submit their pictures, videos, and written testimonials.
• Organized content bank: Store submissions in one centralized content bank, which you can pull from any time you need a story to feature in your marketing materials and events.
• Story-sharing tools: Turn your most compelling stories into visually appealing videos, social posts, and reports with MemoryFox’s video editor, story builder, and Canva integration.

This software provider also offers other professional services to aid your nonprofit’s event marketing efforts. MemoryFox helps you prepare your annual marketing campaigns, turns your stories into polished engagement drivers, and offers tailored training workshops.

Price

MemoryFox’s pricing is based on your nonprofit’s annual revenue, using your organization’s most recent 990 form. To discuss your options, set up a demo.

Silent Auction Software for Nonprofits: FAQ

Let’s go over some common frequently asked questions so you can confidently run your next silent auction with the right software.

What is silent auction software?

Silent auction software offers guests the ultimate auction experience. In general, using dedicated auction software that includes features to support mobile bidding, registration, and marketing will be the best option for your organization. One that integrates with your CRM will be even better!

Why use silent auction software?

Silent auction software tools are a necessity for charity auctions of any kind. The ability to bid from a smartphone has completely changed how silent auctions can be planned and managed. Plus, they provide huge fundraising benefits by keeping guests more engaged for the whole auction.

Who uses silent auction software?

Nonprofits of all shapes and sizes use silent auction software. To determine which tools are right for you, it’s important to look at your budget and your fundraising goals. Then you can determine what technology is important for your organization to have.

What are the benefits of using virtual event and auction software?

There are a few major benefits to building out your charity auction toolkit, including streamlined planning, a wider reach, simplified logistics, more engagement data, improved bidder experience, and increased revenue.

How to Build Your Silent Auction Software Toolkit

Choosing the right auction software for your nonprofit can make a huge difference for your events down the line. But if you’re new to planning silent or online auctions, how do you get started?

Here’s a quick guide to cover what an effective auction toolkit should contain, plus the features to look for long-term success.

Auction Technology Essentials

For any organization, there are a few foundational pieces of software that you’ll need to conduct a modern silent or virtual auction. These include:

• Auction software to plan and manage the event
• Mobile bidding tools to engage bidders and raise more money
• Registration software to secure attendees
• A CRM or database to store the data that your auction generates
• Marketing software to promote your event online

When building your first auction software toolkit, start by covering your bases. Without these essentials, planning, managing, and promoting your auction will become much more logistically complicated. The list of software providers above features tools that cover each of these categories, plus extras like prospect research and merchandising platforms that help you raise even more.

What to Look for in Silent Auction Software

Your silent auction software should have these essential features and characteristics:

• Cloud-based: For nonprofit events, mobility will be crucial! This is true for in-person and virtual auctions. Cloud-based software lets your team plan your event from anywhere, enhancing your efficiency.
• Virtual-friendly: Look for software providers that can support both in-person silent auctions and virtual events and campaigns for added flexibility.
• Nonprofit-specific: Software designed specifically to meet the needs of nonprofits will always be the better choice than generic platforms. More tailored features and support that understand the needs of fundraisers make for a more sustainable long-term investment.
• Customer support: Fundraising campaigns and charity auctions are complicated. Make sure your software providers offer the level of support you need.
• Scalable: Are you hosting just one auction, or are you planning to host more in the future? Your auction software should be able to grow along with your organization’s event strategies year after year.
• Compatibility: Beyond your mobile bidding and event management platform, it’s important to think about the actual auction packages, marketing, donor management, and other elements that are part of the mix. Make sure your different systems can sync with one another to avoid losing any data points.

For more information and tips on building your silent auction toolkit, check out our complete silent auction planning guide.

Get Started with OneCause

Engaging silent auctions need flexible fundraising software! The OneCause Fundraising Platform makes giving modern, flexible, and seamless to drive deeper engagement and grow your fundraising. Take a look at this versatile all-in-one fundraising software that meets the expectations of today’s donors, supporting any event, in-person, virtual, or hybrid.

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Silent Auction Software: Upgrading Your Tech Stack

There are many silent auction software options on the market. However, an all-in-one solution designed for nonprofits like yours will be your best bet at maximizing your chances of success and minimizing your workload. Look for a platform that meets your nonprofit’s specific needs and will advance your mission in the community.

Eager for more information about building your tech stack and running a seamless auction experience? Check out these additional resources below:

• 10 Nonprofit Fundraising Platforms to Inspire More Giving. The right fundraising platform will make it easy to host any event. Explore this list of top providers.
• 14 Top Fundraising Software Tools to Maximize Giving. Discover top solutions to boost revenue and strengthen donor relationships in this guide.
• 6 Essential Silent Auction Rules for Your Best Auction Yet. Brush up on the essential silent auction rules so your upcoming event adheres to best practices.