How to source charity auction lots without losing money to commission

TL;DR

• Charity auction lots come from three places: your own network, corporate sponsors, and third-party suppliers who take a commission.
• Sourcing auction lots in-house, guided by an experienced auctioneer, keeps significantly more funds with the charity than using commission-based lot suppliers.
• Experience-based lots (private dinners, behind-the-scenes access, signature skills) often outsell physical items and cost the charity nothing to source.
• Gift Aid rules affect how a lot should be valued and priced, so it pays to get this right before the night, not after.
• A simple sourcing checklist, run three months out, beats a scramble in the final fortnight.

Where your auction lots come from has a direct effect on what your charity actually keeps. Get the sourcing wrong and a third-party supplier’s commission quietly eats into money that should have gone to your cause. Here is how to source charity auction lots properly, and what to watch for.

Where do charity auction lots actually come from?

Charity auction lots come from three main sources: your own network of trustees, staff, and supporters, corporate sponsors and local businesses, and commercial lot suppliers who provide packaged items in exchange for a cut of the sale price.

Most charities default to the third option because it feels like the path of least resistance. Someone sends a catalogue, you pick a holiday package or a hamper, and it turns up ready to auction. It also means a slice of every winning bid leaves the charity before it even reaches your accounts.

A healthy lot list usually leans heavily on the first two sources, with third-party suppliers reserved for the small handful of items nobody in your network could realistically provide. When the balance tips the other way, the auction starts to feel less like a fundraiser and more like a shop window, and your bottom line quietly pays for it.

What’s wrong with commission-based lot suppliers?

Commission-based lot suppliers reduce what your charity keeps from every lot they provide, typically taking a percentage of the final sale price off the top. On a night where every pound is meant to go toward your cause, that is money guests believe they are donating that never actually gets there.

This is not to say every third-party supplier is worth avoiding. High-value experiences that genuinely cannot be sourced any other way, like certain travel packages, sometimes justify the arrangement. But as a default option for every lot on your list, commission suppliers should be the exception, not the rule.

Run the numbers on a single lot and the gap becomes obvious. A holiday package that sells for £2,000 through a commission supplier taking a standard cut can hand back several hundred pounds less to the charity than the same lot sourced directly from a hotel or travel contact willing to donate outright. Multiply that across ten or fifteen lots on a catalogue and the difference between a good night and a great one often comes down to where the items came from, not how well the bidding went.

How do you source auction lots in-house?

You source auction lots in-house by asking directly, systematically, and early: trustees and major donors for high-value items, local businesses for products and services, and your own community for experiences only your organisation could offer.

A structured approach beats a scattergun one. Build a simple wishlist first, based on what you know your audience will bid competitively on, then work through your network methodically:

1. Trustees and board members. They often have access to items or contacts that never occur to staff, from a holiday property to a well-connected friend willing to donate their time.
2. Corporate sponsors and local businesses. A restaurant, hotel, or retailer is frequently happy to donate in exchange for a mention on the night, a line in the programme, or simply the goodwill of supporting a cause their customers care about.
3. Supporters with a skill or connection. A guest who can offer a private cookery lesson, a round of golf with a local pro, or a behind-the-scenes tour costs nothing and often outsells a bought item.

Ask each source with a specific request, not a vague appeal. “Would you donate a two-night stay for six” gets a far better response than a general email asking if anyone has anything to give.

What makes an experience-based lot better than a physical item?

An experience lot in action: a private jet

An experience-based lot often sells for more than a physical item because it offers something guests cannot simply buy elsewhere at any price. A private dinner with a well-known supporter, a behind-the-scenes studio visit, or a signed piece tied to a personal story creates emotional pull that a hamper or voucher rarely matches.

Experience lots also cost the charity nothing to source. There is no wholesale price, no shipping, no unsold stock sitting in a cupboard afterward. The only investment is the ask itself.

I have advised charities on this exact shift for years: moving even a third of their lot list from bought items to experiences noticeably lifts the final total, without adding a penny of cost.

The lots that perform best usually involve access guests cannot buy anywhere else: time with someone they admire, a place they cannot normally visit, or a skill they would love to learn from the person offering it. Physical items still have a role, particularly for guests who prefer something tangible to take home, but they should not be the whole catalogue.

Do Gift Aid rules affect how you source and price lots?

Yes. How a lot is valued determines whether any part of the winning bid can be treated as a Gift Aid donation, so it is worth getting this right before pricing anything.

For items with a normal retail price, the Gift Aid benefit is the retail price, not the final hammer price. If a bid genuinely exceeds that value, the overage can sometimes count as a donation, but only if the item could have been bought separately and the bidder knew its value at the time. Services that are not normally sold at all, including most experience lots, are valued at the full bid amount, meaning no portion is Gift Aid eligible.

This is a detail worth confirming with your charity’s own finance guidance before the night, not something to work out afterward when a donor asks for a Gift Aid receipt you cannot legitimately provide.

How I guide charities through lot sourcing

Silent auction guidance is one of the services I offer alongside running the live auction itself: in-house consultation that helps organisations source lots and select the right approach, structured specifically to keep more of the funds with the charity by avoiding third-party providers.

Most organisers do not need a commercial supplier. They need a clear plan, a deadline for each source of lots, and someone who has seen which items actually perform on the night versus which ones look good on paper and sell for far less than expected.

Common lot-sourcing mistakes that cost charities money

• Leaving sourcing until the final month. The best lots take weeks of relationship building, not days.
• Overloading the catalogue. A long list of mediocre lots dilutes attention away from the handful that could raise real money.
• Undervaluing experience lots. Skills-based and access-based lots are frequently priced too low because they feel intangible next to a physical item.
• Ignoring Gift Aid at the pricing stage. Sorting valuation after the event creates paperwork problems that are entirely avoidable.
• Defaulting to a commission supplier out of habit. It is the easiest option, not the best one for your bottom line.
• Not confirming a reserve or minimum bid with the donor. A misunderstanding here can be awkward on the night, and easy to avoid with a five-minute conversation in advance.
• Forgetting to thank donors publicly. A supplier or supporter who feels genuinely valued is far more likely to donate again next year.

A simple lot-sourcing checklist to get started

Start roughly three months before your event. Build a wishlist of 15 to 20 lots based on what your specific audience responds to, then split the list across trustees, corporate contacts, and supporter experiences before you ever consider a paid supplier.

Set a soft deadline six weeks out to review what has come in, so there is still time to chase gaps, and a hard deadline two weeks before the event so descriptions, photography, and any print materials can be finalised without a last-minute scramble.

Before anything goes into the auction ideas for the evening, confirm which lots belong in the live auction and which suit a silent auction instead. Getting that split right matters as much as the lots themselves: your three or four strongest lots deserve the live auction and a skilled auctioneer building competitive bidding, while a longer tail of smaller items can perform perfectly well running quietly in the background.

If you want a second pair of eyes on your list before it goes anywhere near a spreadsheet, this is exactly the kind of planning I help charities with ahead of the night, alongside advice on which auction items are worth chasing hardest.