Charity auctioneer · London

London charity auctioneer for galas and fundraising events

By Kevin DurhamFundraising strategy & live auctions

I work across London as a charity auctioneer and host, from the Park Lane ballrooms to the City livery halls and the museums. London is not simply a bigger version of a regional gala. It is a different market, and the auction has to be pitched differently because of it.

Check my availability Call 07596 851647

A live charity auction in full flow, the room bidding against each other.

In short

A London charity auctioneer plans the fundraising with you, then runs the live auction and pledge on the night.
London holds roughly 47 per cent of England’s voluntary income and 34 of the country’s 59 largest charities, so competition for a good date is real.
The rooms are the biggest in the country: 2,000 diners at Grosvenor House, 1,800 at Old Billingsgate, 636 in the Guildhall’s Great Hall.
London donors often have no local tie to the cause, so the connection has to be built in the room, on the night.
A fixed fee agreed in advance, never a percentage, with the auction software included.

Search “London charity auctioneer” and you will find a lot of pages that could be about anywhere. This one is not. I am Kevin Durham, a charity auctioneer of twenty years with over £10 million raised, and below is how I work in London, where the galas actually happen, and the causes you might be raising for.

Kevin Durham

Charity auctioneer & event host

20years£10m+raised60–80events/yr

Check availability 07596 851647

What does a London charity auctioneer actually do?

Reading the lots out is the last five per cent of it. The job is fundraising, and most of it happens before the night: choosing and sequencing a short list of strong lots rather than a catalogue of weak ones, building a live pledge into the running order, and making sure the room is warm and quiet at the moment the money is asked for. On the night I work the floor with a wireless microphone, not a podium, because the total follows the energy and the energy is in the room, not on the stage.

A volunteer host reads a catalogue. A professional runs a plan. That difference is the whole case for hiring one, and in London it usually pays for the fee several times over.

The difference a professional makes

Why does a professional out-raise a volunteer host?

£14kWhat Jigsaw Trust expected from their live auction

£27kWhat the live auction actually raised on the night

£30.6kRaised by a live pledge they had not even planned

0%Of your total taken as commission. A fixed fee, agreed up front

Those are real figures from a gala I called for Jigsaw Trust. The auction nearly doubled the target, and then the live pledge, run at the room’s emotional peak, brought in more than the auction did. That is the pattern almost every night follows, and it is why the live pledge matters more than the lots. A room raises more when someone has planned the ask, held the pace and kept the energy up. None of that is in a catalogue.

I never take a percentage of what you raise, which is the model most for-profit auction companies run on. My fee is agreed before the event, and the goal is a total that makes it look small.

What is the London fundraising scene like?

London is not the biggest version of a regional gala market, it is a different market. The sector data puts almost 25,000 voluntary organisations in the capital, accounting for roughly 47 per cent of all voluntary income in England and 34 of the 59 largest charities in the country. A great many of the UK’s biggest fundraising teams are commissioning their events from inside the M25, and they are competing with each other for the same few hundred people who buy tables.

That shows up in the size of the rooms and in what a single night can do. Grosvenor House seats 2,000 for a banquet, Old Billingsgate 1,800, and seven-figure evenings are routine rather than remarkable: London’s Air Ambulance raised £1.5 million at one gala, and Chain of Hope has cleared over £1.8 million at its ball. The City adds a parallel economy of corporate table-buying on top, with the Guildhall staging civic dinners since 1502. The practical consequence is competition rather than novelty. Your guests are often on their third or fourth black-tie fundraiser of the season.

In London the cause in the room usually has nothing to do with the room. There is no local hospital to lean on, so the connection has to be built from scratch on the night, for people who have already been asked three times this season.

A professional charity auctioneer working the floor during a live auction.

Where the galas happen

Where are charity galas held in London?

A few of the rooms in and around London that suit a black-tie fundraising night. These are the kinds of venue I work in, not a list of events I have run.

Grosvenor House

Park Lane

The Great Room seats up to 2,000, one of the largest event spaces in Europe.

The Dorchester

Park Lane

A 1930s Art Deco ballroom with its own Park Lane entrance, for the classic committee ball.

The Savoy

Strand

The Lancaster Ballroom, with a built-in stage that suits an awards-and-auction format.

Guildhall

City of London

The Great Hall seats 636 for dinner, the natural room for a City or livery fundraiser.

Old Billingsgate

Riverside, EC3

A Victorian market hall seating 1,800 for dinner, with a terrace facing Tower Bridge.

Banqueting House

Whitehall

Inigo Jones’s hall under a Rubens ceiling, for a small, high-ceremony evening.

The causes

Who might you be raising for in London?

A gala only works when the room believes in the cause. These are established London charities that run fundraising nights, and the kind of work a strong auction and pledge pays for.

Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity

Sells tables at £10,000 for ten at its Christmas gala, funding the hospital’s new Children’s Cancer Centre.

London’s Air Ambulance Charity

Raised £1.5 million in one night at its Black and White Gala, and £16 million to replace both helicopters.

Rays of Sunshine

Grants wishes for seriously ill children; its anniversary gala raised over £1 million with a live auction.

Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice

Runs a Winter Ball at The Dorchester with live and silent auctions.

The live pledge under way, the moment the biggest money of the night comes in.

How does a London auctioneer raise more on the night?

The shape of a big night is fairly consistent. Warm the room early, often with a quick game like heads or tails, so the first time people reach for their wallets is painless. Let dinner breathe. Run a tight live auction of genuinely strong lots. Then, at the warmest point of the evening, run a live pledge straight into the cause, with Gift Aid adding 25p to every eligible pound.

Everything is planned to a running order, and everyone bidding, in the room or on a phone, competes in the same lot at the same price through the auction software that comes with the booking. Charitable giving in the UK runs to roughly £14 billion a year; the job is to make sure a fair share of the goodwill already in your London room reaches the cause.

Here is Rachel Long, Head of Marketing and Communications at World Child Cancer, on the gala I hosted at The Hurlingham Club in London, and the difference a professional auctioneer made to the energy in the room and the amount raised.

World Child Cancer on hiring a charity auctioneer

What should you look for when you hire a London auctioneer?

A fixed fee, not a percentage of what you raise
Fundraising strategy before the night, not just a host on the day
A live pledge built into the running order
Real figures and references from past events
A written fundraising agreement, in line with the fundraising codes
Bidding software that treats room and online bids equally

How much does a London charity auctioneer cost?

A fixed fee, agreed before the event and never a percentage of what you raise. The fee reflects the planning as much as the night, and it should be made back many times over by a properly run auction and pledge. A written fundraising agreement comes as standard, as the Charities Act requires, and the auction software is included in the booking rather than sold on the side. You can read more on my fees page.

Questions

Common questions about hiring a London auctioneer

What makes a London gala different to sell to?

The donors often have no personal tie to the cause, and many are on their third or fourth black-tie night of the season. So the lots have to feel fresh and the ask has to build the connection from scratch, in the room. That is the job I am actually being hired to do here.

Can you work the big Park Lane and City rooms?

Yes. A 600-seat ballroom needs a different pace and a different microphone technique to a 120-seat dinner, and the running order has to allow for a room that size taking longer to settle. Tell me the venue and I will tell you honestly how I would shape the night.

Do you cover Greater London and the home counties?

Yes, central London and out across Greater London, plus Surrey, Berkshire, Essex, Kent and Hertfordshire. I work nationally, so travel is part of the fixed fee.

Sources and further reading

Venue capacities and charity figures are drawn from each organisation’s own pages and were correct when this page was written. Please confirm details with the venue or charity directly before you book.

No obligation

Bring this to your London event

Tell me about the evening, your room and your target, and I will give you an honest view of what a professional auctioneer and a live pledge could add.

Get in touch 07596 851647