Kid’s Bidding Pool

To help our young adults and kids have a greater participation and experience in the “bidding” process we use the following approach.

Each individual, prior to the auction decides how much money they will be spending or donating to the winning charity – unless they spend more during the bidding.

In the beginning of the evening the “Money person” (we call him the Accountant) collects information from everyone on an individual basis – how much they plan to contribute and if they want to share some money with the Kid’s Bidding Pool.…. “Yes, of my $200 contribution tonight I’d like to donate $50 to the Kid’s Bidding Pool”.

By the time we are ready to start the auction the Accountant knows roughly how much money we will be making this evening (excluding raffle ticket sales and any over spenders). He also knows how much has been given to the Kid’s Bidding Pool.

The purpose of this pool is to increase the amount that the younger group of adults and kids will have available to them to bid. Older adults, parents and grand-parents outbid the younger group. We’re looking for fun and entertaining bidding “wars” rather than “serious” event. The pool keeps the monetary playing field more equal for everyone, old and young alike.

All the money has already been committed in the beginning of the evening, so it now becomes more like play money. The Pool is divided up equally between all young adults and kids. Just before we start the auction the Accountant tells each individual roughly how much money they have available to spend without having to pay any extra money at the end of the night.

 

At the end of the evening

At the end of the evening all the information is tallied up. This includes starting bid value, how much each item sold for and who bought the item.

The starting bid value is defined by the item giver and is considered a fair market value price. The value the item sells for goes against whoever bought it and their available evening contributions. We also use these two measures to create a reason to celebrate the evenings “highest percentage gained trophy”(sold for value over fair market value).