Hey Nonprofits!

Most gala guests check out of the live auction the moment the opening bid hits $5,000. The sweep pulls them right back in. Benefit auctioneers Chad Carvey and Erin Kienzle break down the sweep: stopping a live auction lot at a pre-agreed price and selling it to every bidder still in. Both call it their “Oprah moment,” and it might be the most underused tactic at your gala. It works because it reac...

Same items, different order, different night, and a completely different result. World-class benefit auctioneer Chris Hensley sits down with Trevor for a masterclass on building a live auction lineup with intention, and why the order you sell in matters as much as the items themselves. Chris makes the case that your live auction isn’t really about the live auction. Only 20 percent of the room may...

The best fundraisers don’t ask for money. They make an offer. Benefit auctioneer, event fundraising consultant, and PledgePal founder Emily Quinn sits down with Trevor to break down the mindset and language shifts that help nonprofits raise more, and where the sector keeps getting in its own way. Emily’s central idea is simple and immediately usable: fundraising is never a yes or no question, it’s...

Your corporate partners can give you far more than a check. After 35 years in corporate B2B sales and marketing leadership, Dan Drucker (founder of Philanthropy Fuel) sits down with Trevor to break down what nonprofits miss about corporate partnerships, and why the opportunity is bigger than most teams realize. Dan draws a hard line between sponsorships and partnerships. A sponsorship is a one-tim...

Trevor Nelson and benefit auctioneer George Franco make the case for replacing stewardship with partnership. Calling a donor a steward puts the weight of your mission on their shoulders. Inviting them to partner puts you in it together. That one shift changes how your board reaches out, how your donors feel, and how much your gala raises. George spent 30+ years as a TV news reporter before becomin...

Your live auction is not stealing from your fund a need. Benefit auctioneer, coach, and game show host Seth Weiner (Your Rocktioneer, out of Atlanta) sits down with Trevor to take apart the myths and habits costing nonprofits money before, during, and after the event. Seth's whole approach starts on the front end. He shares the worksheet system he uses to work backwards from a fundraising goal...

Most nonprofits treat auction software as a checkout tool. Mo treats it as a donor intelligence system. She covers why mobile bidding isn't too hard for older donors, the auto-close setting almost nobody turns on, the text message that can sell out a raffle in two minutes, and the platform fees quietly costing you donors. Then the real goldmine: the losing bidders and fund-a-need gifts sitting...

The bid paddle has exactly one job: let the auctioneer identify the bidder number quickly and correctly. Get that right and it worked. Get it wrong, with cursive lettering, a busy background, or so many sponsor logos it looks like a NASCAR, and every other feature on it is wasted. In this episode, Xavier of Imprint Items sits down with Trevor to unpack the design decisions behind a paddle that act...

Most nonprofit revenue arrives restricted. Grants, endowments, and foundation gifts usually come earmarked for a specific use. Live auction income is the exception: it's unrestricted, which means it's the one line on your budget you can point at operations, staff salaries, or wherever the need is greatest. In this episode, Marty Murad of Murad Auctions unpacks the insight that stopped Trev...

Fundraising events don't plateau because the market got harder. They plateau because the organization goes quiet for twelve months and then asks for a table. In this episode of Hey Nonprofits!, Trevor sits down with Kat Leitner of Heron & Co. Design and Events (formerly Alora Events) to unpack what actually separates the galas raising seven figures from the ones stuck at the same number ye...

Most nonprofits chase a celebrity two months before their gala, email an agent, ask about money, and wonder why they get ghosted. Afam Onyema has spent 19 years doing the opposite. As CEO of the GEANCO Foundation, he has brought Oprah, Daniel Craig, Charize Theron, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Prince Harry and Meghan into the work of saving and transforming lives in Nigeria. In this episode he break...

Most nonprofits lose donors after the first gift and blame it on competition or a tight economy. It's usually neither. It's follow-up. Trevor Nelson sits down with philanthropic advisor Brittany Morrison to break down why donors give once and disappear, and the specific relationship moves that bring them back. From getting to know a donor before their balance sheet, to what to do the Monda...

Most nonprofits think they're over-marketing their gala. They're not even close. Laurie from Auctria joins Trevor to break down what she calls the 85-Asset Rule — the number of marketing pieces one of her top-performing event planners uses to promote a single fundraising night. And the trick isn't creating 85 things from scratch. It's building one core mission, one core message, on...

Every year it's the same fire drill - cold-calling local businesses, guessing at starting bids, and crossing your fingers that this year's silent auction table looks better than last year's. It doesn't have to be this way. In this 30 minute Summer Session, we'll be discussing: Why the "ask local businesses" playbook burns out your best volunteers - and what actually f...

Four nonprofits in a row told Jordan Agolli the same thing about their previous auctioneer: they felt like the person with the microphone cared more about themselves than the mission. Jordan, a benefit auctioneer and MC based out of Atlanta, joins Trevor to break down what he's hearing from organizations interviewing him, why the line between confidence and cockiness on stage is thinner than m...

Most fundraisers think of check-in as a hospitality problem. Livia Christensen and Chris O'Shea of C2 Auctions think it's a fundraising problem and they have the data to prove it. Livia and Chris manage guest lists and staff registration for some of the biggest galas in the country. Every event, they see the same pattern: the organizations that treat check-in as an afterthought lose donors...

Most fundraising events are planned like logistics problems. Rick Toone plans them like Hollywood shoots them. Rick spent 20 years in Los Angeles as an art director and lighting designer for A-list clients — Ridley Scott, David Fincher, over 50 Super Bowl commercials, an Emmy nomination, Whitney Houston's first lighting designer. Then he moved to Mexico, joined a nonprofit, and grew its gala f...

Most CEOs of nonprofits have opinions about boards. Christy Casey-Moore has a 100% give rate and a $1.2M gala to back hers up. Christy is the CEO of Heart Gift, a global nonprofit that brings children from other countries to the United States for life-saving heart surgeries they can't access at home. Ten years in, she joins Trevor to walk through what it actually takes to build a board that fu...

Most fundraising galas leave money on the table for reasons the people running them never see. Chris Hensley and Brett Higgins, two of the most in-demand fundraising auctioneers in the country, join Trevor to work through five of the sharpest questions raised at the recent Chicago Gala Playbook event. What separates the organizations that consistently overperform from the ones that stay stuck at l...

Most nonprofits spend months curating the perfect live auction lineup — and then assume their guests will figure it out when they get to the event. Claire Murad of Murad Auctions joins Trevor to make the case that this is leaving serious money on the table. With 26 years in the auction space, Claire breaks down what she calls the 6-touch rule: your guests need to see your live auction items at lea...

Most nonprofits have a storytelling problem they don't know they have. They've been so close to the mission for so long they can't see what's actually moving about it anymore. Lucas Hunt, president of Hunt Auctioneers, former literary agent, and one of the more thoughtful voices in the fundraising auctioneer world, joins Trevor to break down why the people running your organization...

Brittany Pilcher, Director of Development at Quest Inc., joins Trevor to walk through exactly how her team added a Golden Ticket Raffle to WineQuest , a $500,000 two-night gala in Orlando and sold out 100 tickets in 72 hours. Brittany doesn't sugarcoat the hesitation. She talks through why she almost didn't do it, the moment she decided to pull the trigger three weeks out, and how the raff...

Most fundraising problems aren't fundraising problems. They're board problems. Elise Woodworth — VMI alum, Air Force veteran, and author of Business Not Battle — joins Trevor to unpack why so many nonprofit boards stall out, and what to actually do about it. She came to this work through a back door (the VMI Foundation made her their first female and youngest-ever trustee), and her approac...

Most fundraisers treat events like the finish line. Kristen Bowles treats them like the starting point. In this episode, Trevor sits down with Kristen — a development pro who's worked across the YMCA, Boys & Girls Club, peer-to-peer fundraising, and now the National MS Society — to unpack why sponsorship sales isn't transactional. It's strategic matchmaking. We get into: Why "...

What if the timing of your "ask" is costing your nonprofit thousands? Matt Roben — the Kilted Auctioneer, former circus performer, and police officer turned fundraising auctioneer, joins Trevor to break down the neuroscience behind why people give, and why most galas are leaving money on the table by asking too late in the night. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:59 Introing Matt Roben 02:38 Unde...