Going ... Gone

Way back in 1984 I was a fairly new resident of Washington D.C., and a brand-new singer with a symphonic chorus known as the Oratorio Society of Washington (OSW) (now The Washington Chorus). Anxious to support my new organization, I attended their annual fund-raising auction, held in the gymnasium of a local college.

I bought two items and had to stand in line for over half-an-hour to check out. Volunteer cashiers were digging through recipe-card boxes of 3"x5" index cards and writing up invoices by hand. Payment was restricted to cash and check.

At the time, I was a student in computer science at American University, and was specializing in database theory. I stood back, looked at the process, and said, "There's got to be a better way."

The next week, I met with that year's auction chair and my long history in non-profit auction management began.

I spent much of the ensuing year meeting with OSW auction personnel, analyzing the process and writing a PC-based database management system.

For the next sixteen years, at least six months of each year were spent refining the system and preparing for the spring auction by entering data, printing all supporting documentation, working the night of the auction to enter all sales and generate invoices, and then debriefing a week or so later to determine what could be improved in future years.

The result of this sixteen years of activity is that I understand charity auctions inside and out. I understand the variables that go into determining how to minimize effort and maximize returns.

I have been given the opportunity to exercise my knowledge and expertise in preparing for next weekend's first annual auction hosted by The City Choir of Washington. I have been having a ball dredging up information from portions of my brain that have been ignored for a few years. My excitement has grown with each e-mail and conversation shared with my friend Kathryn. I thrill at the ability to share my knowledge with another organization.

I told Kathryn today I wish there was a way we could take our combined knowledge and turn our auction management skills into a business. Oh, what fun it would be to be able to do something I love for a living!