Art Charity Auctions: An Artist View

Your non profit has decided an auction would be the perfect way of raising funds, perhaps you are tying it in with another event perhaps not but if you are asking local or non local artists or craft people for their work for your auction you need to to look at it from their point of view.

Firstly, an artist is never short on people wanting their work or time for free. I'm a potter, I am asked often for a donation of ware or asked for free lessons for one group or the other. I have to be choosy or I would not have any left to make a living from. I already have favorite charities that I deal with, I already have causes that are close to my heart.

Secondly, most non-profit's approach to me really needs work. Most asking for work tell me about how much exposure I will gain from a donation and feature at their event. I have got to ask...Does your organization have hard data on that? Never has a donation of items ever resulted in sales for me. I've yet to meet an artist that has told me donations bring lots of sales.

Thirdly, give me info. I have had emails from organizations I have never heard of asking for items. These are usually non local, give me no details about their cause, no website to tell me about them. Just a request for stuff...shipped to them on my dime. The answer is of course is no. If I was to give any advice on where to find artists willing to donate I'd say start locally. Also come armed with info about your cause, brochures, website, past events, photos...whatever...but give some info on who you are.

Lastly, do I know you. I remember hearing a story about a shoe store owner being approached by someone asking for a donation from his store. The store owner looked down at the requester's shoed feet and asked...Did you buy those here? The same goes for artists, artists are much more willing to support an organization whose members support the artist. If the first time I have ever met the person standing in front of me asking for a bowl is the first time I have ever met that person the likelihood of me donating goes down by 90%

Artists and crafters have a special relationship with their 'merchandise,' it is part of their heart and directly from their hand. They are usually a one or two person operation. Donating something could be quite a chunk out of a week's income as they only have so much time to make things and when that time is spent making work for your cause there is less time available to make work to feed their families.

Many artist's income is pretty close to the bone. Yes you see them at the the shows and galleries and see the nice price they ask for their items but how many paintings, pots or necklaces can the artist make in a week and how many do they sell. Btw those fee associated with shows and galleries could be as high as 50% so the price you see on the item is not the $ the artists receives. The stereotype of 'starving artist' is often times a true one.

An item could have hours invested into it. A recent discussion with a quilter revealed that a lovely quilt be displayed and not for sale had 500 hours invested in it. She had been asked to sell it multiple time, she said she couldn't afford to as the offers for the quilt never matched the labor involved. She had also been asked to donate a similar quilt for a charity, while she was willing to donate a small machine sewn quilt she could not afford to donate a hand stitched quilt that would take 500 hours to complete. That's about 3 months worth of work. An artist can only write off the materials associated with making an item not the time and labor making it on their taxes so this is very hot topic.

So know what you are asking for before you ask. I would find someone asking for 3 months of my time a little off putting. And being asked for a time heavy object when the requester does not understand the time involved in the making makes my artist's heart hurt.

As I said before most artists already have causes that they support. But even if I want to support a cause I can't support a charity event that will negatively impact my business. Recently I was asked to donate a couple of bowls to a charity. I was kinda put on the spot by my boss and kinda had to say yes. So a couple of bowls were donated. Sadly I quickly regretted my hasty decision. My bowls were to be devalued.

Although I support the charity involved, the event I learned was planning to start the auction with low bids. Instead of asking the bidders to bid high in support of the charity they were going to market it as a chance to get a 'bargain' I never want my heart made work associated with the word 'bargain.' Bargains are for mass produced and second hand ware not hand made, heart felt creations. Sadly it is not likely I will be donating anymore pottery to any future events for this charity. The 'bargain' drives the value of my work down. Why would my customer pay full price for the milk when they can buy reduced priced milk from some one that got the cow for free.

In the past I have dealt with charities that value handmade creations and their auctions start at near the value of the item so it does not devalue the artist's work. Its a win win for both artist and charity, the artist's ware is valued and the charity get more $.