Pulse: Shake the Money Tree

There are myriad ways to raise funds for your cause. One of the most popular is through a live or silent auction. However, fundraising auctions run the gamut from wildly successful to terribly ineffective.

What makes the difference? That's what veteran fundraising auctioneer Richard O'Keef examines in his book "Shake the Money Tree: How to Produce a Winning Fundraising Event with a Live and Silent Auction." O'Keef, who graduated from the Missouri Auction School in 1992, produced his first fundraiser for a local Boy Scouts of America cake sale, "and despite being pretty green, we raised three times as much money as we did the year before," he says. "And I thought, 'Wow, this is good stuff.' So I decided to make my niche fundraising auctions."