By GiveGrove• 7 min read • Published 2026
Restore Justice's luncheon lasted two hours. Stories of Transformation ran 11:30 to 1:30 on Friday, October 9, 2026, at The Peninsula Chicago, and most people in the room had to get back to work after. Somewhere in there, they were also bidding on everything from original paintings to 2027 White Sox tickets.
If you want a silent auction at a fundraising luncheon, the bidding can't live in the ballroom. Restore Justice ran theirs on GiveGrove for that one day, so guests looked through 22 items and bid from their phones instead of crowding around bid sheets in a room they'd be out of by early afternoon. The list mixed Chicago favorites with things you could only get from Restore Justice, and that mix is the part most worth borrowing.
Who is Restore Justice?
Restore Justice is a Chicago policy nonprofit working to undo extreme sentences in Illinois, mostly for people sentenced as kids or young adults. As they put it, the goal is to make Illinois a safer and more compassionate state by swapping out extreme sentencing laws for evidence-based ones.
The group started in 2015. Its founders were former Human Rights Watch staff, public defenders, family members of victims and of people in prison, and people who'd been in prison themselves. They helped pass the Youthful Parole Law, which gave Illinois its first new parole opportunities since 1978, when the state got rid of parole for release. They also hire people who spent more than 20 years in prison and train them to lead the policy work.
Stories of Transformation is their yearly luncheon. Last year's, on October 17, 2025, was their tenth anniversary, and they named Bernardine Dohrn Board Member Emerita. This year was about recent wins in Springfield and the people coming home from long sentences who now help shape policy. The auction ran alongside all of that.
What did Restore Justice put up for auction?
Restore Justice put 22 items up for bid, and six of them were art. The rest were things Chicago people already want: 2027 White Sox and Cubs tickets, seats at Steppenwolf, Writers Theatre and Hubbard Street Dance, a suite at The Peninsula (the hotel hosting the luncheon), dinners at Bub City and Miru, a farm-to-table dinner at Granor Farm in Three Oaks, Michigan, a custom dessert table, and a lunch and garden tour.
What made the list feel like Restore Justice were the items that came from inside the organization. Two bird photographs, an indigo bunting and a ruby-throated hummingbird, were by Jobi Cates, who founded Restore Justice and is now its Executive Director Emerita. The dinner at Shaw's Crab House came with Wendell, and another item paired a Restore Justice swag bundle with lunch. Author Jeanne Bishop offered a lunch, too. The other four art pieces came from Jeff Latham and Andre Lucas.
The Sox tickets and the Peninsula suite gave anyone in the room something to want, whatever brought them to the luncheon. The founder's photographs and the swag-and-lunch package did a different job. They gave longtime supporters something personal to bid on, and a reason to talk about the work while they did it.
How did the silent auction run during a two-hour luncheon?
Restore Justice used GiveGrove's mobile bidding, so the auction wasn't stuck on a table in the back. Guests pulled it up on their phones, scrolled through the items and bid without getting up.
That matters more at lunch than at a gala. Galas have a cocktail hour where people wander around. Lunch at a hotel is tight: people sit down, eat, listen and leave. With phone bidding, nobody had to pick between hearing the speaker and keeping an eye on their bid. Staff could watch bids come in on GiveGrove's real-time reporting and see which pieces were moving without walking the room. The timing tells the story. Guests placed 89 bids in all, and 25 of them came in before event day. The auction closed at 12:35, about an hour into the program, and 35 bids (close to 4 in 10) landed in the last 20 minutes. Some of that late action happened on its own: 18 bids were automatic max bids, where a guest sets the most they'll pay and the bid rises for them, and 10 of those kicked in during the final stretch.
How much did the Restore Justice silent auction raise?
Restore Justice sold 100% of the 22 items up for auction and raised an all-time high for their luncheon auction. Guests placed close to 100 bids from 50 different bidders. The dinner at Shaw's Crab House and a dinner-and-conversation package drew the highest bids, followed by the Peninsula suite, the Granor Farm dinner and the Cubs tickets.
This was Restore Justice's sixth luncheon on GiveGrove, and their auction has grown steadily over the years. We're glad to keep adding tools that help them make that happen.
Whatever the auction brought in goes toward the policy, advocacy training and research Restore Justice does the rest of the year.
How to run a silent auction at your own fundraising luncheon
Open bidding before the lunch, keep the list tight, and let people pay on their phones. You'll get maybe 20 minutes of real attention for the auction during a lunch, so most of the bidding has to happen before and after.
When should bidding open and close?
With GiveGrove, Restore Justice opened its auction early at no cost to the organization, set the close time, and then got to focus on marketing, the luncheon itself and everything else on their plate. If they wanted to check in during the week, the number of bids, bidders and the running bid total were right on their dashboard. Opening a few days early works for any luncheon. Put the link in the ticket confirmation or a reminder email, and people will browse at their desks. Someone who already has a bid in shows up with a reason to keep checking. For the close, you've got two choices. End it right after the program, while everyone's still there and the emcee can count it down. Or leave it open through the weekend for people who couldn't come or got pulled into a 2 p.m. meeting.
What items work best at a luncheon auction?
Mix what your city already wants with things only your organization can offer. Restore Justice's list is a good model: sports tickets, theater seats and a hotel suite for everybody, plus the founder's photographs and a swag-and-lunch package for people who already love the work. Every item needs a description that sells it. For the personal ones especially, say who's behind it and why it's in your auction, the way you'd explain it to someone sitting next to you.
How should you price artwork for a silent auction?
Start low enough that the first bid feels easy, often between a third and half of what you think the piece is worth, and pick increments that keep things moving. If the artist hasn't sold work before, talk with them about a fair value and the lowest price they're OK with before you list it. At Restore Justice, 14 of the 22 items opened in that range, and two bird photos sold for five times their opening bid.
In GiveGrove you set the starting bid and increment for each item when you build the auction. This year Restore Justice raised its increments to $50 on most items and $100 on a few bigger packages, up from $25 on most items last year. The organization doesn't have to handle payments at all. Guests confirm their payment information when they bid, so winners are charged automatically and get a receipt and an alert that they've won. Nobody's stuck in a checkout line when they need to get back to the office, and staff have nothing new to manage.
Planning a luncheon or a daytime event for spring 2027? The GiveGrove team can walk you through setting up the auction.
Frequently asked questions
Can you hold a silent auction at a lunch event?
Yes. A silent auction at a fundraising luncheon works if people bid on their phones and bidding opens before the event. Paper bid sheets don't do well at lunch because guests are sitting through most of a short program.
How long should a silent auction run at a luncheon?
Open it a few days ahead and close it right after the program, or a day or two later. Two hours in the room isn't enough to carry a whole auction, so early bidding does most of the work.
What items sell well at a nonprofit silent auction?
Local experiences people already want, like sports tickets, theater seats and restaurant dinners, give every guest a reason to bid. Items tied to the organization itself, like artwork, a meal with staff or the founder's own photography, give supporters something personal. Restore Justice's 2026 luncheon auction in Chicago had 22 items that mixed both.
Do guests need to download an app to bid on GiveGrove?
No. Guests open the auction page on their phone and bid in the browser.
Thanks for trusting GiveGrove with your fundraisers!
The GiveGrove Team 🍋
A Code Works company
GiveGrove makes events and auctions for fundraising easy. Email info@givegrove.com for more info. Click here to sign up for our mailing list.
