The Everything Auction

If you run a symphony orchestra, a museum of fine arts, a municipal opera company or a repertory theater group, you have a problem: fund raising. An increasingly popular three-step solution, is to: 1) gang up with all the other local cultural organizations under one catchy acronym, 2) persuade people and companies to donate tax-deductible goods and services -- the more wildly improbable the better, and 3) auction them off at a fancy benefit party, making sure that there is plenty to drink to keep the bidding spirited.

By-Passed Nudists. The idea began in Seattle. In 1963, Philanthropist Paul Friedlander united the city's various cultural fund-raising operations under the name PONCHO (Patrons of Northwest Culture Organizations), then raised $111,000 by auctioning off animals, art, jewelry and a caboose. Seattle's PONCHO auction has become an annual affair (this year's net: $171,550), and Friedlander on his own time and money has traveled the country advising other cit ies how to do it.

Last year San Diego's COMBO (Combined Arts of San Diego) raised $250,000 auctioning off such items as a new house, an African safari and a ride in the Goodyear blimp; nobody bid on the two-week vacation in a nudist colony. Orlando's (Fla.) PESO (Participation Enriches Science, Music and Art Organizations), which raised $162,000 at its auction last year, had no trouble disposing of 50 tons of orange-grove fertilizer and a $2,500 orange-grove sprayer. And in Phoenix this year, such items as hernia and cataract operations, stud service by a registered Appaloosa stallion, and an old covered wagon (donated by Barry Goldwater) brought in $246,000 to COMPAS (Combined Metropolitan Phoenix Arts).

Dinner with Danny Kaye. Last week St. Louis had its turn. The Arts and Educational Council of Greater St. Louis may lack an acronym (AECOGSL being plainly impossible), but the council, representing nine different cultural and educational organizations, put on the most imaginative auction to date. The scene was a basement cafeteria in the new Monsanto Co. headquarters designed by Vincent Kling; the basement's rugged concrete walls were turned into a castle keep by the addition of bright banners, shields and coats of arms. The theme of the auction was Camelot. Up for bids were dozens of items calculated to tempt the fantasies of the 800 patrons, who paid $50 a ticket to get into the black-tie affair.

"Look, my wife is pregnant and we're adding a new wing to the house," explained Music Fan Robert Orchard, president of a large printing company, after he and a friend won the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for one performance with a bid of $3,100. "I'm going to wrap it all up--have a birthday party for the baby, an open house for the new wing, and I'm going to conduct Happy Birthday." Mrs. Robert Wolfson paid $2,000 for a walk-on part in the TV series, Mission Imposible; St. Louis Globe-Democrat Publisher G. Duncan Bauman bid $2,500 for a Chinese dinner with and by Danny Kaye; and others fought over a chance to play tennis with Jack Kramer, to write a bylined 500-word article for the Globe-Democrat, or attend the Inaugural Ball.

Immortality as a Flower. Everything went. Mrs. Alfonso J. Cervantes, wife of the St. Louis mayor, happily bid $750 for half a ton of bacon, explaining that she has six boys and a Mexican exchange student all living in her house. "I really don't know how much bacon 1,000 Ibs. is," she admitted. "But I do know that we use six or seven pounds a week." Costliest item was a new house, valued at $64,900 and sold for $55,000 to Chester Volkman, a contractor, who mused: "Maybe my daughter will want it."

Even 50 Ibs. of llama manure from the zoo found a taker. Mrs. Walter Ross paid $150 for it and intends to use it in the sunken garden she is growing. "I'm taking their word for it that it's good fertilizer," she says. "It should be, at $3 a pound." As pleased as any was Mrs. Allen Portnoy, who bid for immortality as a flower: the Missouri Botanical Garden will name its next discovery after her. Said her husband, writing out a $200 check, "My wife said she always wanted to be a philodendron." Happiest of all was Council President Homer E. Sayad, who totted up the bids, found the auction had netted the council $180,000. "Much more fun," said he, "than just asking people for money."

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