A values auction is a fun activity for encouraging participants to identify and prioritize personal and/or group values.
Objective/s: Fun tool that facilitates, in a short time period, a group or individual's primary values; those that generate the most bidding are likely those most prized by participants; to verify this premise this activity is an effective lead-in to a participant ranking exercise.
Process:
- If the group is large, or you are facilitating for group values, ask participants to pair up
- Ask participants/pair to select their top five values from the displayed list or handout
- Advise participants they have a total of $100 to spend in the auction, and the most anyone can spend on a single value is also $100. Before the auction begins, give participants about 5 minutes to develop a bidding plan. (For example, participants have to decide if they will bid their whole $100 on just one value, or spread the money around. Do they wait for a 'prime' value to hit the auction block, or bid on everything? Do they open the bidding high on the values they have chosen, or start low?)
- Each value will be auctioned off, one at a time. The value will be awarded to the highest bidder.
- After the auction, if you have money left over, you can 'purchase shares' in other values, up to the maximum you have left
Resources:
To assist in this process, you may want to consider displaying a list of values (or attributes of a healthy community), for example: prosperity, nature, wisdom, morality, loyalty, diversity, culture, arts, community, family, friendliness, health, hope, justice, accessibility, pleasure, etc.