Please share with me any advice and tips for donating decorated cookies to my church dinner auction. I know it will be a certificate for placing an order, but from your experience, any do's or don'ts? I was wondering about samples, too. TIA!

I would have a sample plate of cookies to go with the G.C., let people see what you have to offer and also they have something to take home.

Hiya!
I have donated for my work activities committee to auction off actual cookies and once a certificate. The only advice I would give would be to make the certificate very specific, use by date, total dollar value or specific amount of cookies, your x day ordering time frame, what type, etc. The donation terms should be specifically marked. I did a display with cookies and certificate for people to view while deciding on if they wanted to bid. I used an acrylic sign stand for the certificate and cookies around it in a very festive display. Perhaps some small cookies in a tray in front of it to sample (mark those as a sample).
If you are game and the church doesn't mind, maybe a cookie at each setting for the diners... it would give them a chance to try it before bidding. But that could be time/money restrictive.

Hope this helps, we had a great time at ours and a lot of people were exposed to my cookies so it was not a bad deal.