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The auctioneer is a big part of it. I have been at auctions where they would not feed people until the bids came in. A good auctioneer will work the room and name names and TELL people to bid.
I DON'T believe you are obliged to do it, the auctioneer should have known to say, NO SALE if the bid did not come in.
One of my first requirement of doing anything for charity is to PLUG MY EARS and never look at the bids. I do only certificates for small paintings and some never come back... some have bidding wars! It all is dependent on the mood of the group and MY salesmanship.
As a participant in the auction part, I am there to pass out information and recruit. The two live auctions I did participate in BOTH had me there as a participant, either photographing (these were pet charities) the potential clients and/or working on a different piece in progress. That let them KNOW what I would do and how it would be done. Because one was a pet rescue with a lot of active patrons and the other was a specialty dog group the auction was run by a very vocal well known MEMBER of the charity. I was actually amazed that the pricing went so high!
BUT... I would do the piece for whatever I got if I believed in the charity. IF you have a minimum bid, the charity is the one responsible for getting you that price. PERHAPS you could have the charity call the winner and explain that their error was not your problem and offer to do a smaller piece or perhaps a charcoal for the price.
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