The Nonprofit FAQ

What About Nonprofit Charity Auctions Online?

[This is a very old discussion of this topic. For more up-to-date services supporting charity auctions online, see http://www.biddingforgood.com, http://www.charityfolks.com, http://www.charityonlineauctions.com, etc. -- or for a compendium, try http://www.internetauctionlist.com. These sites have not been reviewed; they are listed here to show the range of possibilities. Some advice from the 1990s about using online auctions to raise funds for nonprofits is in the text below. &mdash Ed.) Bob Ellsworth wrote on September 29, 2001: If you want to have an auction where anyone can bid on the product, frankly you have to go with eBay -- http://www.ebay.com. I say that with such conviction because the only way to get the best bidding possible for your product is to have a large audience. In the real world, if only 10 people show up for an auction, the prices will always be low, but if 1000 people show up, there will be more opportunities for up-bids, etc. MissionFish -- http://www.missionfish.com -- and others have great charity solutions, but they have almost no consistent audience. Another idea is to have a virtual silent auction via a discussion board (like yahoo groups or something.) This would be easy to do and not require a significant investment in time or effort. Think about using email as a way to do this as well if possible. Of course, these last solutions only work for a members-only auction. Ian Shearer wrote to NPTalk on May 24, 1999, on the subject "Online Auction Model for Nonprofits": This is not so much about applying the online auction model to nonprofits as much as using the existing online auctions as a fundraising tool. Many nonprofits have used charity auctions as ways to raise money. One reason is that it is often much easier to get in kind donations of items rather than direct funds. An alternative to the physical charity auction is having an online auction using eBay or another online auction. Normally you go into eBay searching for a specific item or product. To hold an online charity auction you need to provide a web page which lists links to all the items raising money for your organization. A local foodbank here in Santa Cruz, CA (part of the Second Harvest network) is doing just that. There are probably already other sites doing this, but this is the first I've heard and it makes a lot of sense. Not only can you let your supporters and the community know about your auction, you can have people around the country and world bidding on your items. The downside of the online auction is that you don't have the gala event type thing, the direct community interaction, the kind of friendly competitive bidding among community leaders, and the opportunity to raise awareness. But in some instances the online auction probably holds a lot of potential, especially for smaller nonprofits. On Tue, 5 May 1998, someone asked in NONPROFIT: Has anyone seen a full-time NON-PROFIT auction site where I can buy computer goods? All these retail for-profit sites have cropped up in the past year or so (eg. http://www.onsale.com, http://www.ubid.com) but I haven't seen or heard about a CHARITY-based site doing the same thing. I'm not talking about one-off charity event sites. I'm talking about a *dedicated* site. Steve Braker of WORTHWHILE FILMS - video production for nonprofits - replied: This isn't *dedicated* to nonprofit purposes, You might want to look at eBay (http://www.ebay.com). I would guess it is the largest and best known auction site out there, and unlike some of the ones you mention, it is an auction system only and not a front-end for a sales operation. I have seen auctions on eBay which are identified as "charity" items, but it shouldn't really matter. The donor takes a deduction, your organization places the item in the online auction and gets the proceeds. Revised 6/5/98; 9/30/01; most of the early links no longer function 1/26/10 -- PB