Online auctions – outsourced and in-house
Howard Lake | 1 April 2003 | News
Online auctions are still proving popular methods of online fundraising, and charities are using both in-house and external solutions to run them.
Beaumont Hospital Foundation in Ireland is holding a signed sporting memorabilia auction with items from the world of soccer, rugby, Formula 1, horse racing, and golf. The online auction will take place in the run up to the Foundation’s 8th Annual Ball which, on 26 April 2003, will feature the lots as part of an auction on the night.
BHF use an in-house auction facility, integrated into their Web site by agency 54 Degrees who were also responsible for the original site design. The agency also helped BHF promote the auction with press releases, posting to relevant online message boards and notification to the BHF e-mail list with a request to pass the word on to friends. They also encouraged sporting Web sites and mailing lists to carry text and banner ad links to the auction.
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54 Degrees say that the “benefits from running the auction on the Beaumont Hospital Web Site include the revenue generated, increased traffic and awareness of BHF, growth in e-mail list, conversion of auction bidders into event participants and donors.”
BHF have been running online donations since 2002 and confirm that it generates income internationally. “We get bids in from Hong Kong, the US and other countries for items,” says Kevin Kent, Marketing Co-ordinator at BHF.
Meanwhile, in the UK WSPA will be holding a celebrity bear online auction during May 2003 as part of its Libearty campaign to save the world’s bears. They’ve chosen the outsourcing route and are working with online auction company eBay.co.uk. The WSPA auction will include teddy bears donated by Cherie Blair, Dame Judi Dench, Sir Alex Ferguson, Robert Lyndsay, Martin Shaw, Ken Livingstone, and Chris Tarrant.
Visit the BHF auction and the WSPA auction.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.