Last month my brother sent me a link to Seth Godin's blog. Seth had written an article about charity auctions and announced a new auction software platform he was testing. Seth's desire to create some software for the nonprofit industry stemmed from observing under-performing charity auctions. In his opinion, guests expect to score a deal on their purchases, and that's the exact opposite of what charities want guests to do. To shift the auction into one with more generosity built into it, ... Read On >
Technology
List of fundraising auction software vendors
If you're looking to buy fundraising auction software, here's a list of current vendors. Software is helpful for managing and tracking ticket sales and sponsorships, organizing silent auction and live auction donations and packages, tracking fund a need / paddle raise donations, and more. And if you want to offer mobile bidding, I think nearly all of these vendors now offer that as a feature, too. Larger organizations then dump the data from their auction software into their CRM or donor ... Read On >
ChatGPT for auction planning
Today I participated in an educational panel focused on event planning for associations. One of the participant questions was about ChatGPT. She wanted to know if and how anyone was using it. "What is ChatGPT?" was one of the first comments back. ChatGPT is not really an "auction tool" or an "event tool," though it certainly can be used for both. I find it creepy, so I've been avoiding publishing anything about it. But with her posed question, I suspect others might also be wondering ... Read On >
Conducting a phygital NFT auction
If you work for a nonprofit and an NFT is donated to your charity for the annual auction gala, you might find this video of interest. Back in May 2022, I was part of a "first." According to its organizers, the event I share in this video was the first — or certainly one of the first – phygital NFT auctions in the world. (Phygital = physical + digital) I am not a Web3 or NFT expert. This becomes abundantly clear as I stumble through describing basic NFT terms. Nonetheless, I hope this gives ... Read On >
Three memorable ways to thank auction donors
Though I have talked before about the need to thank auction donors, I don't recall ever sharing these three tools, which make the "thank" pretty darn memorable. Video resources Text tools Phone ideas This video was shot, edited, and uploaded at the airport, so the sound isn't ideal but the content is solid. https://youtu.be/hYG2PyT0Y5g ... Read On >