The NonProfit Times - August 15, 2008 - (Page 20) Unique Items Drive Fundraising Auctions Travel and celebrities do well with donors and bidders BY MARK HRYWNA n autographed copy of the speech by Barack Obama after his victory in the Iowa caucuses; two torn, plastic Wal-Mart bags; Stephen Hawking in zero gravity. Even “Carnac The Magnificent” might have been stumped by the answer: Name three items sold by nonprofits via online auctions. With an estimated $16 billion a year being spent during online auctions, there is no shortage of wacky stuff you can find. But what items are nonprofits (or their supporters) using best to raise money for their charity? Sports tickets and sports memorabilia have a proven track record when it comes to online auctions.The New England Aquarium in Boston got a hold of tickets to this year’s Super Bowl three days before the big game.The tickets were posted on Thursday morning, with bidding reaching $4,200 by noon that day,before someone used the Buy Now feature and purchased them for $8,000. “You can’t do that in a room, because the event might not be for another few months,” said Jon Carson, CEO of cMarket, an online auction company in Cambridge, Mass. Tickets to opening day at Fenway Park in Boston were going for about $900 on cMarket a month before the game. Boston Red Sox World Series tickets were also big last fall. Lance Armstrong’s autographed yellow jersey from the 2003 Tour de France raked in $36,000 for the Pan Mass Challenge. Sports memorabilia is a big seller, particularly among men, but items linked to a celebrity also bring in their fair share. Just ask Oxfam America, which is fortunate to have actress Scarlett Johansson as a supporter. With a little effort, she could be good for raising six figures for the charity by herself this year. Two tickets to be Johansson’s guest to the premiere of her movie He’s Just Not That Into You, reached $8,200 after its first day on eBay before surpassing $40,000 via 170 bids. Autographed DVDs of Johansson films Lost In Translation and Girl With The Pearl Earring fetched around $500 a piece. An auction to benefit Memphis-based St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital featured UGG boots signed by a number of celebrities: actor Matthew McConaughey, which after 99 bids sold for $9,278; actress Liv Tyler, $7,720; and Martha Stewart, $3,000. after winning the Iowa caucuses in January. Bidding started at $1,000 and the speech sold for $2,600 after nine bids. One Edmund Burke parent -- a photographer for U.S. News & World Report -- offered up his award-winning photo of President George W. Bush on a trip to Africa five years ago.“It was one of those unscripted moments with Bush looking sort of toward the camera, and in the background are several amorous elephants,” their professional services, such as massage therapists, as well as bonus travel miles or a weekend at vacation homes. “Restaurants and trips are our best items because they’re so usable,” Comins said. Online auctions allow the school to open its events to donors beyond students’ parents, to grandparents or alumni who don’t live in the area. “We’re definitely seeing activity outside the parent community.” Travel to Europe has been very hot, given the Euro to dollar exchange rates. “There is great demand for travel auctions for charities in the U.K. Auctions are a major fund raising strategy in the U.K. and since trips are priced in dollars they’re enormously attractive in England,” said Stuart Paskow, president of North Miami, Fla.-based Mitch-Stuart Inc., which arranges fundraising-related travel. The fundraising U.K.-to-U.S. travel has been so brisk the firm recently opened a London office, Paskow said. DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS In general, the number-one selling category in cMarket auctions is dining, Carson said. He advises nonprofits to “build your catalog around the mindset that you have two demographic audiences…and they want two different things.” While women make up most of the bidders (about 75 percent), males generally are responsible for the largest bids. For women, the main item is dining, while for men it’s sports tickets and memorabilia. The big money might be in travel, sports and entertainment but the volume is in dining, Carson said, because restaurants are much more amendable to donating a $150 gift certificate. The spring season for auctions generally starts in the third week of March and continues until the second or third week Actress Scarlett Johansson has been responsible for raising quite a bit of money for Oxfam America. While autographed DVDs have gone for $500 or more, two tickets to be her guest at an upcoming movie premiere went for $40,000. Likewise, political memorabilia can bring in the bucks, and organizations based in Washington, D.C., in particular could find an audience outside of their circle of supporters. The Edmund Burke School in Washington, D.C., approaches parents to donate anything they have that might be of potential value in an auction. For an auction that closed in March, the school received an autographed copy of the original speech that Democrat Barack Obama made said Claudia Comins, director of development and alumni affairs. The photo sold for $250. The auction, which has been held the past seven years to raise money for financial aid for students, usually generates about $80,000 to $90,000, according to Comins. The highest-selling items tend to be trips, such as a cruise that went for about $6,000 while other trips generally average about $3,500. Some parents offer GET AN EMAIL ADDRESS, GENERATE INCOME Continued from page 19 Approximately 3 percent of monthly unique visitors provided their email addresses to the organization through registering for email updates or taking some other action online. The remaining 97 percent either have registered during a prior period or represent an opportunity for the organization to convert them to their file, said Bhagat. Verticals such as faith-based, disease and health services and major emailers, those with 250,000 or more email addresses on file, have programs in place that offer access to additional resources, incentives, or other tangible benefits to constituents in exchange for registering, he said. For example, many faith-based organizations offer “daily devotionals,” inspirational emails that people can receive each day. Disease and health-related Source: Convio organizations offer access to special reports or online communities, only accessible after someone provides their email address. Some major emailers are using low-cost, back-end premiums as registration incentives. An example of such a premium is offering registrants the option to receive a sticker that lets emergency services workers know that the registrant has a pet in the home. You can still generate income with a relatively small email file, so long as the donors and supporters are active. According to the report, many nonprofits’ online programs still represent only a fraction of their offline direct mail programs. A total of 54 percent of the 419 participants in this study had email files with fewer than 25,000 records. Organizations that have been able to grow email files larger than the median of 20,385 included organizations from the environment and wildlife, higher education and faith-based organizations. These verticals tend to have missions whose appeal is broad, or they have large and constantly growing memberships, such as alumni, to grow their files.The major emailers segment had a median file size of 433,564. The median amount raised by organizations with email files ranging from 10,001 to 25,000 was $115,685 compared to larger organizations that constantly raised more. “I think the good news in this report is that numbers in the online world have started to become truly material,” said Bhagat. For the full report, go to www.convio.com/benchmarks NPT AUGUST 15, 2008 THE NONPROFIT TIMES www.nptimes.com http://www.convio.com/benchmarks http://www.nptimes.com
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