5 Ways Nonprofits Can Benefit From Online Auctions
By Whit Hunter
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Everyone knows that private donors provide valuable income to nonprofits, but it's easy to miss just how valuable they are. According to statistics from Giving USA, individuals are the most lucrative source of donations for nonprofits, exceeding $309 billion in 2019 alone. That makes your donors more valuable than foundations, corporate gifts, and even bequests.
Individual donors also have an unmatched capacity for community-building, especially where fundraisers are involved. A fundraiser lets your donors connect to each other and to your organization.
Auctions have been popular fundraising events for years, encouraging people to compete in good fun and enjoy the thrill of winning something great. Now, with the advent of online auctions, more people can get involved and you can raise even more money.
Why online auctions?
Live auctions are exciting and fast-paced, and they often bring in more than the item’s market value. The downside is that it’s necessarily time-constricted, and it can leave out some of your lower-ticket donors.
Silent auctions are great vehicles for lower-priced items with less social pressure. They’re still bound to a particular time and place, however, and the distractions of that event can make people forget to bid.
Online auctions fix those problems. When you hold auctions online, you don’t have to compete with scheduling or with conversation and the drinks table. You send out the link to your auction and people can log on to view available items, submit bids, and check to see if anyone has outbid them since their last visit.
Online auctions are convenient, accessible, and effective. Here are just some of the reasons why.
1. Online auctions break geographical boundaries
When you run a live or silent auction, the people who can bid are those that can get to the event location at the specified time. Online auctions break those barriers completely.
Anyone can participate in an online auction, no matter where they are. That includes existing supporters who don't live in your city as well as new donors who might not have the motivation to attend a live event.
When you host auctions online, people who have moved out of your area or never lived there in the first place can still participate in your fundraising.
In the end, going online means you can get more bids and your donors feel more connected. It’s a great format for community-building.
2. People can bid at any time
According to Nolo, the most frequent participants in online auctions are women in their 40s with income in the upper five figures. This demographic tends to be extremely busy with work and/or family obligations, but online auctions let them bid before work in the morning or after the kids are asleep.
The convenience factor works for all bidders, including those whose schedules would keep them away from an evening or weekend event. Meanwhile, it makes participation easier for people who live in other time zones.
3. The auction can run longer
Live and silent auctions usually can’t be any longer than the event itself. Even if you have a multi-day retreat, you have to pack up before you lose the space.
Hosting auctions online means that you get to choose your start and end dates. The optimal length is usually 10 to 14 days, though we have seen successful campaigns last for three weeks or more.
To keep people engaged, send out reminders before and throughout the event. Every few days, use email and social media to showcase some of your most popular items — you might encourage people to come back and bid again.
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4. You can run it as part of a larger event
An online auction is a great way of drumming up support for another fundraising event, whether live or virtual. Nonprofits have developed many different ways of connecting with donors online, including:
- Virtual concerts, where ticket sales go toward your organization
- Virtual runs/walks, where people “go the distance” on their own and share their stories via videoconference
- Virtual galas, where you can share impact videos and showcase what your organization has done in the past year
Whether your main event is in-person or virtual, consider using it as the virtual auction kickoff or scheduling it as the closer. If the main fundraiser follows the online auction, you can offer preliminary data about how much you brought in and what kind of impact that will have.
Another option is to run the online auction hand-in-hand with a live event. With this kind of setup, people at the event can bid on their phones while others bid remotely. You raise more money and keep your donor community connected.
5. You’ll probably need fewer hands
Auctions and other events can be a logistical challenge. You need volunteers to help you transport items, set up tables, create displays, and monitor bidding. Then you have the venue reservation, catering, and other steps involved in scheduling a live event.
You can run online auctions with a much smaller team — or even just yourself! Donors can do the work of fulfilling the items, taking on that task as part of their contributions. Or, you can pick up the items and ship them out.
The other main organizational tasks are to set up the online listings, manage them, nad promote the event. It can be tempting to shy away from online auctions because you don’t have tech experience but don’t worry. With the free and user-friendly BetterWorld platform, even those new to online auctions can set up beautiful listings quickly and easily.
How to make an online auction
Ready to make an impact with an online auction for your organization? Here are your steps to getting started.
1. Gather items. You can offer many of the same kinds of items that you’d offer at a live or silent auction — collectibles, services, weekends away, and more. At BetterWorld, we've created an item donation tool that makes the collection process smooth and easy, plus a great items guide to help you engage and inspire potential donors.
As you offer ideas, don't feel limited by the online format, but do keep in mind that you might have bidders from all over. If an item is hard to ship or an experience requires someone to be in a particular area, clarify in the description how fulfillment will work.
2. Choose your platform. BetterWorld is free and designed for nonprofit fundraising. It’s easy to use and lets you create beautiful listings. BetterWorld even automates payment collection and receipts so you don’t have to worry about manual billing.
3. Prepare your listings. Write up some descriptions and collect photos. You can use royalty-free stock images for experiences or items that have retail listings online, if necessary.
4. Launch!
After the auction, process your bids and collect payments — or let the BetterWorld platform do it for you. Then, celebrate a job well done and money raised for your organization.

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