Category: Fundraising News

Sealed bidding could be the answer to your fundraising prayers!

This method involves only showing the number of bids placed on an item, as opposed to the highest bid, helping to increase audience participation and encourage competitive bidding.

Throughout the auction our system will display the number of bids received on an item, but bidders won’t be aware who the highest bidder is. The idea is that bidder’s are encouraged to place their best bid first, however when a guest sees a lot of interest in an item they have also bid on, it encourages them to ‘up’ their bid, which they can do as many times as they want to!

Sealed bidding is particularly powerful when you have access to several of the same auction item (which is always the case when you include items from Givergy). Through a fully transparent and ethical process, we’re able to easily sell the same item to, for example, the top three bidders at the end of the event, meaning that your charity profit is instantly tripled. We are very upfront in our visuals that we may sell to the top X bidders if multiple items are available. We also recommend adding a sentence to the item description to be fully transparent.

We add visuals to the website, tablet and leaderboard to help explain to your guests how sealed bidding works, and recommend that your MC/host explains this at the start of the event. If you have booked an onside team, they will also explain sealed bidding to guests when they conduct table welcomes.

Why does sealed bidding raise more?

• Our results show that guests participation increases by 9% when using sealed bidding at your event.
• On average the charity profit is increased by up to 166% when using sealed bidding on your event.
• When using sealed bidding and standard incremental bidding at the same event, items sold via sealed bidding raise 11% more than items sold via standard incremental bidding.

Example Media Page we will add to tablets and fundraising websites:

We All Must Take Action:

We only have one planet that we can collectively call home. Yet IPCC Report after IPCC Report warns us that this planet, our home, is under grave threat of environmental breakdown unless we take serious, urgent, action to avoid it. In this context, each company and government have a responsibility to act rapidly to address the environmental crisis and reduce their carbon footprints.

We are determined to reduce our negative impact on the environment and have committed to integrating environmental performance into company decision making. This year, we have partnered with Climate Partner to radically reduce our environmental impact. Our partnership is ongoing and, in its infancy, but we are excited and determined to see how much positive environmental change we can affect!

What Have We Done So Far?

Famously, we value what we measure and thus the first step on our environmental journey has been to measure our carbon footprint. This process has highlighted to us exactly where our emissions come from and allowed us to develop a comprehensive plan to reduce them. Also from measuring, came an opportunity to accurately offset our carbon emissions. Although this is not a long-term solution for sustainability, we have funded projects that sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the Philippines as well as the global plastic bank project. Through this we have offset over 50,000kg of CO2, the equivalent of:

• The yearly carbon sequestration of 3,681 Beech trees, or;
• 142,885 km driven with a passenger in the car.

More information about the offsetting projects we are funding can be found here.

Reflection

Our first carbon footprint report explained to us that the electricity that powers our servers accounted for 54% of our total emissions. Immediately, this demonstrated the importance of having a proper carbon accounting system in place as switching to a 100% renewable energy provider is an extremely simple way to cut down one’s carbon footprint. We have now done this, meaning the servers that power our technology run on 100% renewables!

A full copy of our carbon footprint report can be found here.

Moving Forward:

Sustainability is an ongoing process that must always be actively pursued. We know that the actions we have taken so far signal the beginning of a journey and not the end. However, through a process of reflection and action we believe we can do our bit to reduce our impact on the environment. Each financial year we will produce a new carbon footprint report, with each being more comprehensive than the last. So, as we integrate sustainability into our decision making we can feel proud that we’re working hard to make ourselves more sustainable, and hopefully the sector slightly more sustainable as well.

If you want to see how are carbon neutral tech can help you fundraise more effectively, please click here.

The London Marathon is less than two weeks away and I cannot believe how fast it has come around! The butterflies have begun that’s for sure, but I guess being nervous shows how much I care about this. I have given training my all, it has already been the biggest challenge of my life, but I don’t think I could have done any more so I’m feeling ready! I’m very excited to learn of the difference my fundraising has made, that has kept me going and will hopefully get me all the way to the finish line.

Having only got a place 10 weeks ago, I’m pretty proud of myself. If you had asked me a few months ago if you think I would have completed 20 miles just over 2 months later, I would have laughed. I have enjoyed seeing my fitness improve that’s for sure (and the guilt free carbs!), I am just sorry to my poor knees. I underestimated the pain I would be in 2 weeks out, but it’s now time to rest up ready for the big day!

Missing People provide specialist support to people who are or at risk of missing, and the families and friends left behind.

If you need to talk to missing people, you can call or text 116 000.

Further information on Missing People can be found on their website, https://www.missingpeople.org.uk

There is still time to donate and if you wish to do so, you can find Ella’s fundraising page here.

For online only campaigns, we can use our Pre-Authorisation service.

Note, this method is not available for clients using tablets at events – it is only available for online campaigns.

If you would like to find out about our full payment collection service available to Premium clients, follow this article: How does Givergy collect payment?

What is pre-authorisation?
Pre-Authorisation is a payment method whereby all bidders would be required to register their card details on the Givergy system at the point of of registering.
Their card details are then stored securely on the Givergy system (within Stripe) until the end of the auction, when their cards can then be charged should they win an item.

Note, the Givergy website does make it very clear that no money will be charged unless they are the winning bidder.

How to charge guests card’s post-campaign?
Firstly, you need to sell the auction items. Follow this article to find out how: How to sell your auction items
Once your items are sold, to charge the winning bidders cards follow the below steps:

1. Login to the Campaign Management System and select your event. How to log into the CMS?
2. From the tabs in the left menu, select payments > guests
3. You will see the final column titled ‘card’ – if this is ticked, it means we have the card on file. If you had pre-auth on from the beginning of your campaign this will be ticked for all bidders.
4. In the first column you will see you can tick the small box next to each guest name. This will select the guests you wish to charge. To select all guests, tick the box next to ‘select’ at the top.
5. Once everyone is selected, hit charge. You will see the payment status of guests go from ‘not paid’ to ‘paid’. This will send the ‘payment thank you’ SMS & Email to everyone.

Please note:

• Some guest’s payments may be unsuccessful, if this is the case their status will remain as ‘unpaid’. The most common reason for this is the bank rejected the payment. We suggest you contact the guest to explain payment did not process. Wait 24 hours before attempting to charge the card again, otherwise you risk doubling up.

On 3^rd March 2020, at our head offices in London, I made a statement which, in hindsight, wouldn’t be described as being ‘of a particularly fine vintage’: ‘don’t worry, guys – two weeks and this’ll all have blown over.’

We know the life of a Fundraising Event Manager doesn’t end at 5pm, it usually goes well into the evening, especially during busy season. We also know there are many of you that fundraise and event plan alongside a full-time job, so its essential that you can get a hold of the relevant information far beyond conventional working hours.

Continue reading “Benefits Of Using The Givergy Community!”

Our favorite, charismatic auctioneer Harry Santa-Olalla has caught the eye of the New York Post for his unique ability to resonate with every demographic he is in front of.

Continue reading “Auctioneer Raises A Staggering Amount Through High-Stake Bidding Wars”

Givergy is delighted to announce that Bob Treash and Dan Rohn have joined the Givergy team as Executive Vice Presidents of Sales and Business Development. As senior leaders of the Givergy sales team, both Bob and Dan will be at the helm of one of the hottest fundraising technology companies in the world, focusing on U.S. sales development.

Continue reading “Givergy Hires Executive Vice Presidents Of Sales And Business Development”