Offer A New Way To Give This Holiday Season

Posted by Ben Crook on 28 November 2016

Giving fatigue is something we are all a bit too aware of. While street fundraisers are effective, the public aren’t always in favour of being approached on their way to work. And too often giving to a friends personal fundraiser to run the marathon can be more about supporting them with a fiver than having a relationship with the actual cause. What if you could offer a fun and competitive way for your donors to give and give them something back in return?

Givergy.com gives the public the chance to win high-profile, money-cant-buy items and experiences by taking part in online auctions. It also allows users to enter prize draws or purchase buy it now items while making a real difference to the causes they are in aid of. This effective global online offering helps charities reach a wider audience, maximise global awareness and raise more for their fantastic causes.

Have a celebrity ambassador? Donated items? Event lots that didn’t hit their reserve? These are all common ways that charities can use the opportunities that are already at their disposal to fundraise 365 days a year!

The power of this online fundraising method lies in the collective influence of online communities. When you combine your own charity database, coupled with Givergy’s audience of 56K monthly active users and an email database of 26K, you start to see the potential that this will raise you a significant amount.

“I found out about (the prize draw) when I went to bid on one of GOSH’s items and noticed there were other charities on the site doing similar things. I’m always interested in finding out about various charities so I will definitely be going back onto Givergy.” NSIF prize draw winner

How it works:

It is important to us at Givergy that we give charities the flexibility to offer a range of options to feature their premium items. Each of the items on offer sit under a customised charity page, which gives further exposure to your cause. We know that branding campaign donation pages collect 38% larger donations than generic online giving pages, which is why we customise each charity page with different info, imagery and colour filters to match your brand, which can be edited in real-time to suit different campaigns. Also, 57% of donors watch a video before giving online which is why we encourage charities to submit a video to use on their Givergy.com charity page.

When a user participates in the auction they receive both a text message and email notification to update them on their bidding status. This increases their likelihood to keep bidding, as it adds a competitive element to the auction. Text messages have a 98% open rate as opposed to emails which average at 22%. On Givergy.com, by providing both notifications, we ensure they never miss out.

With the recent inclusion of pre-authorisation of payments, the charitys best interest is in mind to help protect against false bids and delays in payment. Similar to an Apple ID or Uber, users register their card details when they first bid so that payment can be taken automatically once the auction is closed.

Since we started working with Givergy, we’ve raised a significant amount more than our previous auctions. Givergy offer a much better deal than their competitors and they work harder for us. We feel very looked after and will continue working with Givergy on all of our online auctions. War Child

Case Study: The power of celebrities

For those with celebrity ambassadors and influential advocates who are willing to support, this can define your campaign. Lumos, JK Rowling’s charity auctioned off an exclusive gala performance to the sold-out Harry Potter and Cursed Child play in London. Without JK’s support in tweeting and promoting on the official Pottermore website, they likely may not have reached the astounding 160K for the campaign. JK standing behind the fundraiser authenticated it during a time of high demand for the tickets. The highest raised for one set of tickets for four was close to 6k!

Case Study: Exclusive partnerships

When possible, consider exclusive media partnerships. Last December, the Evening Standard in conjunction with GOSH, ran a series of 4 auctions on Givergy, with everything from David Beckham’s first car to tickets to Adele’s sold-out concert. The tickets alone raised over 8K in less than 48 hours.

Featuring the auctions across the Evening Standard and Independent leading up to the auction alongside human interest stories, gained the support of their loyal readership and they surpassed their goal of 100,000 by 30K!

Case Study: Timing is everything

When Thai Children’s Trust were donated a signed Leicester City shirt after they won the premiership they anticipated a few hundred pounds based on their experience on eBay. In conjunction with our PR team we distributed a press release about the auction to local media and after a bidding war between a few individuals the shirt went for 4K!

“Wekindly were donated the shirt and wanted to react quickly with the team winning the premiership league. Givergy were great, within 48 hours they had the signed shirt on the site. Pushing to their database and through social media, excitement soon started and after a bidding war we had a winner at an impressive 4000.“ – Lynsey Milner, Brand Manager, Thaikhun

Since launching in October 2015 we’ve helped over 50 charities raise over half a million British pounds! We’re so excited for the biggest month in Givergy.com history this holiday season! We’ve teamed up with charity partners including Snap Foundation, nsif, Trekstock, RFU Injured Players Foundation, Maggie’s, Centre point, Nedbank SA Golf Day, Cancer Research UK, Barndardos, Retail Trust, Prince’s Trust, NSPCC, Action for A-T, Cubanos en UK, Two Wheels for Life, World Child Cancer, Central Children’s University, Khulisa and more!

If you have a unique item or experience to fundraise with this holiday season please do get in touch!

Ben Crook

Chief Operating Officer

Ben is at the forefront of every project in Givergy, listing and actioning constant improvements across the business. With over a decade of experience in the charity and events sector he brings a deep understanding of what the fundraising industry needs to operate effectively and efficiently.