The Geffen Playhouse, photo credit:
UCLA
The Geffen Playhouse is a not-for-profit theater company with two venues in Los Angeles, California. Although they’re prominent venues for plays and actors, they also have a groundbreaking education and outreach program that targets students, seniors and everyone in between who otherwise would not have access to live theater.
In order to contribute to their bottom line, they do annual fundraising events like direct mail campaigns, calling campaigns, poker events, and an auction. The auction in particular was a part of their fundraising that they wanted to take online; BiddingForGood became their top choice because it allowed them to have control over the auction process.
Jamie Mikelich of the Geffen Playhouse explained how moving their auction online benefitted the process: “The online auction began 2-3 weeks prior to the event, which allowed us to reach more bidders and drive up the prices. Most winning bids ended up going to online bidders.”
An emphasis on the importance of online action continues throughout Geffen Playhouse’s fundraising plans, and they’ve got some advice to share: “Get your items up online. Start creating drafts of items (not necessarily public) EARLY. You want to be prepared well in advance of the event. It is important to go out to a large database, not just people you want to come to the auction.”
Mikelich offers further tips for using BiddingForGood: “If you want your auction to look good, clean up the description and put in every restriction that an item has. Bidders will constantly reach out to you if you don't have all of the restrictions up, so you can save time by thoroughly describing the item. By triple checking with BFG team, I made sure that all items were listed correctly.”
Ready to reach out to BiddingForGood yourself? Take a cue from the Geffen Playhouse and watch your charity auctions reach new heights.
