For nearly 20 years, CharityAuctionsToday has helped nonprofits and charities to raise more with less, expand their reach, and host successful events year after year. We strive to serve nonprofits and charitable causes that have limited resources and manpower. The clubs, service organizations, churches, schools, and small nonprofits. CharityAuctionsToday makes it possible to reach fundraising goals with fewer hands at the helm, with less budget, and with little to no technological savvy.
We work to continuously improve our platform, ensuring not only that it’s easy to use, but that it offers the fundraising tools that will provide the most value for the organizations we serve. Most importantly, we have people dedicated to helping nonprofits reach their goals.
There are a lot of fundraising auction platforms out there: what sets us apart?
Our Auction Success Team
Having access to a great tool and knowing how to use it are two different things: that’s why our Auction Success Managers are available to help you make the most of your event. From determining which plan will suit your needs to helping you maximize your profits, your Auction Success Manager is assigned to you from the very start and can help you every step of the way.
Your Auction Success Manager will answer any questions you or your bidders have throughout the duration of your event, and they can help you customize your event page with the features you need to succeed. Our team is dedicated to helping every organization and individual who uses our site to achieve their fundraising goals.
Designed for Ease
Our customers consistently comment on how easy our platform is to use and we couldn’t be prouder. Our goal is for you to be able to set up your event in a matter of minutes, whether it’s an auction, raffle, event page for ticket purchases, or all three at once. Shipping options, editable start and end times, invoices: all are intuitive. And if you do have questions, your Auction Success Manager can help, or you can explore our Help Center to find the answers you’re looking for.
Flexible Auction Features
Our platform makes it simple to host any type of auction, even ones that aren’t really online. If you’re hosting an in-person auction and want to accept bids in person, you can still use our platform to store your catalog. But you’ll likely get even more success with a hybrid or fully digital auction.
The point is you have options that work with a variety of events. Your silent auction can take place in the background of a party or faire, or you can accept bids both online and offline in real time. It’s easy to add a Donate button to your auction page, as well as a leaderboard, to show everyone how close you are to your goal.
Use features like popcorn bidding to keep guests from sniping popular items at the last minute. Set different start and end times for different items and set custom bid increments. If you aren’t sure we have a feature you need, ask us: the answer might surprise you.
“Our experience – which was our first ever online auction experience, was well beyond our expectations. The program was easy to use and the features allowed me the chance to have a few people entering submissions for me when my time was needed elsewhere.” – Kim Flamm
Auction Promotion Tools and Templates
We understand that fundraising is not easy, particularly for SMB nonprofits, churches, or clubs, which might have employees or volunteers who are new to the organization, new to fundraising, or new to fundraising online. That’s why we strive to be your partner in all your fundraising endeavors, not just setting up the auction or raffle itself.
Our Auction Marketing Playbook can help you promote your event with best practices on scheduling your communications and using every channel available to you to spread the word. Our library of downloadable templates can help you craft your own messages: to ask for monetary donations, in-kind donations, or to say thank you to donors. Use our fundraising calendar template to create a custom vision of your year’s efforts and explore example item descriptions and event checklists to make sure you’ve dotted your Is and crossed your Ts. CharityAuctionsToday provides the templates, samples, and resources you need to succeed.
Comprehensive Resources
Not only do we have the advice you need on crafting and promoting your auction, we also have the information you need on fundraising in general. Creating and running a nonprofit, or not-for-profit, can be daunting. We have the road maps to help put you on the path to running an efficient organization that supports your cause.
Our blog can help you navigate different types of fundraising events, getting sponsors, and asking for donations, while our podcast gives you insight into how other SMB nonprofits are achieving their goals. And our comprehensive Help Center ensures that you and your bidders can find answers to questions about our platform quickly and easily.
Access to Key Partners
When you host an event with us you have the opportunity to take advantage of our partnerships. One example is our consignment auction provider. Their incredible travel packages can be added to any auction at no additional cost. Trips to tropical locations, getaways with dinner and a Broadway show, golf resorts, and more. These consignment auction items, or risk-free items, add to the excitement and competition of your auction: and more bids means more money for your cause.
Opportunities to Increase Your Visibility
We love to highlight the amazing work our customers do. From becoming guests on our podcast to getting shoutouts on our social media channels, your causes, initiatives, and cool auction items are what we love to highlight and celebrate. Widen your organization’s reach with a fundraising partner that can spread your name further and showcase your incredible accomplishments.
Customizable Messaging
Your account comes preloaded with text message and email templates, but you can decide whether to use all or just some of that text. This is true of our Flex as well as our Prepaid plans. Although unlimited texting is only available with Prepaid, you can purchase packages of text credits affordably, all with the messaging you’ve decided reflects your mission best.
Streamlined Checkout
We know a quick and simple checkout process is the best way to leave guests happy and willing to come back for more. You can choose to make guests pre-register a credit card when they register for your event, or not. Your invoices are customizable and automatic, while also giving you the option to manually re-send them to those who haven’t paid.
Our Origins
In 2007, Tom Kelly founded CharityAuctionsToday after seeing how difficult it was to navigate the online fundraising tools of the time. In helping his mother to raise funds for a cause she cared about, Tom encountered steep commission fees and a lack of user control in the tools of the time. So he created CharityAuctionsToday, to put the power of digital fundraising into anyone’s hands.
That’s nearly 20 years of constantly refining our tools, features, and resources in order to help SMB nonprofits and not-for-profits reach their goals. Since its launch CharityAuctionsToday has hosted over 250,000 auctions and helped organizations raise over $500,000,000.
We’re Just Getting Started
20 years is just the beginning for us. Our team is dedicated to helping every nonprofit become a million-dollar organization. Your passion for your cause is our passion. Today, as always, our mission is to help you reach your fundraising goals with fewer hands at the helm, lower costs, and without any help from IT (or your grandkids).
Schedule a demo of our platform, or, if you want to get started, start building your auction today.
We can help you overcome fundraising challenges and increase your profits, so more can go to your mission.
