Getting Your Board On-Board with Mobile Bidding
This was the first year that the American Cancer Society of Portland, Oregon used Greater Giving’s new Mobile Bidding solution for their annual Hope Ball. The Ball was a huge success, and everyone was excited about the new bidding technology—but nobody was anticipating it quite as much as the board.
“For me,” said Dave Porter, 2014 board member of American Cancer Society of Portland, “this is a leading edge technology, and I’m really excited about it.”
Mobile Bidding certainly is “leading edge,” in Porter’s parlance. People are already engaged with their smartphones on a day-to-day basis, and Greater Giving’s Mobile Bidding technology simply embraces that symbiosis between people and devices.
“People have been very excited,” said board member Dave Sullivan at the Hope Ball. “I see the look in their eyes as they’re grabbing their phones, talking to their friends, playing with the phones.” Board members – like any other guest at your auction—get a thrill from trying new things and seeing fresh technology in action. It’s also a great selling point for attendees.
But just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s worth changing your existing process to adopt. Mobile bidding also gives organizations the opportunity to raise more money, while also requiring less manual labor, saving you and your board time to focus on what’s important: fundraising.
This novel approach also allows guests to enjoy themselves more. Now they can leave the auction room without worrying about being outbid, as the device notifies them as soon as they’ve been outbid (and they can place a new maximum bid from wherever they are). They’ll even place higher bids because competition becomes fiercer.
Happy guests have more fun and spend more money, and board members are invested in raising as much money as possible. “Bidding is very easy to do with the mobile bidding tool,” adds Bentley. “It gives you the opportunity to put in a high bid and walk away.”
Remember—board members also participate and bid at the event, so the ease of use and enjoyment factor can help get them on-board with adopting mobile bidding for your next event. And mobile bidding requires very little training, because guests are already fluent in using their mobile devices, making it even easier to watch packages and place bids.
“We are not only going to meet the [fundraising] goal that we set, which was very high,” says board member Dave Porter, glowing, “but we’re going to exceed it. This has raised a new bar for ACS’s Hope Ball.”
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