November 13, 1997 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Operation USA, an international relief group based in Los Angeles, took its annual fund-raising auction to the Internet this year — a move that paid off in several ways.
For two weeks, the charity accepted bids on about 20 luxury travel packages that it advertised on a World-Wide Web site. During that time, the site had over 50,000 different people view it, thanks in large part to donated on-line public-service announcements on more than 40 Web sites, including major “search engines” such as Yahoo and Lycos.
Over 100 of the on-line users placed bids — worth a total of $20,000 — using their credit cards. Donated items included fully paid trips to China, France, and Thailand.
The auction ended with a live party in Los Angeles, similar to ones held in previous years, which helped raise an additional $115,000. During the live event, guests were able to compete with bidders who were linked to the party electronically.
In all, the auction raised about $135,000, up from $108,000 last year.
Richard M. Walden, founder of Operation USA, says this year’s on-line trial has persuaded him to do more via computer next year.
In addition to the extra money the Web site helped raise, the on-line component also made it easier to persuade companies to donate items for the auction, Mr. Walden says.
“We were able to offer them a lot more than just an ad in a program that few people would ever read or a mention in a press release,” he says. “We had direct links on our site to each of the donor companies’ Web sites.”
The on-line auction also proved to be relatively inexpensive as a fund-raising event, says Mr. Walden.
A company called NetConex, which specializes in on-line charity auctions, handled all the technical aspects of running Operation USA’s Internet auction at a cost of $2,500.
To reach Operation USA: Using World-Wide Web software, type http://www.opusa.org.
To reach NetConex: Using World-Wide Web software, type http://www.nonprofitauction.com.
