If you’ve ever been begged to sponsor someone for a walk, run, jump out of an aeroplane or any other activity designed to gouge some cash out of your wallet then you may be pleased to hear that there’s a new way to support charity activity coming to eBay for Charity – peer-to-peer fundraising.
The premise is that often you’ll support an individual’s fundraising efforts rather than the charity directly, or perhaps a team of work colleagues or friends will collectively raise funds for a charity as a team. eBay are unveiling a new model where you can choose to support an individual, an individual within a team, or just a team, to direct your donations to the charity. This enables teams and individuals to set fund raising goals and be able to measure their own performance.
eBay will create a link between an eBay Seller and the Event, Team, and Participant they choose to support. For example as a Team Participant, I could define a personal goal of raising £500, which supports my team’s goal of raising £5,000, all of which rolls up to the event’s goal of £50,000. As a committed supporter, I become a new eBay Seller for the charity and eBay for Charity donations from my sales activity then count towards my fundraising goal. ‘Soft’ supporters become new eBay buyers and if they purchase my items will be donating as well as purchasing something they want.
eBay’s new peer-to-peer fundraising model creates an opportunity for organizations to raise more funds while giving supporters a new way to donate besides the traditional cash only models. To power it all in the background new Account Affiliation and Transaction Reconciliation Services will run in the background.
An eBay for Charity pilot is already running with the American Cancer Society (ACS). Supporters of ACS can now list items and have the profits raised directly applied to the Event, Team, or Participant they wish to support.
