Nonproft Fundraising with eBay Online Auctions
Nearly everyone knows that eBay is the dominate leader in online auctions. Anyone can open an account to buy and sell almost anything on eBay. But did you also know that eBay has special programs to help nonprofits raise money?
EBay calls their special nonprofit program Giving Works. In the past eight years, more than $100 million has been raised for nonprofit organizations through eBay listings. There are two ways that eBay helps nonprofits raise money through their online auctions:
1) The nonprofit organization can sell items on eBay through direct selling. Direct selling means just that, the nonprofit sells directly to the buyer. The transaction is handled like any other eBay auction and the nonprofit keeps the proceeds, minus the typical eBay fees. This is a great way to benefit from in-kind donations that you can not use in your organization.
So, you’re probably wondering how this is helpful to nonprofits since anyone can sell on eBay. The advantage is that nonprofits registered with the eBay partner, MissionFish, will receive a special ribbon icon next to the title of the auction and additional visibility through a unique search function just for eBay Giving Works auctions. More about MissionFish later in this article.
2) Others can sell items and have all or some of the purchase price donated to your organization. This is called community selling. Community selling is a great way to get your volunteers and supporters to donate without writing a check. They simply sell unwanted items on eBay and direct a portion of the sale (10-100%) to your nonprofit. MissionFish collects and disburses the donations, provides online tracking, and sends tax receipts to the donor.
Nonprofit organizations can promote their community selling listings with a Giving Works home page in the featured nonprofit section of eBay. In order to be listed in the eBay nonprofit section, you must first have a home page on MissionFish. For more information on establishing a home page listing on eBay, visit the eBay Community Selling page.
Okay, so what exactly is MissionFish? MissionFish is a service under the Points of Light Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping engage people in volunteer community service. Since 2003, MissionFish has partnered with eBay to promote and operate the Giving Works program to support charitable donations through eBay selling. MissionFish provides a way to verify and register nonprofits for the Giving Works program and manages most of the details of the community selling service. MissionFish is supported through a small fee taken from each community selling donation made.
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August 7th, 2008 at 11:53 am
So your saying for a fee the non profit can use E-bay and for an additional fee Mission Fish will help the non profit with verification and registering for the Giving works program. (which I’m assuming if they were knowledgable they could do that themselves) You say Most details so which details are left to the non profit? So for an Organization that Brings $100,000.00 worth of stuff how much is eaten up in fees?
August 10th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Hi Gina, great questions! Let me see if I can answer them:
1) Can nonprofits register for eBay GivingWorks program without the use (and fee) of Mission Fish? No. Nonprofits are required to use Mission Fish to register. It is eBay’s means of verifying all nonprofits in the program.
2) What details are left to the nonprofits? What to sell, how much to charge, most of the typical eBay transaction decisions are made by the nonprofit (unless it is community members selling to bevefit the nonprofit). This is best understood by reading the eBay GivingWorks and Mission Fish program descriptions on their websites.
3) Finally, I do not know the specific fees that would be charged on $100,000 worth of eBay transactions. The specifics would depend on several factors, including the number of transactions and amounts paid (see eBay transaction fee schedule).
December 4th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I am trying to get my young children’s nonprofit school to register with eBay and Missionfish but the school business manager is concerned that nonprofit direct selling on eBay could jeopardize the school’s nonprofit status as it could be viewed as a profitable business. Any thoughts on this?
June 6th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
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