Hi jpsauctionworld

It’s great to hear that you have expanded your business to provide nonprofit organizations with auction management service.

On the eBay Giving Works page - Link - there are 6 promotional spots available to highlight listings/events. Since inventory is limited the spots are typically reserved for organizations that are running large-scale events and use The Giving Assistant™ listing tool. We also take into consideration the number of items being listed, the fundraising potential and the media exposure.

The nonprofit organization will need to register on MissionFish to appear in the directory of pre-approved 501(c)3 organizations. As a seller, you will also need to register a seller account on MissionFish. The nonprofit will also need to connect their MissionFish account to your MissionFish seller account.

For detailed information about the eBay Giving Works program, please visit -

Link.

For detailed information about The Giving Assistant™, please visit -

Link

We will also be holding a workshop on Thursday 12/18 at 13:00 - 14:00 PST on the Workshop Board. We welcome you to join the workshop to learn more about the program. You can join the workshop here -

Link


Thank you,
Kathy
eBay Giving Works Team

I’m sorry to have missed your live discussion this week, but I’d like to share a few opinions with the powers at Giving Works. I’m trying to organize an auction for my Synagogue, but I’m disappointed with the program provided by eBay. Here are my complaints:
1 - Signing up is far too complicated. The executive director & I spent most of an afternoon going through the registration process. Your live discussion mentioned 3 registrations & I’m still not sure what I’ve signed up for. Plus they need to be linked! I’m sure I didn’t do that. Why couldn’t all this registration be combined & simplified?
2 - Process for seller/donors is too complicated. Going through MissionFish makes selling even harder & posting a credit card is going to be a concern. What’s in it for the seller/donor? Since they have to list, manage, collect and ship their item anyway, why can’t they just write a check to the charity? The bookeeping services of MissionFish hardly seems worth the fee.
3 - There’s scant benefit for the charity in the sale. I understand that some buyers & sellers will search the Missionfish database for a charity to contribute to, but this is likely to benefit major charities. It seems to me only people who know us (our members) would go out of their way to support a particular listing. Identifying non-profit listings with a symbol and brief description also works best for major charities. For a synagogue in California, the benefit would be neutral at best and could be detrimental.
4 - There is no cost benefit. Not only are all eBay costs the same, but there are new charges exclusive to charities.
Am I missing something?

Is the winner of a living works auction making a taxable purchase or a contribution? This is the first time I've listed on giving works in this case 75% is going to the non profit . So is 25% of the purchase taxable assuming the winner is in my state. Should the receit I give to the buyer include an amount as a donation. This is a wonderful program and I am proud to participate in it. I would like to participate more but am unsure of how to wrap up the loose ends after the sale.

Hi Hrshl

Thanks for your post. We take your concerns seriously and value your insights and feedback. Though we are excited about the new eBay Giving Works program, as with any new product launch, as soon as you introduce a new product there are a whole host of improvements and enhancements to be made. We have begun making improvements to the platform and look forward to ongoing feedback and support from our users as we strive to build the best solution for our community. That said, we are excited about the new program and believe that the current platform offers many benefits to both sellers and nonprofits.

In terms of registration, eBay will be launching new functionality in 2004 that will help simplify the registration process with third-party vendors; however, in the interim, to participate in eBay Giving Works, new nonprofit sellers must follow four steps to set up their account on both eBay and MissionFish: (1) Register with eBay (as does every new seller), (2) Register with MissionFish (all participating nonprofits are required to do this to verify that they are a legitimate nonprofit organization that does not participate in hate, violence, discrimination, terrorism, or illegal activities; this provides additional protection to both buyers and sellers ), (3) Set up a seller account on MissionFish (this process will be streamlined in the next iteration of the product), and (4) Link the nonprofit seller account to the nonprofit registered account (this identifies that the nonprofit is the seller and allows it to list items that do not go through the approval process). One of the key benefits to being registered with MissionFish is that individuals can sell on eBay and share their proceeds with their favorite nonprofit. When individuals do list items on behalf of a nonprofit, it is imperative that we allow the nonprofit to have the option to approve or decline the listing. This functionality helps them protect their brand. Linking the nonprofit account to the seller account is the only way for nonprofits to circumvent the approval process when they are listing items directly. While perhaps cumbersome, these steps have been designed to provide the utmost security to all parties involved.

In terms of the selling process, the process varies based on who is selling. When the nonprofit is the seller, MissionFish does not collect the money. The nonprofit transacts (i.e., collects the money) directly with the buyer. When an individual seller is selling on behalf of a nonprofit, MissionFish collects the donation directly from the seller and forwards it to the nonprofit. As is the case on eBay, a credit card must be placed on file to enable the collection of fees (and in this case the donation to the nonprofit).

In terms of the services provided by MissionFish, they provide substantially more value-added services than simple bookkeeping. They vet every nonprofit that participates in the program which gives both buyers and sellers confidence that they are supporting a legitimate nonprofit. They have developed the listing interface which enables sellers to distinguish their listings from all other listing on eBay through a dedicated icon, enhanced search functionality, and messaging within the view item page. They collect donations from individual sellers, aggregate and forward the funds to the recipient nonprofit and issue sellers a tax receipt. This functionality allows organizations such as your synagogue to empower its congregation to give in a new way (while minimizing the administrative effort required by the organization). The power of this model lies in the fact that the synagogue can simply message to its congregation to buy and sell on eBay to benefit it (virtually allowing the nonprofit supporters to give in-kind yet for the synagogue to receive important, unrestricted funding).

Though there is an additional fee to support the offering of these services, there is no additional fee to individual sellers since the MissionFish fee is netted from the donation amount. And while it may appear more expensive for the nonprofit to sell because it now incurs eBay and MissionFish fees, we are waiving the MissionFish fees through May 2004 and will consider what the appropriate fee structure should be going forward. When it comes to costs of fundraising, eBay Giving Works is an attractive solution. Typically costs of fundraising range between 12%-15%, however, through eBay Giving Works, the cost ranges between 3%-7% when the nonprofit is selling direct and virtually 0% when they are the recipient of an individual’s sale because they can count the net donation as 100%.

And to your last point about how this program seemingly favors large, national nonprofits, we’d like to share some anecdotal evidence from some of our clients. There are a number of nonprofits that we work with, ranging from large, national nonprofits to small, regional nonprofits, that feel the real benefit to the program is that their logo and mission statement appear in every listing. This marketing benefit allows them to reach others with their important message and to acquire new donors relatively cost free. The standard cost to acquire a new donor is 100%-200% of the first year’s donation (a very expensive proposition). Many organizations feel that the promotion they receive through eBay Giving Works is a mechanism to help them put their cause and mission on the map and they tremendously value the exposure that their participation in the program yields.

Thanks again for your comments. We hope this thread helps shed light on the value of the new program and we look forward to your ongoing feedback and support.

Angela
eBay Giving Works Team

Hello everyone,

I am interested in learning more regarding the Giving Works and MissionFish Charity Auctions. My 1st question is...

If I am listing hundreds of auctions are they easily managed through this "Giving Works" system? In other words is it like ie: "Turbo Lister"? I have Auction Software and would prefer to use it to manage my Charity Auctions, but I guess I am restricted to using "Giving Works".

Thanks for any help.

This thread is going in all directions if your post is not in response to a previous post please start a new thread, it will help organize this board and give you better responses. In this thread alone there are 4 posts that IMHO should have been used to start new threads.

I just wanted to post here and share with others my experience with Mission Fish as a seller. First, with regard to the final amount the charity is given, if a donation of $10 is made to the charity, in the end, the said charity will receive $6.71. Supposedly, the donation amount is held for 45 days, prior to the charity receiving it, for dispute purposes. In my case, using my last charity auction as an example, the auction ended on 8/1/04, yet the charity will not be receiving their final cut until October 20th, per the confirmation email I received from Mission Fish! That is almost three months later! I have emailed Mission Fish numerous times, asking who will get the interest for the money held should no disputes occur, since I highly doubted that it would be the charity, and I have never received a response. So, not only are they collecting what they take for administrative fees, they seem to be getting much more in the form of interest. With my last auction came another issue with their customer service, secondly. The same auction was a dutch one with a quantity of two. My buyer accidentally double-clicked and purchased both items. eBay quickly fixed the error on their end, but trying to fix it with Mission Fish has been another matter entirely. After submitting proof from eBay of the mistake and their listing refund, after writing multiple long emails to Michael, and speaking with Chris on the phone, this matter has still not been settled. At the time I first wrote, all that needed to be done was for one of the outstanding donations to be removed, as they were both in non-payment status at that time. An easy fix, you would think. However, suddenly I had received confirmation for two donations that had been billed to my credit card on 8/2/04, when they should not have been taken out until 8/9/04! That was followed up with an email from Chris, stating there was some supposed, coincidental "glitch" in the system. When I spoke with Chris on the phone, he had seemingly no knowledge of this "glitch" and asked me to send him a copy of the email that he sent me! I asked for a refund by the end of 8/4/04 and have heard nothing thus far. For a minor mistake, I have literally spent hours trying to fix it and still the double billing issue seems to be unresolved. For these reasons, I have ended my other charity auctions early and have no plans to ever use Mission Fish again. What I did propose to my charity of choice is to list items for them through eBay alone. When the buyer approves the final proof on their pet portrait and I ship it out, I will send my charity the FULL amount of the intended donation immediately. My charity can then send them a note of thanks and a tax receipt, so they can have the confidence that, not only did the charity receive their donation, they received the total amount that they intended for it to receive. I also plan to have a link to my website on my About Me page that will contain the above mentioned reasons why this seller has no trust in the practices of the Mission Fish organization and will not ever use them again. Mr. and Mrs. Frank