cMarket, the leader in online auction fundraising for nonprofit organizations, today announced a record 4,000 online auctions have run on the platform since the company’s inception in 2003, raising over $40 million for meaningful causes as diverse as feeding the hungry, funding cancer research and supplying school textbooks. Just over 50 percent of these auctions have occurred in the last 12 months. Now entering the peak spring fundraising season, thousands of schools and nonprofit organizations are utilizing online auctions to shore up critical fundraising efforts, with many projecting to out-raise last year’s take.

cMarket’s portal to individual auctions, BiddingForGood.com, is also surging ahead, surpassing 77,000 cause-minded members this month who on average generate $2,600 of winning bid revenue for cMarket clients. This dynamic virtual shopping center offers bidders a wide range of items, including dining, travel, sporting tickets and memorabilia, jewelry, home products and more, often at bargain prices. During the active spring auction season, bidders can expect to find a record 17,000 items available whenever they go online.

“Over the past two years, the New England Aquarium has successfully held three online auctions with cMarket. Two large, annual auctions netted more than $100,000 in revenue, which exceeded our expectations,” said Holli Daley, Special Events Coordinator at the Boston-based aquarium. “In January of 2008, an anonymous donor gave the aquarium two tickets for the Super Bowl. We turned to cMarket to run a one day online auction, and within a few hours they sold at the ‘buy-now’ price of $8,000. By posting these tickets to the BiddingForGood market, we were able to generate bids from a national audience which ultimately increased the revenue that we received. Online auctions have been an effective fundraising tool for the New England Aquarium as they have enabled us to reach additional donors and to attract more support for our organization.”

Clients such as the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, United Way, National PTA, and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, as well as hundreds of schools are regular auction users. Data from the four thousand auctions show the following cause groups availing themselves of online auctions:

More info www.cmarket.com

Posted: 04|14|08 at 3:30 pm. Filed under: Auction News.