Seth's Blog : Launching GOODBIDS

Launching GOODBIDS

Over the next few days, I’m going to feature a new project we launched today. A small and mighty team has been working on this for a year. I want to share the highlights along with some of the critical design choices we made along the way

Each year, charities in the US raise about a billion dollars a day from individuals. That money goes to great use–for the arts, for healthcare, for education, for countless projects that benefit our communities.

Because our society hasn’t built in a passive way for these organizations to get funded, they need to actively fundraise. It’s exhausting and frankly, a grind. No one particularly wants to take risks or spend extra time being creative, since it’s a required chore, not the point.

In creating GOODBIDS, we set out to create a new way for worthy causes to raise money, something that would be fun, remarkable and generative.

The core of the idea is the Positive Auction. While it seems a bit like an eBay auction, there are actually some extraordinary and game-changing twists.

The key is this: Every bid is a donation.

Today, we launched three auctions, with more to come all week:

A brand new Apple Watch (benefitting WalkGoodLA)
Have music executive Jason Flom critique your song (benefitting the Innocence Project)
Your name as a character in John Grisham’s next bestseller (also for the Innocence Project)

The bidding starts at $10. It goes up in $10 increments and you can’t skip a step.

So, $10, $20, $30, etc.

Each bid is actually a non-refundable donation.

That means that if you bid $10 and someone outbids you at $20, your donation still goes to the charity. You get an email confirmation of your donation and peace of mind. Someone else is going to get the reward–unless you choose to bid again.

The last donation gets the reward.

The magic of a Positive Auction is in the math. If the bidding for the session with Jason goes to $1500 (far less than its value), the nonprofit will get up to $112,000 in donations.

We’re going to be launching a range of extraordinary auctions this week, all with donated prizes. I hope you’ll check them out and be sure to tune in tomorrow if you’re a Dead fan.

And here’s a sneak peek…