GSGA Sees Large Increase in Online Auction Contributions with Use of TravelPledge
Regular Post
Written by IAGA
GSGA Sees Large Increase in Online Auction Contributions with Use of TravelPledge
The Georgia State Golf Association recently held its third annual online auction to raise money for its Foundation. The GSGA solicited its clubs to donate rounds of golf and also auctioned several unique travel experiences.
TravelPledge Auctions provided the GSGA with proven, feature-packed auction software that is free for verified 501(c)(3) organizations. TravelPledge presented at last year’s IAGA Conference. In addition to the GSGA, the free auction software is also used by Youth on Course to run their national auction as well as Payne Stewart, AJGA, US Kids, and several other large golf organizations.
(Below is an example of what the platform looks like)
The GSGA increased its net dollars raised in 2023 to just over $80,000–approximately $40,000 was raised in 2021 and $60,000 in 2022. This additional income over the last few years was used to support the GSGA Foundation and has required a little bit of work by GSGA staff on the front end securing rounds and posting them onto the online platform. The GSGA has found that once a facility commits to supporting this effort they are in long-term and a simple email confirmation in subsequent years is all that is needed to prompt a facility’s continued support.
To maximize donations, the GSGA sold golf to runner-up matching bids for a handful of items that allowed a donated round or experience to be doubled at the end of the auction, but what really drove up bids this year was the “popcorn” bidding feature which keeps the auction going past the deadline by allowing active bidders to continue bidding until no bids are received for 10 minutes.
The GSGA promoted the auction to its membership through email, social media, and purchased social media advertising. TravelPledge sent communications to their network of bidders – a group of nearly 11,000 past bidders (from all over the US) who are also alerted when bucket list experiences are posted by nonprofits like the GSGA. This additional exposure proved to be quite valuable.
Feel free to visit the GSGA Foundation auction at gsga.travelpledgeauctions.com/Event to see the auction results and to click on items to see how they were set up.
Questions for the GSGA related to their auction can be directed to Chandler Kowalski (ckowalski@gsga.org) or for more information on TravelPledge Auctions, contact Alex McDonald (alex@travelpledge.com).
