Learn about Givebacks' auction options and how to customize them for your Experience.
Running an online auction may seem complicated, but Givebacks provides many tools and customizations to help your auction proceed smoothly and efficiently.
Types of Auctions
Givebacks offers two auction types: English style and Proxy Bidding. Learn which type may be best for you in this Knowledge Base article:
Costs
Givebacks offers a few different pricing options to help cover the costs of your fundraiser.
Our Pricing Page provides detailed pricing information. Tip Model Pricing vs. Percent Pricing: What's the difference?
Item Limits
You can add as many Auction items as you like, and you can customize how your items are organized.
If you have a lot of items, consider putting them into categories so donors can quickly find what they’re interested in:
If you want to highlight a particular auction item, you can create a link specifically for that item. This article guides you through that process:
Promoting Your Auction
Spreading the word about your Auction to as many people as possible is the best way to ensure its success. You can share the link or QR code to your fundraiser on social media or send an email to your donors, family, and friends to get the word out:
Our free Text-to-Give tool allows donors to text a keyword to 33100 and immediately receive an Experience link so they can participate and donate from their mobile device:
If you're planning to host a live Event and auction off items in person, consider turning it into a hybrid Event by livestreaming the Auction. You can even enable Gated Livestreaming and require donors to purchase Tickets to view the Livestream:
Pre-Registration
Pre-registration allows donors to create a Givebacks account and save a payment method before your Auction begins. When your Auction starts, donors can place bids right away, inspiring more competition and helping you raise more funds:
Bidding Process
Givebacks helps you manage all steps of the bidding process.
Donors bid directly from your Experience page.
When donors place their first bid, they’re asked to enter their credit card information and create a Givebacks account. This makes it easy for donors to increase their bids later if they are outbid, and winners can be charged as soon as the auction ends.
Donors can bid as many times as they want on as many items as they want.
Givebacks only charges the winning bidders after the auction ends.
Buy it Now
You can allow a bidder to buy an item immediately if they don’t want to risk losing the item to another bidder. Buy It Now allows donors to skip the bidding process and purchase an item for a set price.
Auction Gifts
If a donor doesn't win an Auction item, you can allow them to give an Auction Gift so they can still support your cause. This feature can seriously increase the amount you raise since you could potentially receive donations from all Auction participants, not just the winners:
Outbid Notifications
Donors automatically receive email notifications when they’re outbid, but they can also opt to receive text notifications when they place a bid or re-bid:
Both email and text notifications include a link that allows donors to update their bids easily.
If you choose to let our system automatically notify the winners when the Auction ends, winners who opted to get text notifications will receive both an email and a text.
Tax-Deductible Receipts
When the Auction ends, we charge winning donors’ credit cards and send them a receipt. If you include the Auction item’s Fair Market Value, the receipt also acts as a tax receipt that donors can use to claim tax deductions:
If you need to verify any tax implications, contact your tax advisor.
Auction Reports
Givebacks provides several reports you can use to manage Auction details and analyze data:
Questions? Click the "?" icon to contact Givebacks Support.