charity auction?

[Grace]

I know many of you are doing wonderful things to raise money and awareness. I noticed that the Kidney & Urology Foundation of America is having an auction on their website (mostly expensive items), and it happens to be something I have been thinking about. I checked out eBay Giving Works. It seems that once a charity is registered with eBay, anyone can post an item for sale donating 10-100% of the sale to the designated charity.

I think it could be a great way to connect geographically distant people and an opportunity to get rid of the good stuff sitting in the garage or offer something handmade. For publicity's sake it might be best to coordinate an auction around a particular date or month, but individual items could be listed at any time.

There is more information here:
http://www.ebaygivingworks.com/nonprofit-info.html

Anyone else think this is a good idea? Other thoughts?

[Cheryl Biermann]

I think this is a great idea, Grace!
























Great idea, Grace. Yes, we could declare a "National e-bay treasure sale for AHUS". Someone much more clever than I could come up with a name that is actually catchy!

[Linda Burke]

Hey Grace-
It's a great idea! If you are on FaceBook, you'll notice that our FB page (see our Links box on this site's Home Page)has a very supportive "Fan Base" that isn't even represented here, so perhaps we can call on these kind and generous folks to assist in this endeavor. To expand on your idea, I've already been pondering setting up a charitable giving account somewhere... perhaps at "goodshop.com" . If we register there, when aHUS families/supporters shop online at Amazon.com or eBay (or a ton of other sites) they can automatically donate a % to our charity. On the surface, it seems like a good idea.... Another option is "we-care.com", similar situation to goodshop.com. This is as far as I've gotten in my research, no red flags yet, but I haven't gotten through all the fine print. (Yesterday I opened my email account to find 41 messages between Skyler's school and aHUS messages!) Love to have someone look over these two sites to compare, or perhaps there's another "giving network" that on a daily basis would work better for The Foundation for Children with Atypical HUS (hint, hint) !!

[Amy Swarbrick]

Sounds good to me too! Anything to help raise money for the foundation. I think we should also all share local fundraising activities/ideas that we could all do in our own home towns.

[Svetlana Finley]

I think that is great idea!!

[Phyllis Ann Talbot]

I think that's a great idea too - all of them. I know Heather has had very successful fundraisers for years and Bill anc Cheryl do awesome at their trivia night - the girl I job share with actually lives in St. Louis oddly enough so she was able to go last year and had a blast! We did the hike and fun kid day and did well last year. They are ALOT of work though!!