Jul 3 2009

Using eBay Auctions for School Fundraising

Everyone is getting on the bandwagon. Large companies successfully use eBay auctions to offload excess inventory, the Postal Service rids itself of unclaimed merchandise, police departments sell confiscated goods. Thousands of nonprofits are doing business with eBay.

Are eBay auctions the fundraiser’s cash cow or are the dangling cash-carrots never quite reachable?

There you have both ends of the online auction spectrum. Likely, your organisation’s ability to generate donations in this fashion lies somewhere in between, hopefully toward the high end. Merely registering an account with eBay doesn’t guarantee that sellers will be prompted to donate part of an item’s selling price to your group. Or that buyers will gobble up your items. Philanthropically minded people are only beginning to see online auctions as a serious avenue of charitable giving.

Successfully trading on eBay is far more than a mechanical process. You’ll need staff and/or volunteer commitment, and sales and marketing know-how. It takes little skill to get on the bandwagon; it takes a lot not to fall off.

There are several main reasons to use eBay as part of your overall fundraising plan. Not because its the cool thing to do. Not because it takes the place of person-to-person campaigning.

But because:
* EBay enables your group to reach a huge, new market of non-constituents, uncultivated strangers who will immediately participate in funding your projects by buying your items.

*You can fit a few hundred people in an in-house auction room, but you can reach millions online.
*You’ll capture new prospects. A percentage of buyers will turn out to be donors to future campaigns if your follow-through is sound. Otherwise, why not simply run an online membership auction from your organisation’s web site?
* It’s cost effective. No space to rent, tickets to sell, caterers to hire, and so on.
* Its novelty will captivate volunteers who are used to performing the same campaign tasks year after year.

How you can capture a profitable share of this new market depends on the sales direction you take, the items you offer, how they’re presented, and your game plan.

Direct and Community Selling
You’ll obviously receive the most income and acquire the most new prospects if your group uses donated items to auction. For nonprofits, eBay terms this “Direct Selling.” It’s the same technique used by organisations that produce in-house, live auctions by soliciting in-kind gifts.

“Community Selling” is a term eBay uses to describe the process whereby sellers designate all or part of the selling price to an organisation. This offers your present donors new opportunities to support your drive.

For example, the Smith’s annual gift is $100. Your latest newsletter describes and promotes the benefits to the campaign from members selling unwanted items on eBay. The Browns’ decide that two 17″ hand painted platters are items they haven’t used for years. They list them on eBay at $19.95 each and designate your group to receive 80% of the selling price.

The remaining 20%, they figure, will take care of shipping. The platters each sell for $25. You have an additional donation from the Browns of $40. If 99 other present donors did the same you’d have an additional $4,000 on top of their cash gifts. And what about the members who couldn’t afford to give you cash donations? Surely, many of them would find an item or two to sell on eBay on your behalf. So, you see, the potential for raising funds through eBay is real, but eBay is only the vehicle, not the driving force. Selling the concept is the organisation’s job.

What Items to Auction?
While it’s been shown that many non-constituent eBay buyers react favorably to knowing that proceeds of a sale are helping fund a nonprofit organisation, their interest is driven by an item’s appeal, not necessarily an organisation’s mission.

People will buy anything, especially when they think they’re getting a deal. Last time I looked, a set of 10 real cattle teeth was about to be auctioned for $7.99. But since you’re in the serious business of raising money, not running online garage sales, offering genuine collectable teeth will do little to help fund your annual budget. Stay away from trinkets when soliciting direct selling items if possible. However, memorabilia is a natural for online auctions.

The more your items play to a universal audience the more they’ll be seen, and the higher the selling price. For example, a vintage Cowboy type belt buckle from a city in Arizona could sell to a local organisation member or be even more valuable to an Australian outback buyer.

Most everything sells on eBay, but collectibles have always been big sellers, also electronics in all categories, music, books and games. Everyone has a few old books and CDs lying around that you can convert to cash by selling them on ebay. And certainly one-time, high profile items with special appeal, like seats in a corporate box at a big game. Or a trip to the Barrier Reef.

HTML clipboardIf your group, school or club is looking for school fundraising ideas and easy fundraiser ideas, have a look at Goldstar Gifts and Stationary’s easy to manage ideas for fundraising.


Jul 3 2009

Free games online

Games were always popular on the internet and now more and more games are online and free for the people to use. Most of these free gaming sites are very popular and new are coming up all the time. So the question arises. Why a webmaster will build such a site. As always the answer is simple. Money. Because these websites become quite popular very fast especially with some kind of advertising promotion their repeating visitors user base is growing fast. The result is thousands and thousands of hits every time and this easily converts to clicks and money for the webmaster.

On the other side building such a website is not very easy except if you buy a commercial package with thousands of free games. But doing this you are competing with a thousand other websites that are using this software as well. This is not good in the eyes of the search engine bots because of duplicate content and other issues.

Talking about return of investment for such websites to my knowledge is very low or in some cases very late. With all this competitions this kind of websites cannot depend on search engine traffic and must rely on paid advertisement. Until the user base will grow large enough the return of investment is poor. An example of such a website you can find to the following link. Free games online.

By taking a look in his alexa stats we can easily see that this site is new and search engines just started to index it.

Let’s wish it good luck!


Jul 3 2009

Buy A Term Life Insurance Policy While You’re Young

You’ve heard a lot of talk about cheap term life insurance and you’ve decided that it’s something you need to start investigating. That’s definitely a step in the right direction. Like so many other tasks in life these days, you’ll probably turn to the internet to get a jumpstart your search for the right term life insurance policy for you. You’ll have the opportunity to fill out numerous online applications from copmpanies that offer cheap term life insurance but when the quotes start to come back you’ll quickly realize that term life insurance isn’t really all that cheap.

Once you start looking, you’ll notice plenty of advertisements for cheap term life insurance. Online and off, life insurance is big business and it’s also very competitive. If cheap term life insurance is something you’re after, keep in mind that all “cheap” term life insaurance offers are not created equal. Actually, if you’ll do a bit of research you may find that cheap term life insurance may not be the good deal you think it is. For example, what if the agency you purchase your policy from is not around to pay your beneficiaries in the unlikely event that you do pass away.

If you have made the decision to purchase a term life insurance policy you’ve made a good decision. Unfortunately, most people put off buying a term life insurance policy due to the nature of the purchase; it’s comparable to writing a Last Will and Testament, it can be an unpleasant thing to think about, much less discuss, and before they know it, time has run out.


Jul 3 2009

Have a wonderful Monday morning!

Monday mornings, don’t you just love them? The alarm goes off. You slowly open your eyes and you groan. Just 15 minutes more sleep you think as your head hits the pillow and then you remember it is Monday morning. Why am I so tired? Then you pull your tired body out of bed and think “I should feel better than this after a night’s sleep”.

It used to be for me but now I actually like Monday mornings. It took a while before I got to the point where I could say that. I tried a number of different things because I knew there had to be an answer out there somewhere. First was exercise which did in fact help some although I woke up sore many mornings. Then I tried eating a bigger breakfast which helped more throughout the morning but still didn’t launch me out of bed. Supplements! That had to be the answer. After trying vitamins and minerals and other substances I did land on one that really made a difference. It came in a really unique green glass bottle with a picture of a man on a beach blowing a conch. It is called TAHITIAN NONI® Juice and made from a funny looking fruit called Noni fruit from Tahiti.

The first thing I discovered was I wasn’t dragging through the day. After the first week I actually had energy to spare! Then I stopped drinking it to see if it was TAHITIAN NONI® Juice making me feel this way or my imagination. Sure enough my energy started running out again.

The next thing I found was that I wasn’t getting sick as often. While those around me were getting sick, it just passed me by. I found out later it’s because TAHITIAN NONI® Juice boosts the immune system. Needless to say it’s a keeper for me.

As indicated at the bottom of all our web pages, these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and these products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please visit our website for details.

Multi Topic Blog


Jul 2 2009

Pink Satin Bedskirts: Achieve a Total Redecoration

Even with new comforters, sheets and drapes, your quarters would still lack of zest if you don’t have the similar hot pink bed skirt.

Bedskirts are best described as the hanging sheets that hide all four areas of the bed. They are positioned atop the box spring underneath the mattress and hang floor level. Also identified as dust ruffles, bedskirts are brilliant in hiding clutter underneath the bed. Its main point, aside from adding sophistication and style, is to lessen dust from gathering beneath and around the bed.

Dust ruffles are available in myriad patterns, hues and prints. Silk, satin, velvet, and micro suede are available if you love the finer things in life. However, there are also plain ones like matelasse and chenille. To maximize the effect of the bedskirt in your bedroom, make sure to choose one that coordinate with your existing decor and sheets. If you want to go for more tailored and masculine appearance, pick out a pleated bedskirt in strong, solid colors. For a something fun and relaxed, choose a bedskirt that has striped or circled prints. There are also lace, eyelet, and ribbon adorned and ruffled bedskirts for that ultra feminine look.

When browsing for bedskirts, take into consideration your existing bed sets of comforters and pillowcases. The bedskirt should match them. Also, make sure that you integrate the look of your current bedroom decors as well. You don’t want anything to look inappropriate in your endeavor of making over your room. If your mattress size is king, buy the appropriate bedskirt for that. But ensure that the dimension of the bedskirt is equivalent to the height from your room floor to the top of your box spring.

There are numerous brands and designs to choose from online. A particular bedskirt differ from cost, look, sturdiness and washability. Make sure you go for the right one just for you.


Jul 1 2009

Benefits of the Right Kind of Fitness Equipment

If you happen to be running a professional gym or even if you are planning on adding to your home gym you need to seriously consider purchasing the right kind of commercial fitness equipment. In fact, the main distinguishing feature to commercial fitness equipment is that it is equipment that has especially been designed so as to allow users to avail of different programs that will suit users with different workout requirements. Whenever you enter an exercise facility, you will find commercial fitness equipment being part of the fixtures and even people planning on maintaining a home gym too are finding commercial fitness equipment to be a useful addition.

Treadmills Are the Best Option

The treadmill is a good example such equipment; however, before you purchase your treadmill you must realize that this is an item of fitness equipment that will not provide as much benefits as you would get by running in the outdoors.

This in turn should make you also evaluate the pros and cons of opting to run in the outdoors because you would not need to spend hundreds of dollars in purchasing either new or used commercial fitness equipment and not get the desired results. However, if you purchase such form of equipment including options such as a rowing machine you can be sure of getting a lot out of your purchase because of being able to get some excellent workouts.

Commercial fitness equipment is also very useful for those who have suffered a serious injury and so need to get certain level of exercise out of such equipment. Other reasons for shopping for commercial fitness equipment are because there may not be any great places where you can go outside and do your running; and, so you are forced into working out at home or in a gym.

The internet is probably the best place to shop for commercial fitness equipment because your online research of different items of commercial fitness equipment will throw up many interesting options and more importantly, will allow you to find certain items that will meet both your budget as well as your particular needs.

If you need to exercise an injured knee, you need to then look closely at buying an elliptical trainer. When it concerns buying gym fitness equipment, especially items that will help give you the best cardio workout you should consider buying from items such as exercise treadmills, exercise bikes as too elliptical trainers. Another way to get through a speedy recovery is by using HGH products like GHR1000 and Sytropin.  They can help you get back from an injury quickly like when you were younger.

There are several commercial fitness equipments you can find. If you are patient enough to look around and go in search for the perfect equipment, you just might find the most functional type and could even find the most affordable equipment that will fit your budget.


Jun 30 2009

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