Ken Goldstein, MPPA

Ken Goldstein has been working in nonprofits and local government agencies from Santa Cruz, to Sacramento, and back to Silicon Valley, since 1989. He's been staff, volunteer, board member, executive director, and, since 2003, a consultant to local nonprofit organizations. For more on Ken's background, click here. If you are interested in retaining Ken's services, you may contact him at ken at goldstein.net.

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Regifting is Good!

Last week, I received an email from Ashley Gatewood of MissionFish.org saying, in part:
Since the holidays are now over, we’re encouraging people to consider regifting items they received but don’t have a use for by selling them on eBay and donating the sale to a nonprofit. It can also be a great way for people who got a new item, like a digital camera, to turn the older model into funds for their favorite cause.
MissionFish is an official nonprofit partner of eBay and makes it easy for both organizations and individuals to set up charity fundraising auctions online.

Nonprofits can register on the site and either run their own auctions, or have their supporters auction items for their benefit. Individuals who have items they want to sell can search for a cause by name, type, or topic, and select a beneficiary for their personal auctions.

Early in the new year I will be experimenting with a "regifting" auction and reporting back to you about my experience here.

2 comments:

  1. Ken,

    Happy New Year! We have been active with MissionFish and eBay for almost a year and a half now. Here is an article that I posted last week about a recent experience we had.

    http://randomthings.wordpress.com/2006/12/21/the-committed-donor-the-power-of-the-thank-you/

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  2. Ken,

    Good blog. Keep up the good work. Regifting is not good if Missionfish takes 10% of every donation away from the charity. That's an exorbitant and irresponsible fee. You know that fundraising consultants that charge commission fees are viewed as pariahs. What about software vendors? Is there a double standard here. I wrote about it too - http://blueskycollaborative.typepad.com/blog/2007/01/commision_based.html.

    Keep up the good work.

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