Thursday, January 16, 2014

Back on the Auction Hunt

Greetings friends! Well, we are back on the auction hunt. It was a delightful 2 month break from having to chase auction items, but we're halfway through January and it was time to get started. I started with working on getting gift certificates donated for the Date Auction couples to use. I decided to start with the easiest things first- filling out the online donation forms that a bunch of restaurants and other places use to review donation requests. It is an easy system to use and a lot easier than having to call the venue, find the right contact person and then email them directly. The downside is that there is no one to follow up with when you use this automated donation system.

I still haven't selected which company I'm going to use for mobile marketing. There is one company that I most likely will go with, but I'm waiting to hear back if they can process recurring pledges without having to purchase additional software. I was really disappointed with another company that is one of the Mobile Giving Foundation's partners. I did a demo with them last week, but the demo didn't show me part of what I wanted to see- the platform that we would use for the marketing service. We scheduled another online demo for this week- I made sure to be ready to do it at the time we discussed, but I never heard from the rep- I emailed him and he never responded. That was 2 days ago. That is not very good customer service, so I definitely won't be working with them. Maybe they think we are too small to work with- but even if that is it, one doesn't blow off a virtual meeting. 

Tomorrow morning, I'm zooming to Boston to do another donation to the Dept. of Children and Families. It's always one of my favorite donations to do. I want to do some more on getting gift certificates and start on getting items for our Anniversary Celebration. I also need to work on getting a speaker for that event.

Well, that's the latest for tonight. I'm off to eat my grapefruit and read for a bit- my book is due back at the library next week, so I need to get it finished. Until next time friends... Happy Martin Luther King holiday weekend.

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