Fundraising Blog

Giant Steps Smash Results At This Years Gala Ball

Question:

How do you manage a 400+ item silent auction catalogue with 1000 attendees in a 5 hour window?

Answer:

You use mobile phone technology!

Giant Steps recently held their annual Gala ball at the Hordern Pavilion to raise funds to provide vital services for children and young adults with autism.

This year's theme was a Rio Carnivale Ball which was a spectacularly visual and entertaining event, with all guests making a full effort to dress up and get involved (including a mass conga line through the venue)!

They worked with GalaBid to promote and run their silent auction as well part of their donation campaign.

The results were outstanding, with an increase in fundraising revenue of $40,000 compared with what they were achieving with handset bidding and nearly 30% of their final result was secured pre-event, using the GalaBid pre-event bidding features.

Aside from the increase in revenue the Treasurer was also delighted with the streamlining of the end of night payment process texting us to say "Your system was excellent äóñ it halved the payment time" äóñ with a 400+ item catalogue we can see why this is such an important area for improvement!  

Here's what Leanne Maccallum, Ball Coordinator/Director at Giant Steps had to say about their experience moving from electronic handsets to the GalaBid mobile platform.

How did your GalaBid experience compare to when you ran the auction on paper/with handset style bidding?

GalaBid enabled many more guests and even those not attending our ball to bid on the auction, which resulted in a profit of at least $40,000 more than previous years.  Guests having their own handset and receiving a text message when they were outbid were options not previously available as well as being able to add the full prize description and photo to the online system.

What were the advantages to using the GalaBid system with a large catalogue of items?

Items were much easier to find using the categories option, so guests didn't have to wade through the entire catalogue to find what they were interested in.

How did your supporter's respond to the platform?

Our guests enjoyed using the platform with many getting in early with registration and bids and setting up their favourites prior to the night.

What would you say about your overall result?

We are thrilled with our overall result!  GalaBid was around 40% of the price of the previous system we were using with a 30% increase in profit from our auction items.

Giant Steps Sydney is a centre of excellence for the creation and implementation of innovative and effective programs for children and young adults with autism.  Giant Steps also provides support to families, seeks to improve the understanding of autism in the community and to develop best practice amongst carers and professionals.  For more information about Giant Steps and autism please visit https://www.giantsteps.net.au

Moving across from handset technology

Over the past few years GalaBid has seen a lot of clients move across from the older handset technology to our mobile platform and benefit from the extra functionality for their events.

Handset technology was great in its time and revolutionised the world of silent auctions but then along came the iphone and it was time for another huge revolution!

The power of mobile phone based auctions and donation campaigns is massive, allowing you to reach a much wider audience at a much earlier point in the lead up to your event. See the fundraising tips section of our blog for more helpful info on how to get the best out of auction technology and increase your fundraising results.

About GalaBid

GalaBid is CrowdComms’ fundraising software, developed inhouse, which facilitates bidding, donations, purchases, payment for and management of all fundraising activities before and during live fundraising events, galas, golf days etc.

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