2016 Charity Auction - Spitballing

[mjmjr25]

#justfacts

[Ziggy]

Raffles? Prizes? Contests? Paying for prizes from donations? This all seems like a lot of work that, unfortunately, would likely be a lot more trouble than it is worth given the forum's status these days.

Yeah... I was having the same thought after thinking about it more.

First, starting to talk about the auction in June/July is insane. Sorry, Ziggy, but that isn't when we used to start discussing the auction and, if someone did bring it up in the summer, discussion was typically quickly scuttled until the fall. I always though it worked best if we start planning in October, implemented plans in November, and ran it in December. Otherwise it becomes a (nearly) year-round auction discussion and people tend to get burned out on it before it even starts.

OK, maybe "Let's Plan" wasn't the best choice of words. I meant for this to be about spitballing ideas, and we've had threads like this mid-year for the past couple of years. I don't think anyone is gonna get burned out by throwing around ideas. Burned out, to me, is more likely to happen when only given a month of planning versus several.

Originally, I started this thread just to see if the auction would happen this year at all. Check the second post subject, "Is it gonna happen?" I decided that there was already too much doom and gloom on the matter, and I didn't want the thread title to add to it so I changed it.

Next, I don't think that the forum really has enough interested/invested participants to make any kind of traditional model we've used before worth while, no matter how great the cause may be.

Point taken. I know that last year's auction wasn't as great as previous years. However, we still raised and donated slightly over $1,000 to Able Gamers. Again, not as much as previous years, but I don't think it's "not enough" as to not even bother. At least, that's how I feel. Is the forum participation less now than it was last year?

I would suggest, instead, a more basic fundraiser where we just simply chip in to some kind of cause without any games or prizes attached to those donations. No contest, no auction, just a straightforward charity drive.

That, I don't think, would raise nearly as much money as an auction. Even with the smaller participation.

For now, though, I'd suggest that we just pick a cause (in November), find someone to collect PayPal donations in December (Nick would be ideal, obviously), and present the forum's collective donation to the charity/cause with a nice letter at the start of the new year. If people want to use their own BST thread or eBay or whatever to sell games to raise money to donate, that would be great. Perhaps people could just title their BST thread with an indicator of some sort so people can look to shop there (or perhaps the mods can sticky these threads during December or something).

THAT isn't too bad of an idea. People could either donate money directly, or bid on items direct from the donors. So, it would be more of a hybrid. If we went this route, I would suggest creating a forum in the BST section called "Charity Auctions" where donors can post their threads. One thread per person, strictly for charity auctions (and possibly lock/hide the forum after the auctions are over). We can set the rules that all the threads have to follow, so it would be more or less the same format as always. I have more thoughts on this if other people think it's a good idea.

[jmbarnes101]

Whatever works and someone wants to attempt is fine with me as long as we do something.