Notes from my terminal

Non-profit auctions

Another "fun auction" on eBay got me thinking. This time you can bid on LimeLoop, an Austrian geek who desperately wants to go to the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin (December 27-29).
I really wonder why this model isn't more wide-spread for non-profit, activist-style fund-raising or charity. eBay, while generally cool, just isn't the right tool to just cut it. A platform for auctions to finance things like grassroot projects would be neat to say the least. Such a platform should ideally distribute the necessary costs between a group of people (who typically won't have much money to spend as well) and keep track on how far the set goal of a given amount is still away. You could probably do this best using a mode called "American auction" (at least I know it under this name): it's not the highest bidder who has to pay it all, but rather everyone who bids on the "item" (project/concept/individual) has to put their money in the pot imediately. Thus money is already being collected while the bidding is still going on. Using this technique (quite common on charity events) you could reach the desired price pretty quickly. So, where's the grassroot version of eBay? Any takers? Posted by jens at December 9, 2003 10:56 AM | TrackBack