THE CHALLENGE

The Marvin Lewis Community Fund hosted its annual Football 101 fundraiser – a women’s only event facilitated by the Bengals’ coaches that features mini football training sessions followed by a dinner, live and silent auctions.  This unique, entertaining, and educational fundraiser attracts many repeat participants each year, creating a challenge for the Marvin Lewis Community Fund to keep the annual event’s donors engaged with new and different activities and auction items year over year.  In addition, the Community Fund seeks to get an idea of what types of items event attendees would like to see in the live and silent auctions to gauge the interest of potential bidders.

THE SOLUTION

The Marvin Lewis Community Fund strategically utilized Facebook’s polling feature to determine the most coveted auction travel experiences.  Partnering with Giveback Sports, the Community Fund presented two Giveback Sports’ packages in a tournament style poll per week for 4 weeks on its Facebook page, eliminating the losing experience from that week’s poll, and pairing it against another package the following week. This head-to-head competition was not only a way to engage the Community Fund’s followers on social media, but it helped to identify the experience that had the highest probability of selling at Football 101.  The winning experience, the Live Music Getaway package, was then pre-promoted on the Marvin Lewis Community Fund’s social channels and email campaigns to generate excitement for the live auction.

THE RESULTS

The Live Music Getaway package was saved for the final item during the live auction to build up anticipation and momentum. Several donors knew going into the event this was the item they wanted to win!  The bidding went so well, that once the package hit the Community Fund’s goal for this item, it was offered to the two highest bidders at that highest amount.  The Live Music Getaway package sold in the top three highest bid prices of the night and by selling this item twice, it doubled the profit.

 

“Giveback Sports offers a great and seamless opportunity to bring new and exciting auction items to help us increase our profits without the extra work!”
– N. Anderson, Executive Director, Marvin Lewis Community Fund