Charities Cash in with Online Auctions
July 12, 2001 -- How much would someone pay for a prop sword from a defunct TV show, or for Mariah Carey’s bra?
A lot, apparently.
Tech-savvy nonprofit organizations are jumping into online auctions of everything from autographed celebrity photos to famous movie trinkets, as a fast way to raise cash for their causes.
Tonight, cable TV channel American Movie Classics will break new auction ground when it hosts its annual fund-raiser for The Film Foundation. AMC will host and televise a live auction from a theater in Los Angeles that can also be accessed via a Web site called ibidlive.tv.
Registered users can submit bids as they watch the auctioneer call up items such as the Cowardly Lion costume from the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz. An attendant at a computer updates the bid status as both real and virtual bidders make offers and counter-offers for each item.
Dina White, a spokeswoman for AMC, says that the simultaneously on- and off-line auction is the first time the movie channel has experimented with Net auctions. And while she says that AMC has no idea what the total donation amount will be to the Film Foundation — an organization headed by Martin Scorcese to preserve film negatives of classic films — it could potentially be much more than the $200,000 raised last year.
If I Only Had the Dough
According to Win Pescosolido, chief operating officer for ibidlive, several hundred online bidders have already pre-registered to take part in the AMC auction. Some have even applied for individual credit approvals that will allow for online bids of hundreds of thousands of dollars. In fact, Pescosolido notes that one undisclosed online bidder has enough credit to easily win the Oz lion suit if the bidding goes beyond the costume’s estimated $430,000 value.
The chances of the Cowardly Lion or a “micro-jet airplane” that flew in the James Bond flick Octopussy going for such online highs may be pretty good, considering how more recent online auctions for quirky celebrity items have fared.
Tiara Nappi, owner of It’s A Wrap Production Wardrobe Sales in Burbank, Calif., is still amazed at how much — and how fast — money can be raised for charity via such entertainment-related items.
Nappi’s store, which sells costumes and props no longer needed by movie and TV studios, recently held online auctions on Yahoo! for items from the now-discontinued Xena: Warrior Princess syndicated TV show. A costume worn by Lucy Lawless, the actress who portrayed the title character, went for $15,000. “We even got $500 for a necklace that wasn’t even made out of gold,” says Nappi.
With an average winning bid of more than $2,000 per item, Nappi says that nearly $240,000 in proceeds was raised within two weeks for Lawless’ chosen charity, Childhelp USA National Child Abuse Hotline.
And such rapid revenue generation has more organizations taking notice and taking part in online auctioning.
Busting a Move
For Charisse Browner, president of the Knowledge is Power (KIP) Foundation in Burbank, it was a no-brainer. The philanthropic arm of hip-hop music radio station KPWR (Power 106), had experimented with different ways to raise money for job-training and education programs for under-served youths in Los Angeles. But when Browner saw the earlier Xena online auctions, “I was floored how much that stuff was going for,” she says.
In hopes of netting similar success, the foundation recently began its own online charity auction on uBid.com. But in matching with it ties to the radio station’s urban “hip-hop” music, Browner’s items come from music celebrities and radio personalities. “I just really challenged the celebrities on the air,” says Browner.
And the celebrities answered back — some with decidedly “edgier” items.
In addition to her bra, currently going for more than $500 online, Mariah Carey offered other underwear. When the auction for her butterfly-studded bra ends on July 16, online bidders may have a shot at a set of her boxers, inscribed with “I use to sleep in these — among other things of that nature.” Browner is hoping that such items, which will appear for auction roughly every 10 days, will help raise at least $50,000 within a year.
But she realizes there are limits to how much online auctions can raise. “One big disadvantage is that not everyone has access to a computer,” she says. As such, she plans on hosting a silent auction of some items during the foundation’s more traditional fund-raiser — a live benefit concert of various artists in August.
Browner is mum if any will bring extra underwear for sale, however.