Together Auction Management Software
Web based Auction Management software for non profit and charity gala service auctions helps connect members and build community within your organization as you raise needed funds.
Together Auction Sample Website
Follow this link: Together Auction Sample Website to see the auction website for First UU Columbus (testamonial below). Please don't sign-up as a member if you are just looking though, OK?
Auction Management Features
- Web based online system requires only basic hardware - if you can surf, you can use our system!
- Members get personalized emails with post-auction statements that show who they are connecting with -- much more useful than a traditional dollar-based recepit.
- Statements contain links to email hosts, and map-links to event locations.
- Automatic email reminders connect event hosts and participants 1 week prior to dated events.
- Members use your website to offer items themselves online
- Online browseable searchable item catalog encourages member participation
- Event Calendar allows members to resolve date conflicts
- Home page is fully customizable with auction event info and even a (randomly) featured item
- Time-based announcements on home page are fully configurable to present a different 'Theme' website for each year.
- Volunteer and admin functions (Sales Entry, Check-in, Check-out) are simple and easy to train
- Multiple Bid sheet variations for Live, Silent, Fixed-Price, Dinner, and other item categories
- Bid Sheets say either "Winner Collects Item Tonight" or "Not a take-home item" to assist with item distributions from the silent auction
- Post-Auction Bid sheets can be re-printed with winning bids for research and/or sale-entry proofreading
- Item Categories and prefixes are fully configurable.
- Optional letter suffixes for 'similar' items avoids duplicate item entry - eg: A5A, A5B for similar works (Artwork 5 - Sketches by Sam)
- Administrator can send customized emails (to encourage participation...etc.) and offer a direct one-click link to statements
- Many other helpful Reports are included: Cash Reconciliation, Top Buyers, Top Donors, Member Summary,...etc
- Payments can be entered at checkout as statements are printed, or bulk Statements can be printed after Sale if workstations/printers are limited
- Support for after-event leftover item sales (no paddle number needed)
A web based auction management tool for your success
- This is web-based software, but it is for live and/or silent auction events, so there is no online bidding like Ebay
- We give great technical support, and this is a great tool to help you manage all the details, but your auction still needs a strong team to be successful.
- You'll still need a technical person to make your catalog from the spreadsheet we export (although the mail merge templates we provide are very helpful)
- Printed documentation is not extensive, but features are clear and on-screen help is plentiful
Together Auction Church Testamonials
Together Auction was written for us at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus Ohio, and we have used it sucessfully since 2005. We have about 600 members, and draw about 200 to our annual auction, which many members describe as the party that kicks off their social calendar for the year. Jim also wrote an MS-Access based system that we used 3 years prior to that. The system has evolved over time to support more features - we especially like the newest email sending features. Our auction revenue has more than tripled over that time from around 10K to our highest-grossing ever auction that raised 38K for us. We can't say it's all due to Together Auction, but it's certainly helped free us from technical details and allowed us to focus more on decoractions, publicity, and other important aspects of a succesful fundraising auction. We'd recommend it to any non-profit organization with a team of 4-8 volunteers who can devote their energies to building community and raising money with a fundraising auction.
Unitarian Universalist Church of Marblehead raised over 12K using Together Auction for the first time this year for their March 27 2010 auction. Perhaps Bill Smalley might have something positive to say about it.
Think your organization might benefit from this? Tell a friend about us
Technical Details (geek speak)
Together Auction is a Java J2EE web application written by Jim Pinkham 
of Columbus Ohio using AJAX enabled Wicket 1.3.7 Java web framework.
It also uses MySQL, JettyPlus, and SpringFramework.
It is a hosted turnkey system, which means no technical headaches for you. Your organization will have it's own auction website with your own database of members, items, categories, and so forth.
A Gala Service Auction with Together Auction
Your service auction can be run with Together Auction as the main bookeeping system. The flow looks something like this:
- Pick your auction theme and setup TogetherAuction home-page with notices to inform members about your event details
- Kickoff party / Phone-a-thon / Solicit Item donations/ Sell advance tickets & Gift Certificates
- Members can enter items thru the website or volunteers enter from paper forms
- Proofreading can be done cooperatively - shared online system means no last minute bottleneck
- Establish order of live item presentation
- Generate and distribute printed catalog 2 weeks before event (get a big stapler)
- Produce a powerpoint slide show for the live items for the auctioneer to use based on the live bidsheet report
- Setup computers and Print Bid Sheets and addendum 1-2 nights before event
- Train volunteers
- The big day arrives - decorate like crazy
- Print late item donation bid sheets
- Check in guests (assign bidding paddle numbers)
- Enter silent auction sales (several workers at once)
- Enter live item sales & get all hands on deck for checkout
- Check out guests / Collect & enter payments / Print Statements
- Some groups print statements & sale summary report en-mass using fast printer/copier for manual checkout, entering payments later
- Some groups also have a post-auction leftover sale (add sales & payments from buyer's statements)
- As events occur, system sends participants reminder emails for them
- Folks visit their statement pages online to update event dates and get map directions and email/phones for hosts/guest
Reasonable Cost
It's only $200 to setup, plus an annual $50 fee each subsequent year. I'll import your Excel membership data so that guest check-in is mostly searching and selecting rather than data entry.
Sample Forms and Reports
How to Order
Together Auction is available for purchase to churches and nonprofit charity organizations. Contact us for details.
