Auctions are excellent tools for diversifying funding streams for nonprofit development professionals. The emergence of ubiquitous online access have made online auctions an excellent vehicle for nonprofits and charities to raise funds while engaging stakeholders and other consituencies in their causes. eBay, the leader platform for online auctions also provides a number of offerings for running nonprofit auctions. Running a charity auction on eBay is simple, but getting the most from your efforts involves developing a strategy and understanding the ins and outs of eBay. Luckily eBay provides lots of information on how to be successful using their services.

eBay wants you to be successful. Essentially, if their sellers are not making any money, eBay is not making any money - or not enough money. eBay does have one other very small source of revenue, which comes from the sellers. This revenue is realized from the promotional tools that actually help you, as a seller, have more successful auctions.

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In addition to eBay, other vendors offer vehicles for nonprofits to run fundraising auctions. CMarket - www.cmarket.com offers services emphasizing the importance of bidders, donors and sponsors, and their respective roles in a successful auction. Their Website is a valuable source of fundraising auction tips.

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The promotional tools on eBay are very inexpensive. For instance, you can have a bold listing for just a few cents. Highlighted listings are equally inexpensive. These two tools could easily raise your final price by as much as 25%! Not all promotional tools cost money. Many of them are free. The available promotional tools found on eBay are product finder, gallery, bold, highlight, border, gift services listings, subtitles, featured home page, featured plus, featured gallery, keywords, co-op advertising, and optimized listings.

If you are serious about making money from your eBay auctions, or if you are selling just one high ticket item, you should definitely take advantage of the eBay promotional tools that are available to you. These can easily be found through your sellers account.