Selling and Buying: Helping Nonprofits

Most of us have donated to charity in one form or another. But here on eBay, charities really rock. Do you need a Jurassic Park helmet signed by Steven Spielberg to round out your collection (and deflect the odd dino tooth)? Post a bid on one of the charity auctions. How about a signed original photograph of Jerry Seinfeld from People magazine? Yup, you can get that, too. All these and more have turned up in charity auctions. In short, having a big heart for charities has gotten a whole lot easier thanks to eBay.

eBay Giving Works

November 2003 was a lucky time for this country’s charities. That’s the month that eBay launched the eBay Giving Works Charity auction area. Smartly, the folks on eBay teamed up with one of the finest charity sites on the Internet, MissionFish. MissionFish, a service of the Points of Light Foundation, has been around since early 2000 and has enabled charities to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars by turning in-kind donations into cash. The eBay community has helped raise over $200 million.