Leticia Meireles of San Diego, CA, writes:
I just had my birthday and in lieu of gifts, I’ve been asking friends to support a cure for breast cancer.
Many generous business owners helped me to gather almost 100 items to be sold on my fundraising online auction—items on Ebay too. Many of them are from retailers and restaurants in San Diego. Others are for national chains such as Borders and BestBuy. All proceeds will benefit the Susan Komen 3-Day for the Cure.
I need to raise $10,000 but no one seems to be bidding. What should I do differently? You can see the items up for bid here.
Hi Joan – you are so right. Leticia may get a big boost from social media. In fact, I just tweeted for her cause:
Birthday girl asks for friends/family to bid & buy to donate to cancer cause, rather than give her b-day gifts: http://www.32auctions.com/organizations/1878/auctions/2039
Good luck Leticia!
I would like to stress though, as wonderful as it is to see a growing number of survivors, it is important that people do what they can to prevent cancer in the first place.
Every community has a hospital, hospice, health center or some other health facility that works with breast cancer patients and breast cancer survivors. Try contacting them and asking if you can publicize your auction on their website, on their facebook page or other communications. If one of these organizations is holding a dinner to raise funds for the cause ask if you can place flyers on tables at the event. Ask if you can put flyers at healthcare facilities and in the cafeterias at local hospitals. Good luck! Judith Bron
Call on the social media community for help.
–I’ll bet there are a lot of cancer-related groups on Facebook that you could join. Some of them might be willing to let their own communities know about your auction.
–Some big brands have donated items to your auction. Do they have Facebook pages? If so, thank them publicly for the donation, tag them, and link to the auction page. Same for all the local businesses that have donated gift certificates and other items. Their customers and fans might be very interested in bidding.”
–What Facebook pages are devoted to breast cancer?
–Use one of the Twitter directories like Twellow.com to search for people who have the word “cancer” in their profiles. Follow ehm and ask them to help you spread the word.
–What about bloggers who are breast cancer survivors? Do a Google search and contact them privately and ask them to help.