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Griff: Jennifer, before you introduce Meredith, for all our new listeners, tell us briefly about the eBay Giving Works.
Jennifer: Sure. As you mentioned in your intro, eBay Giving Works is basically the dedicated program for charity listings on eBay. This gives sellers a chance to donate either part or all of the proceeds of a sale to their chosen nonprofit and it also gives a way for nonprofits to have a new way to fundraise. They can either sell directly on eBay or they can rally their supporters to sell on eBay to benefit their organization.
Griff: So if you’re a seller and you want to donate all or a portion of the proceedings of a sale that you make on eBay, how do you set that up?
Jennifer: You would go to givingworks.eBay.com and all the instructions are on there. But basically you would use the Sell Your Item form or Turbo Lister and also you can use Channel Advisor now, they also support eBay Giving Works listings. But as you’re going through the listing process you just want to make sure that you select a nonprofit organization and then you also select a donation percentage and you’re all set at that point.
Griff: Now I know it’s a certain level if you’re giving proceeds through the Giving Works that eBay will actually donate the fees themselves.
Jennifer: That’s right.
Griff: Not that you don’t pay the fees, but they’ll match the fees. What percentage is that?
Jennifer: It’s 90% and above. If you donate 90% or above of your sales eBay will actually donate those fees back to the nonprofit that you chose.
Griff: So this could be a substantial amount for some items if they happen to bring several thousand dollars.
Jennifer: Absolutely.
Griff: It’s a very good thing. Meredith, welcome to eBay Radio.
Meredith: Thank you, it’s great to be here.
Griff: It’s always great to have somebody new on the show and we welcome you to our eBay Radio broadcast. Tell us about the Global Giving.
Meredith: Global Giving is actually a lot like eBay in our setup. Instead of a marketplace that connects buyers and sellers, however, we connect donors, or people who are able to give money, to social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurs are people, usually individuals or small groups, that work in their own communities all over the world to solve the issues that are really facing their community at that time. So if it’s an issue of lack of education for their kids or lack of clean water supply, they’re really creating these projects, we call them, that are attacking these issues head-on in the way that works for their community.
Griff: Do you have an example of one of the successful beneficiaries of Global Giving?
Meredith: Sure, absolutely. The one that comes to mind off the top of my head is a program called Train Platform Schools for children in India. It’s run by a woman named Inderjit Khurana and the idea is that there are so many children living in complete poverty around train platforms in many cities in India, they’re not able to go to school, they’re not able to get regular health care or any type of nutrition, and this program actually goes to the children where they are at the train platforms, provides them an education right there on the platform, has a doctor come in to provide medical checkups and feeds them two meals a day.
Griff: Wow.
Meredith: Yeah. So high impact what we go for here with small amounts of money that make a huge difference. A school like that can actually run for one year on $1,200.
Griff: That’s all?
Meredith: That’s all.
Griff: I feel guilty, I better start giving money (laughter).
Meredith: (Laughter) Well now you can.
Griff: Yes, it’s true. And if I’m an eBay seller or eBay buyer and I want to take part in Global Giving, how do I do that on the site?
Meredith: Well, just like Jennifer said, you can list through the Giving Works program and as you are setting up your listing there’s a dropdown menu just in the regular listing procedure where you can designate a portion of your proceeds to a certain auction. We are in there as Global Giving. We’re also running a campaign currently which you can learn more about at eBay.com/GlobalGiving and I’ll tell you a little bit about the campaign.
Griff: Yes please, tell us the name.
Meredith: Sure, it’s called List, Win, Change the World. And the idea is that through your listings you can benefit these projects and make a real difference somewhere else in the world. So the campaign is as follows: the idea is we’re trying to get as many eBay sellers involved as possible. We realize the potential of the eBay community, the power of everybody coming together and that’s really something we believe in at Global Giving. So the idea is if you sell an item to benefit the project through Global Giving through the Giving Works program like we just explained, we will give you 5 points. If that listing sells that’s an additional 2 points, and if you decide to list another item for sale to benefit Global Giving, that’s another 2 points. The idea is if we can get enough sellers to list enough items they’ll reach a certain threshold. So if the community can get enough points to reach 5,000 points we have an anonymous donor that will throw in $5,000. And the idea is the seller who has listed the most items at that breakpoint gets to decide which of the projects gets that money.
Griff: Oh, that’s fantastic.
Meredith: Yeah.
Griff: So it’s only going to work if people actually do this. So it really does depend on folks taking advantage of this right now so they can rack up the points.
Meredith: Exactly. And it can’t just be one person alone, we need everybody to pitch in.
Griff: So one person can’t go in there and just get the 5,000 points.
Meredith: Sadly, no.
Griff: Well, it does come to mind, what can I sell so I can get to that number.
Meredith: Right.
Griff: It’s amazing the train platform education program in India. Do you have another example?
Meredith: Sure. Another one is based here in the United States. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina there were a lot of needs, as everybody knows, in those affected areas. And one of the projects that we have on the site actually benefits the first three elementary schools to open after the hurricane hit the area. And the project provides school supplies such as books, pencils, rulers, really the basics, as well as some computers and computer programs. And the idea is to help rebuild these schools so children can begin to get an education again and not only that, rebuild them in a way that it will be sustainable over a long period, really improve on them while we have the opportunity.
Griff: So not just a band aid fix for the short term.
Meredith: Exactly. We’re all about the long-term affect. And actually I have an anecdote. That project has been listed through eBay Giving Works for a while and currently there’s a pretty high-profile auction that’s going on to benefit that specific Katrina project.
Griff: Oh, tell us.
Meredith: They’re auctioning off the shirts that Meg Whitman and Bill Cobb wore during the eBay Live conference.
Griff: Oh right, yes.
Meredith: So everybody should check that out. It’s eBay.com/GlobalGiving. There’s a link to the campaign as well as that auction that I just mentioned.
Griff: And that’s something that people can bid on right now.
Meredith: Exactly, yeah.
Griff: Do we know what the shirts are up to?
Meredith: Last I checked they were hovering around $700-$800, but there are five total.
Griff: And I need to remind everyone that Bill and Meg both assured the audience at eBay Live they would be washed and clean (laughter). They’ll be fresh and ready to either hang up on your wall or put under glass or wear, I suppose. Again, I want people to know exactly where to go, so Meredith, can you give us that address again?
Meredith: Absolutely. It’s eBay.com/GlobalGiving.
Griff: Perfect. Meredith, thank you so much for stopping by.
Meredith: Thank you.
Griff: And it’s always a pleasure Jennifer.
Jennifer: Thank you Griff.
Griff: Thanks for bringing Meredith to our attention and this wonderful program called Global Giving through the eBay Giving Works tool. We’ll have you back and get an update on how the auction goes.
Meredith: Sounds great.
Griff: Jennifer Ibarra is the associate manager of the eBay Cause Related Programs and one of these, of course, is the eBay Giving Works, and she brought along and introduced us to Meredith Landis who is marketing associate for Global Giving. They connect individual and institutional donors around the world. This segment has been brought to you by Netopia, leaders of remote management software. One of our favorite guests is calling in during our next segment, that’s you. The world is waiting to hear what you’ll have to say when we continue here with more of eBay Radio.
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