GOODBIDS
Reimagining the Charity Auction Experience.
GOODBIDS was a mission-driven startup founded by Seth Godin to revolutionize charitable giving through an innovative auction model where every bid is a direct donation toward a noble cause. The team was tasked with building an interactive platform that made charitable giving more engaging and accessible by transforming competitive bidding into a fun, high-impact fundraising tool that connects passionate supporters with worthy causes in a fresh and rewarding way.
Roles
Founding Team, Creative Strategist & Partnerships Lead
Tools
Figma, Canva, MidJourney, ChatGPT, Claude, Discourse
Methods
Competitive Analysis, Partnership Outreach, Marketing Strategy, Art Direction, Generative AI
Timeline
One Year
CHALLENGE
How can we reinvent charitable giving by making bidding more fun, engaging, and mission-driven—while helping nonprofits reach more supporters and maximize fundraising potential for good causes?
Traditional charity auctions are often costly, complex, and difficult to scale, limiting their impact on nonprofits. Several key challenges emerged in our research:
Online Auctions Lose Momentum: Traditional online auctions often sit idle for long periods, causing participant fatigue and decreasing engagement. We wanted to create a solution with constant action—where any bid could spark a chain reaction of new donations, keeping the excitement alive.
Keeping Supporters Engaged is a Challenge: Nonprofits struggle to attract and maintain supporter attention during auctions. We needed to transform the experience into something genuinely fun and engaging that would encourage active participation.
Nonprofits Struggle to Secure High-Value Prizes: Securing compelling prizes is a persistent challenge for nonprofits. We envisioned creating a vetted network of preferred donors willing to contribute memorabilia, experiences, and unique items, making it easier for nonprofits to source prizes while helping donors maximize their impact through our model.
Our mission was to create an accessible, digital-first platform that would make charitable giving more engaging and effective by addressing these fundamental challenges.
The Innovation: Positive Auctions
GOODBIDS introduced a distinctive fundraising model where every participant played a role in making an impact.
It was fun, effective, human, and more profitable for all.
Every bid was a donation, ensuring that all participants contributed, not just the winner.
Bids increased in $10 increments. A $500 item could generate $6,995 in donations, with a winning bid of $355 after 18 bids.
Cumulative bids accelerated the magic of GOODBIDS, driving excitement and maximizing fundraising potential.
My Role & Impact:
As part of the founding team, I embraced an entrepreneurial, self-directed approach shaped by Seth Godin’s leadership philosophy, where adaptability and creative problem-solving were key. I played a pivotal role in developing strategic partnerships, leading creative strategy, and crafting marketing campaigns that engaged supporters and maximized nonprofit impact.
GOODBIDS launched as a first-of-its-kind digital auction platform, securing high-value prizes and partnering with nonprofits nationwide. My focus was on strategic partnerships, creative strategy, and art direction—developing high-impact campaigns that amplified fundraising efforts and drove participation.
Partnership Development & Prize Curation
Secured unique, high-value prizes by building relationships with mission-aligned donors, brands, and public figures
Developed and curated experiences in collaboration with partners like the Savannah Bananas and Apollonia Poilâne to offer one-of-a-kind auction reward
Worked closely with nonprofit teams to align prizes with their mission and audience, ensuring maximum fundraising impact
Facilitated high-profile experiences, including podcast recording sessions with Seth Godin and Simon Sinek, seeing a donor’s name featured in a John Grisham novel, and making gourmet desserts in a one-on-one baking session with Dessert Person Claire Saffitz—connecting donors with exclusive, meaningful opportunities.
Generative AI promotional images, created using Photoshop and Midjourney
Marketing, Creative Strategy & Engagement
For this project, I took a strategic approach to storytelling and audience engagement, collaborating closely with Creative Director Felice Della Gatta to align messaging with his whimsical, distinctive design system. While Felice led the visual identity, I focused on strategy, vision, and multi-channel engagement, ensuring that our campaigns were not only beautifully designed but also high-impact and results-driven.
Working with the marketing teams of nine nonprofit partners, I developed a campaign strategy that leveraged multiple channels to amplify reach. Our approach included a two-week social sprint, aligned with the bidding period, designed to sustain momentum and maximize participation.
To drive engagement, I conceptualized and executed:
- Interactive social experiences, including a highly engaging guessing game, which drove participation and interaction
- A coordinated launch-week push, securing podcast features and broader media visibility
- Content strategy guidance for nonprofit partners, helping them create compelling narratives that resonated with their audiences
- AI-generated marketing assets, using MidJourney and Photoshop to create compelling visuals for unique prizes—such as the Savannah Bananas experience, where no existing assets were available
- Social campaigns that generated 12,000+ impressions, with an average engagement rate of 12.5% reinforcing GOODBIDS’ unique positioning and mission
This integrated approach ensured that GOODBIDS’ storytelling, design, and strategy worked in unison, creating an engaging and impactful auction experience.
Working with creative and marketing teams at each of the non-profit partners, I coordinated launch efforts. Above, select promo for the Taylor Swift and charity : water auction.
Impact & Results
Through creative partner outreach and prize curation, we rallied nine nonprofit partners and raised over $70,000 USD in charitable donations during this initial sprint.
🏆 And won the Silver W3 Award for Charitable Organization Websites 2004
NOTABLE REWARDS
- A Pain-delabra lamp shipped from Paris by Apollonia Poilâne
- Taylor Swift concert tickets with flights to Amsterdam
- A virtual bake-along with YouTuber Claire Saffitz
- An original Fight Club poster from Edward Norton’s collection
- Podcast recording sessions with Seth Godin and Simon Sinek
- A VIB Very Banana Birthday experience with the Savannah Bananas
- A Meeting with Original Shark Daymond John
- An Apollo Mission Patch owned by Neil Armstrong
- A signed Bob Weir Grateful Dead Guitar
- Christian McCaffrey San Francisco 49ers Superbowl Jersey
- A New York Giants helmet autographed by Eli Manning and Mario Manningham
- Game-used Sherwood Hockey Stick from New York Rangers Star Kaapo Kakko
- A Six-pack of In-person Pitching Lessons from Former New York Mets Pitcher Nelson Figueroa.
- 1-on-1 office or Zoom meeting with Nicole Walters
“I have worked with Jennifer on a couple of career-defining projects, and her impact on their success has been immeasurable. From taking a business online to launching and promoting it, she can either do or manage it all while always bringing her generous, creative, proactive, and pragmatic approach to every challenge.”
“You know those annoying design problems that keep glaring at you? Jennifer sees them and goes, “Hold my latte.”What sets Jennifer apart is how she combines creative excellence with methodical organization. She floods projects with innovative ideas while maintaining impeccable structure throughout the process. During our work together, I watched her step up and create momentum out of thin air, turning our ‘we should probably’ conversations into actual, tangible progress.
Need a creative partner who’ll totally get you? Seriously, look no further. For mission-driven organizations that need someone who understands purpose at a bone-deep level, and knows how to translate it into visual stories, Jennifer is that rare find.”
Key Learnings
Digital Accessibility Expands Philanthropic Reach
The GOODBIDS experience reinforced the power of digital platforms in making charitable giving more accessible. By removing traditional barriers—such as event costs and geographic limitations—we unlocked new opportunities for nonprofits to engage a wider audience.
Creative Prize Curation Drives Engagement
Compelling, thoughtfully curated prizes proved to be a major driver of engagement and bidding activity. Exclusive, experience-based rewards resonated deeply with participants, reinforcing the idea that high-impact fundraising goes beyond transactional giving.
Inclusive Bidding Models Transform Auction Dynamics
Traditional auctions often cater to a small, high-net-worth audience. GOODBIDS introduced an inclusive, gamified model, ensuring that every bid contributed to the mission, fostering a sense of participation and collective impact.
Strategic Partnerships Amplify Fundraising Success
Collaboration between brands, nonprofits, and donors was essential in maximizing reach and fundraising outcomes. The success of GOODBIDS demonstrated how well-aligned partnerships create shared value and deepen engagement across multiple stakeholders.
The Future of Goodbids
GOODBIDS reimagined the traditional charity auction model by allowing supporters to bid on exclusive rewards, with every bid acting as a tax-deductible donation. This approach leveraged competition and excitement to drive greater philanthropic impact, transforming passive giving into an active, rewarding experience.
While initially developed for commercialization, GOODBIDS has since transitioned to an open-source model. This shift reflects a commitment to fostering innovation in charitable giving, providing more organizations with access to powerful fundraising tools. More at goodbids.org
This case study highlights my expertise in: Strategic partnership development, creative campaign execution, digital platform innovation, and impact-driven project management.
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