GOODBIDS

$70K raised in one week for 9 nonprofits. How we revolutionized charity auctions through strategic creative and curation.

GOODBIDS was a mission-driven startup founded by Seth Godin to reinvent charitable giving. The team created an innovative auction platform where every bid became a direct donation — transforming competitive bidding into a fun, high-impact tool that connects passionate supporters with causes in a fresh, rewarding way.

Roles

Founding Team, Creative Strategist & Partnerships Lead

Methods

Competitive Analysis, Partnership Outreach, Marketing Strategy, Art Direction, Generative AI, AI-Powered Creative Strategy

Results at a Glance

  • $70,000+ raised in the first sprint

  • 9 nonprofit partners rallied

  • Silver W3 Award for Charitable Organization Websites (2024)

CHALLENGE

How might we reinvent charitable giving by turning auctions into something supporters actually want to join? Fun, fast moving, mission driven, and designed to help nonprofits reach more people and raise more money.

Traditional charity auctions are costly, complicated, and hard to scale. They stall, lose energy, and often fail to deliver real results. We found three core problems.

Online Auctions Lose Momentum: Long gaps drain momentum and kill excitement.

Supporter Fatigue: Nonprofits struggle to keep donors engaged enough to place bids and keep bidding.

Nonprofits Struggle to Secure High-Value Prizes: Nonprofits waste effort chasing high-value items that are hard to secure.

We set out to solve all three with a digital-first platform that keeps the action moving, makes bidding genuinely fun, and helps nonprofits access better prizes with less friction.

The Innovation: Positive Auctions

GOODBIDS introduced a distinctive fundraising model where every participant played a role in making an impact.

 

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.

The highest bidder received the reward while every other bid still supported the cause.

Nonprofits received cumulative donations, raising far more than the item’s face value.

This model kept energy high throughout the auction, avoiding dormant bidding periods and driving excitement from start to finish.

It was fun, effective, human, and more profitable for all.

My Role & Impact:

As part of the founding team, I brought an entrepreneurial, self-directed approach shaped by Seth Godin’s leadership style. High trust, adaptability, and creative problem-solving guided my work.

I focused on developing strategic partnerships, leading creative strategy, and crafting marketing campaigns that engaged supporters and helped maximize nonprofit impact.

GOODBIDS launched as a first-of-its-kind digital auction platform that turned one-time bids into ongoing giving. This drove participation, unlocked larger donations, and supported more meaningful results for the nonprofits involved.

Partnership Development & Prize Curation

I led philanthropic partnerships and prize curation, working with mission-aligned donors to source exclusive, high-impact auction items that drove engagement and boosted fundraising.

Secured unique, high-value prizes by building relationships with mission-aligned donors, brands, and public figures

Developed and curated one-of-a-kind experiences including collaborations with partners like the Savannah Bananas and Apollonia Poilâne

Worked closely with nonprofit teams to align prizes with each mission and audience to ensure maximum impact

Facilitated high-profile experiences, such as podcast sessions with Seth Godin and Simon Sinek, a donor’s name featured in a John Grisham novel, and a one-on-one baking session with Claire Saffitz — giving supporters meaningful ways to contribute

Generative AI promotional images, created using Photoshop and Midjourney

Strategic Storytelling & Audience Engagement

For this project, I took a strategic approach to storytelling and engagement, collaborating with Creative Director Felice Della Gatta to align messaging with his distinctive, whimsical design system. While Felice led the visual identity, I focused on strategy, vision, and multi-channel engagement to ensure our campaigns were both beautifully designed and results-driven.

Working with the marketing teams of nine nonprofit partners, I developed a campaign strategy that used multiple channels to expand reach. This included a two-week social sprint aligned with the bidding period to keep momentum high and participation strong.

To drive engagement, I conceptualized and executed:

  • Interactive social experiences, like a guessing game and a coordinated launch push with podcast features and media coverage

  • Content strategy guidance for nonprofit partners to help them create stories that resonated with their audiences

  • AI-generated visuals for unique prizes when no assets existed

  • Social campaigns that reached more than 12,000 people with an average engagement rate of 12.5 percent

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.

“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.”

Felice Della Gatta

Creative Director, Goodbids

“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.”

Fannie Theofanidou

Brand Strategist, Goodbids

Notable Rewards Secured

Highlights included:

  • A Pain-delabra lamp shipped from Paris by Apollonia Poilâne

  • Taylor Swift concert tickets with flights to Amsterdam

  • A virtual bake-along with Claire Saffitz

  • Original Fight Club poster from Edward Norton’s collection

  • Podcast sessions with Seth Godin and Simon Sinek

  • A signed Grateful Dead guitar from Bob Weir

  • An Apollo Mission patch owned by Neil Armstrong

These prizes turned ordinary bids into once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, fueling donations well beyond each item’s face value.

The Future of GOODBIDS: With GOODBIDS, we proved that charitable giving can be more fun, more engaging, and more effective when every bid creates impact… not just the winning one. It has since shifted to an open-source model at goodbids.org, helping more organizations grow small donations into bigger results.

This is how I work: I help mission-driven teams find fresh angles, build partnerships that matter, and turn ideas into action that sticks.

Curious if my approach could unlock new momentum for your project? Let’s talk.

Do you have creative problems that need solving?

Let’s connect.

Toronto, Canada | Say Hi! ⇢  jennifermyerschua@gmail.com | linkedin/JenniferMyersChua 

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