New approach in fundraising with online auctions - Ycare

Publishing a project
At Ycare, nonprofits can publish their charitable projects and spread the word to the online community. It does not matter how big or how small a project is. A project can be the purchase of new books for your child’s school, the improvement of facilities at your church, a fundraising campaign for the homeless or for a Third World project.

Publishing a project at Ycare is as simple as starting an online auction. Ycare supplies various tools to help get projects known on a local or national basis:

· When a project is published, the Ycare software automatically creates flyers with a brief description of the project. These flyers can be printed and handed out the old fashioned way, thus reaching donors that don’t have internet access.
· Users get their own personal Ycare email address book. Existing email addresses can be uploaded personalized emails can be sent to potential supporters of a project.
· Donors can ask questions about a project and both the question and the answer are posted on the website, for other donors to read.
· Projects can be updated with text or images at any time, always keeping donors informed

In addition, Ycare checks the tax exempt status of the nonprofit and, if verification is possible, posts a seal of certification, informing potential donors.

Starting an online auction
Ycare is also a complete online auction site. Here donors can sell items in support of a project of their choice and determine, how much of the proceeds from the sales they want to donate to the project and how much they want to keep for themselves. Donors can donate anywhere between 5% and 100% of the proceeds.

Buying and selling is similar to other auction sites, where both parties agree on the form of payment. Ycare plays no role in financial transactions between buyers and sellers. And also donors send their donations directly to the nonprofit listed on the website. Ycare plays no role in donation transactions.

As an introduction, Ycare is free of any costs. In a later stage Ycare will introduce a 4% fee from the seller on that amount of the proceeds that are not donated. If the total proceeds are donated, there are no costs at all. For nonprofits, however, Ycare will stay free of charge.

Summing it up
This new approach opens the opportunity to combine the commercial interests of others with the charitable interests of the nonprofits, making it easier for others to give. Because it’s simply more fun to: “Give a little, keep a little”