Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeff Porter.
Jeff, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
The Handbid concept was born around the Porter’s kitchen table after running their fifth annual fundraising event benefitting the Prader-Willi Syndrome of Colorado (PWSACO) back in May of 2010. Jeff Porter and his family founded PWSACO in 2002, after their daughter Abby was diagnosed with the rare genetic disorder, and have been passionate about raising funds for the cause ever since.
Their signature fundraiser quickly grew from 50 attendees to over 300, and in 2010 they were running a silent and live auction with over 150 items. Innumerable hours were spent organizing the donations, preparing bid sheets, creating labels, tracking bidders, etc, all using spreadsheets and mail merge programs. But the larger issue came at the event when everyone was trying to checkout and a data entry error was discovered in the winning bids spreadsheet.
Through his personal fundraising efforts, Jeff understood the challenges inherent in organizing charity auctions. As a seasoned media and technology executive with vast experience in developing technology solutions that drive user engagement and connect buyers and sellers, he immediately knew he could solve his problem using cutting-edge technology.
A year later, Handbid was launched at this very same event where it far exceeded everyone’s expectations. The guests loved the technology and the freedom to bid from anywhere at the event; the staff loved the automation and the ease of check-in and checkout. But most of all, the organization loved the nearly 100% increase in auction revenue from the year prior.
Today, Handbid has helped thousands of charities power their online fundraisers and helped them raise over $100 million for their respective causes. The technology team continues to innovate, adding in peer to peer fundraising, crowd funding, text to give and more recently live streaming features to support virtual fundraising events.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Handbid has faced the typical obstacles many startups face including limited resources, cash flow challenges, well-funded competition, and a customer base (non-profits) who experience high-turnover.
Handbid has overcome most of those by highly automating its operations, establishing a development process that allows us to be more nimble than competitors, and offering industry leading customer service to retain customers.
Please tell us about Handbid.
Handbid is fundraising software built for fundraisers by fundraisers. The main things that set us apart from the competition are:
– Industry knowledge based on our personal fundraising experience (we know what our customers want because we are “our customers”)
– 20+ years experience in software development and over 12 years experience in mobile app development. This allows us to develop new features faster than our competition.
– Focus and attention to security and data privacy
– Emphasis on customer service (coaching and helping clients become successful fundraisers)
Pricing:
- Our pricing is published on our website at www.handbid.com
Contact Info:
- Address: 7074 S. Revere Parkway, Centennial CO 80112
- Website: www.handbid.com
- Email: jporter@handbid.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/handbidauctions/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/handbid/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/handbid
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