NPTech News: How has this focus changed in the last 2 years?
Carson: cMarket has matured and grown exponentially especially over the last year. At the start of this year we aggregated all our clients auctions into a consumer shopping portal called biddingforgood.com (B4G) for cause minded serial shoppers. By joining B4G clients are realizing a significant value add, as entry to auctions through that site instead of through a host's home page now generates 30% of our clients winning , high bids . BiddingForGood.com is easy to use. There, donors and consumers can search to give to causes that matter to them, may shop for specific items and still others go hunting for retail deals - all with the added knowledge that their purchase serves to do good.
NPTech News: What are your current initiatives?
Carson: On Oct 16th we will be holding an event in New York City with former Sen. Bill Bradley to announce a new service benefit that we call “Intelligent Auction Management”. This is a huge breakthrough for us. Intelligent Auction Management uses data we've mined from the nearly 3,000 completed auctions in our database to identify and share best practices among our non profit customers. To date we’ve developed over 130 algorithms into our tool which provide the intelligence from this unique data to our clients - and use it to accurately predict outcomes before the auction even begins! That helps non profits to be realistic when they set and refine their auction goals, and make course corrections even when they are live.
NPTech News: How has your market segment changed over the last year?
Carson: Its only gotten bigger. In 2003 the national auctioneers assoc estimated that charity auctions raised $13 billion. They are now saying that fundraising auctions raise over $16 billion. Most of that money is coming out of consumer discretionary spending budgets, not their charitable giving budget so its “found” money for folks..
NPTech News: Describe your company's position in the industry with regard to the solutions you deliver.
Carson: We enable clients to build branded, private label auctions that are customized to enhance their gala event with abundant client service to walk them through the experience and share best practices. The more folks in our network the more best practices we gather. Our role as the manager of then network (with over 2,000 clients) is to distribute these learnings as widely as possible. Strength in numbers logic.
This is different from some of the more general auction platforms which are more akin to Mall of America. They aren’t built for charitable fundraising, they don’t have a client service model, and their feature sets are built for “power sellers” not special event fundraisers.
NPTech News: What are the greatest challenges for your customers in adopting and implementing technology for your customers?
Carson: Biggest challenge for folks is just overcoming inertia. Our system is pretty easy to use, eliminates a lot of headaches and makes life easier. I like to say, its not a question of if you are going to start integrating online to your auction event its when. The benefits are just too overwhelming. The internet turbo charges some things incredibly well- auctions happen to be one of them.
NPTech News: How are you helping your customers address these challenges?
Carson: Its all about education and training. We develop video tutorials. We’ve just purchased an expensive but very powerful learning management system. We profile completed auctions. If folks can see somebody like them who did this well it reduces the perceived risk.
NPTech News: What do you believe to be the state of the industry in terms of growth, maturity, and availability of viable products to address the technology needs of the nonprofit community?
Carson: Looking broadly at the non-profit technology industry by all appearances it appears to be growing at a strong pace. However, the industry reflects the market- it is quite fragmented with virtually no large players. If a company like Blackbaud was part of IBM or Cisco they would be a rounding error. The inverse of this means that since there are no entrenched players the amount of innovation going on is quite remarkable.
NPTech News: What advice would you offer to organizations attempting to implement any technology projects?
Carson: Make sure the platform is stable, the references are there, and especially that the company is well funded and can put resources into quality assurance and deploying a multiple backup server farm. We’ve seen folks go with small competitors who couldn’t put a million bucks into infrastructure and the system crashes at the worst possible time.
Jon CarsonChairman & CEO
Jon is a nationally recognized entrepreneur with a passion for mission-based social entrepreneurship. Other than brief stints at Boeing and McKinsey & Company, he has always worked on new ventures. He has founded and profitably sold three companies in which no investor has ever lost money. Cumulatively, Jon has returned in excess of $175 million to investors, cash on cash.
Jon's most recent company was Family Education Network (Fen.com), which offered web services to local schools as well as a network of websites for parents, children, and teachers using a unique public/private partnership model, ultimately becoming the largest education website on the Internet.
He serves on the boards of the Boston Children's Museum, the e-Philanthropy Foundation, and NetImpact - a national organization of college and MBA chapters promoting social entrepreneurship. Jon has funded multiple lectures on social entrepreneurship at Yale and Babson College. He has previously also served on the boards of the National PTA, National School Boards Foundation, and the Small Business Association of New England (SBANE).
Jon lives in the Boston area with his wife and has recently discovered the wonders of fatherhood.
