A SUCCESSFUL CASE
CHARITY AUCTIONS, GOING THE EXTRA MILE WHEN IT’S NEEDED THE MOST
CHARITY AUCTIONS
Charity in the form of an auction
The whole world in shambles. The global pandemic caused by Covid-19 greatly affected our business and our lives. At Surus we wanted to contribute to the high number of initiatives being carried out that aimed to alleviate the effects of the virus where it was needed the most.
SURUS challenge
How could we go the extra mile to help? Some clients called us with ideas, we were also looking for the best way to contribute… And we finally realized we had so much potential to help in a dreadful situation such as this one.
A CHARITABLE SOLUTION
After more than 8 years on the business, we know our share of auctions. Therefore, we offered our auctions platform Escrapalia.com to our clients and any interested person. The goal was to raise money auctioning goods, especially sentimental goods, and use that money to contribute to a social cause related to the health emergency.
THE PROCESS
1. The national sport leading the way
There were many initiatives carried out by Spanish athletes, and we organized auctions on several days and with different themes. The auctioned goods, trophies and football kits from their professional careers had an important sentimental value for them.
- The Real Madrid Foundation and the digital paper La Galerna organized the initiative #leyendasencasa (“legends at home”), which auctioned items from the greatest Real Madrid legends, such as Roberto Carlos, Arbeloa, Hierro, Karanka or Santamaría.
- Finetwork, a communications company, organized an auction called #estamedallaesvuestra (“this medal is yours”) where they sold trophies from athletes that were represented by them, such as canoeist Saúl Craviotto, karate world champion Sandra Sánchez and other Olympic winners from basket or indoors football.
- Alberto Contador, a legendary Spanish cyclist, auctioned the bike he used to win the Giro. He contacted first the auctions giant Ebay, but didn’t get a reply from their side, so we were very happy to be able to hold the auction at Escrapalia.
- Cross Country Spanish athletes started the initiative #LasjoyasdelXCOnacional (“the jewels of national Cross Country”) and auctioned trophies and kits from this sports field.
2. Communication: the key factor
In order to increase the returns of these auctions, we launched several marketing and communications campaigns. We wanted sports fans from all over the world to know about these auctions and that they could participate whether they were companies or individual people.
The press releases were welcomed by the media, who was looking for interesting news, and the auctions resonated all around the nation though TV and other media. The impact of social media was also crucial and several athletes got involved with the cause, notifying their supporters about the auctions. Thanks to this, we reached the most interested audience for these auctions.
3. The results
Thanks to the high participation of everyone, the auctions were a total success.
- 187 bidders from 8 different nationalities.
- 3,251 bids.
- More than 60 000 € raised for three different charitable causes: Spanish Red Cross, the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Real Madrid Foundation for COVID-19 related projects.
As an anecdote, La Liga football player Rubén Peña was the winner of Alberto Contador’s bike with a bid of 20 500 €. After the auction, the football player sent Contador his team’s kit to make a trophy exchange.
Surus donated 100% of sales fees to the same cause as our clients.
Gestionando un proceso concursal de principio a fin 