August 17, 2025 • 34 mins
James Lott Jr chats with one of the guys who came up with a fundraising system aimed to help schools, churches, non profits Fundraise.For more info togo Schoolauction.net
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, welcome to another edition of All Access Event Planning.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm James, engineer jail Ja Media, and he actually is
my first guest. I think on this show you have
to start somewhere because you never forget your first Thanks.
But this is just somebody that is on the same
coast as me. He's up in or Portland, Oregon, which
I love that city. It's very green. I love Brening.
(00:25):
And he has this is this fundraising app and the
he work is working on call. It's called school Auction
dot Net. We're gonna talk about what that is, what
that does, what he does, how you founded it, and
why it might be beneficial to you if you're a
nonprofit or a school.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
That's because we're on this show. We want all aspects
of event planning.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And schools always have events.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yes they do. Help me. Welcome founder Roger Divine.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hi, Roger, Hey there, James. How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I am good? How are you today, sir?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Today is a great day.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
It is a good day. It's a really good day.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Okay, So I want okay. So I was like, because
he came across I say, I'm an old person. He
came across my desk, my desk and I don't have
to say that. I still say rollingdex, I say all
that stuff across my desk. And I was like, oh,
I said, I love it because I do have some
more guests coming on the show. But I said, I
like talking about all aspects of event planning. And he
(01:26):
mentioned where my shows and how I talk about certain things.
I'm like, yes, and there's shows you guys know at home.
I'm guiding you through from my twenty years experience of
event planning all the different things that go into it
during facets. This gentleman here, like I said, you heard
the name School Auction. You're hearing that, so let's find
(01:46):
out what that means. So, Roger, what is this School
Auction dot?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
That is?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Let's start there. What is it?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Well, it is is a product that my company has developed.
It's a piece of software and it is designed for
the event planner who needs to put on a fundraising
gala or you know, things have evolved over the years
now there's lots of online types of events you can
do too, but the traditional, the traditional use of the
(02:15):
software is you know, a school or some other grassroots charity,
some local nonprofit. Those tend to be our customers, the
ones we want to I'm not chasing the American Cancer Society.
I'm chasing the local elementary school that's putting on a
fundraising event. There, those are who I want to work with.
And you know, fundraising gala is a very.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Interesting type of event.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
I will tell you that My analogy for them is
that they're a department store that's only open for six
hours a year. Because usually when you walk in the
door to a fundraising gala, there are going to be
multiple ways in which you could contribute to the organization
that's putting it on. You might buid in an a
silent auction, you might build in a live auction, you
(03:00):
might buy raffle tickets, you might sign up for some
future events. There's a s mortgage board, and every guest
is going to spend their money in a slightly different way.
So I like to think of it as you know,
these are all the boutiques in your in your event here,
and your people are going to visit the different boutiques
and spend money in their own ways there and at
the end everybody will be happy and they will raise
(03:22):
a lot of money for the organization. At least that's
the theory. As you can imagine with multiple boutiques like this,
a silent auction of live auction and raffle, some sign
of parties, you know, a bunch of things like this,
a special appeal. It's a complicated event. There's a lot
of moving parts. There's a lot of pieces that go on.
(03:42):
So when we started the company, I will say that
I had an investment. I had a stake in how
well we did. I was a PTA president. My kid
was in second grade and I'm a PTA president and
I have a long career in software elipment on the
sales and marketing side. And I got laid off, got
(04:06):
laid off from my dot com gig up here it
was you know, stuff happens, and I do what you
do when you do that, You printed little business cards,
it's say a consultant. And I walked around, you know,
trying to figure out who I was and what I
was doing, and wound and wound up at a meeting
of our local Schools Foundation where they were talking about
(04:28):
maybe putting together some sort of a joint buying program
for vendors and services that schools might engage with to
help produce fundraisers and I went up and I said
what I Afterwards, I asked them what about software? And
they're like software, Like, yeah, software, I'm a software guy.
There's gotta be software that helps these things, right. And
they're like, there's these guys on the other side of town,
(04:54):
and you should talk to them. And she put me
in touch with these and these there are two guys
who just built a system for their lives to use
at the local school auction. They were thinking they wanted
to turn it into a company. The hell, I wasn't
doing anything else the time.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Let's go for it.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
And we put together this software. There are things that
we have learned along the way that have made the
software so so much better and us as a company
so much better. One of them, which I think will
be interesting for your audience, is that very few of
the people I'm working with actually are event planners. Most
(05:31):
of the people that I'm working with, especially down at
the local elementary school, they're simply good hearted people who
volunteered for something they didn't understand at the wrong time,
and they got stuck with a six hundred hour volunteer
job and oh my god, what do they do now?
How do they make these things work anyway, what's involved
in what's going on? You know, these are PTA moms.
(05:53):
They're very, very accomplished individuals usually, but they've probably gotten
off of the career track or the juggling everything in
the world, and in either case, they don't necessarily have
a whole lot of time to learn about how to
put on this thing that they're choosing to put on.
What we do is we give them the IT infrastructure
underneath it everything they're going to need to all the
(06:15):
tools are going to need to execute their event other
than things like a caterer and an a venue. Can't
get those through software, but anything you can. Let's sell
your tickets, Let's catalog all of your auction items, and
let's merchandise them, and let's set up a bidding system
for them so that people can participate. Nowadays, the trend
(06:36):
is all to do bidding on your phone rather than
on bidsheets and with battles and things, So we can
support all of that. And at the end of course,
we couple payment processing into this, and we couple reporting,
so we give everybody kind of a turnkey toolbox that
they can use to produce a fundraising event. So that's
the overview. That's the answer to question number one.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
We'll get in were gonna break it down, but that's okay,
So I want to stop there, all right. So number one,
I did enough for these shows, and myself included as
an entrepreneur, I think it's great lesson folks out there.
Do just assume it may seem like it should just
be a common thing. Do not assume it's already done.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Never never.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I know when I look for my business names instead,
I have two business names. I thought they were taken
for sure, and I almost just said, well, I'll screw it.
I'll just get something out like no.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Check check this way to work and.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I and I got I checked, and I was like,
now I can have the names I want. So I
was like, I just I just I just And there's
times I'm like, there has to be a show on
this or and there isn't. Yeah, you're a great example
of taking something up. So it seems like it could
be just common place, but it's not.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Well.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
And I will say this, there were competitors when we
did this, and the reason that I didn't like any
of the companies that were in the space at the
time was because of their business models. And let me explain,
when you're going to put on a fundraising event, if
you engage a company like mine, there is a really
high chance that part of the way that company is
(08:24):
going to price its services is by taking a percentage
of what you raise at your event. There may be
a license fee in addition to that, there may be
some upfront costs, or maybe you know, it's software, so
there can be all sorts of complicated ways you can
price the product. And if you're selling to a fortune
five hundred company, go crazy, baby, you know, go crazy,
(08:45):
build the craziest fricking pricing structure you want. They've got
professional buyers, they can interpret it, they can negotiate. When
I got into this, remember my point of view is
I was a PTA president at that time and a
software industry and I looked around and I thought, no
way I want to give any software company a percentage
(09:07):
of what I'm raising at my event. I don't have to,
and I don't want to. Like, I'll pay for software
the way I pay for software, which is I'll give
you a license fee. You know, I'll pay my license
fee and then I've got my software. And then I
wanted to use it, and there was nobody at the
time that was doing that. And you know, and it
makes a certain amount of sense to have a variable
(09:28):
cost kind of pricing structure like that for professional charities
that again probably have access to a lawyer, and for
really really tiny events where maybe they can't afford a
regular license fee, so you kind of do a little
of this and a little of that to help them
through for a little while. But our whole mission and
(09:50):
our whole point of view is we want to help
you raise money. I want to make enough money that
I can pay my bills, feed my programmers.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
But I also really believe.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
In the concept of enough, and once I make it enough,
I don't have to make anymore.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
It's okay, So maybe clearfo at home, Yeah watching this
because you use either word fundraiser, So we make you,
guys understand this isn't a go fund me thing. No,
I have something totally different. We're talking actual events that
has a fundraising component.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yeah, and almost all of these we're talking about registered
nonprofit organizations with a five oh one C three tax
identification number. Now this can include things like PTA's. They
can get those numbers and they do. They have them,
any organization that you can make a charitable donation to
and expect some kind of tax deduction in return, you know,
(10:52):
some ability to write it off on your taxes. Those
are the types of organizations we work with. Those are
the types of events.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
We occasionally will.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Work with a for profit company that wants to do
an event to raise money for United Way or something
like that, We'll work with them on those. But other
than that, no, this is charities that need to fundraised.
And James, I'll tell you the reason why I'm going
out and talking more about it this year in particular,
is because there's a lot of funding pressure on all
nonprofits in our country right now. Everything is upside down
(11:26):
with the suspension, review and cancelation of many, many, many
federal grants since the beginning of the year. And we
don't have to talk politics, I don't need to get
it into that. Just let me say that that is
a shock to the system and it continues downstream. So
private foundations are under a lot of stress right now
to pick up the slack for the federal grants that
(11:49):
are not there. They're starting to push back on charities saying, hey,
there's too many of you out there, et cetera, et cetera.
So yeah, you know, yeah, this is what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
It's hard not to go super political right now.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I have many things I would like to say, but
I'm not going to either, Nah, not the podcast for it,
but I but but but I'm you mentioned it's good still,
it's still life, and you can mention it's a bit
that this is what's going on. So more school, school districts,
associations may need to come to this kind.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Of absolutely, you know, churches, sports leagues, things like that.
You know, one of the customers we work with on
a regular basis is Young Life. We work with a
lot of Young Life chapters across the country.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
There.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
You know, it's a beautiful organization, full of great people
in it, and they put on these lovely fundraisers that
are kind of mid sized fundraisers and they just do
two hundred of them y or six hundred of them
a lot.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, So folks that just may say, so, these are
fundraising These are fundraising options at events.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
That are happening exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And then again for sports teams, for art class or
what it could be anything, right.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
And let's address the role that events specifically play in
the fundraising mix for charities because they have there's there's
basically two things to know about the way people think
about events. One that any nonprofit or charity that can
afford higher fundraising talent, so the kinds of people who
(13:27):
know lots of fat wallets and can ask to get
into their wills, you know, and if you can do that,
you absolutely should. It's definitely the best way to raise money.
But assuming that you don't know that many fat wallets
that are close to death, you know, what else are
you gonna do?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Right?
Speaker 4 (13:41):
And events are away that organizations without highly developed fundraising
talent can run a fundraiser because.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
You can kind of do an event.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Like it's the little rascals. It's like Sparky go sell
some tickets and Darlag go get some auction items, you know,
talking about references here they go back always Okay, I
just I just read that out of my file of facts.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
How's that?
Speaker 1 (14:12):
There? You go? I love it facts and check you
with a microfiche.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Oh go, So the uh SO events fit in there.
But generally at organizations that do have the high end talent,
they don't want to do events. They think of them
as day class a they think of them as not
worth the time, not worth the effort, and they have
a you know, generally high end development people have an
(14:40):
attitude that events, well, I guess I'll do one if
they break, if I can get it to break even,
but I'm not treating it as a big part of
the fundraising mix. You know who does not think that
way the local PTA. The local PTA looks at their
event as their primary fundraiser and so they know how
to make make money from them. And the bigger charities
(15:02):
could take a lesson from the schools and the churches
that do these and actually rely upon them for their
fundraising mix, because right now, with all the pressure everywhere
else in the system, organizations that are not running events
need to consider at least bringing them back into their mix.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Well, the whole thing is that I those finals for facts,
I'm involved with sam things. A lot of schools. We
lie on their community, yes, parents, alumni, local businesses to
help fund them. It's like, so it's a whole bringing back,
putting back in situation.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
So these things, yeah, they always have the they always
have the feel of a barn raising, like we're getting
together in our community to build something for our community
to use this is going to benefit us. We need
to come together and do this.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
So I think it's just kind of that's so I'm
gonna say, so people know that it really is happening.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
More and more.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I have I have grandchildren, and I have great nieces
and nephews and signephew called their school's always got some
some fundraising going on.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Uh effort going on for Sully, for cheer, for this.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
I'm just saying that you're you're very smart because this
is something that I mean, there's a billion schools out there.
First of all, I mean there are market It's like,
I mean, if I get to the weeds of business,
your target market is perfect.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Yeah, you can. You can go anywhere with this.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
It's not even was that was that a thought also
when you thought the idea after you go, wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Go anywhere?
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Well, funny you should mention that, James.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Okay, So in the first and when we when we
go back to the origin story of the company, I
go meet with these couple of guys that have just written
a piece of software and they want to turn it
into a company. And they don't have a name. They
don't have a name, for the company yet and they
had named the product Tofino Auctions. Now, Tofino is a
city in British Columbia. But it's tiny, it's not even
(16:55):
a city. It's tiny little place in British Columbia. But
great climbing, great rock. I'ming there, really beautiful, fantastic place.
Go if you can. And they said, you know, you
can change the name if you want. You know, if
you're going to be the marketing guy, you should. You
should know that we don't really care about the name.
You can, you can take over. And I said, well,
at the minute, for the moment, we'll leave it because
(17:15):
it's kind of pretty. It's kind of a pretty word.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
To Fina. Okay.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
But then I started doing some research and I started
playing around, and one of the things that came across
it's the fact that's seventy five percent of the fundraising
events put on in the United States every year are
put on by schools. That's where the bulk is. It's
not necessarily where the highest dollars are, but it's where
(17:42):
the bulk of all the auctions are.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I believe it.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Yeah, So we did that. We started playing around. On
we went I went to Google AdWords, and I set
up an AdWords campaign. One of the things you can
do there is you can put a display URL in.
So I bought fifty or sixty domain names and I
just used them to test things out, and school auction
dot Com got the greatest response, so we decided that
was the name.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
So I work in Hollywood and one of my mentors
ten years ago had taught me the whole thing about
sometimes keep a name simple, and people need to know
exactly what you are with the first few seconds the
short attention spans. So that's what's out there. So if
(18:24):
you know, all my shows my network are very simple,
They're not fancy. I get a lot of hits because
as they type in a word event planning or all that,
I pop.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Up, Yeah, you got nice, good generic terms in there.
It's like Holy Moses man access.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
So the thing about that planning students, Yeah, we know
what you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
You literally know what you're talking about. This is what
we are.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
And you know, most people I will say this, you
know you're in the event planning world. I'm in the
event planning world. We're talking to a bunch of event planners.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
We know the deal.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Most people out in the world want to stop thinking
about their event as fast as they can once it's over.
And those of us on the inside, we think about
events three sixty five, you know, twenty four seven, three
sixty five. And so in the I say, we're in
the tribe. We're in the tribe of people who put
these things on and know how to do it and
aren't flustered by them and can get it done. And
(19:22):
my primary role, the one that I want to play
in that part of the industry, is educator. I really
want to be out there teaching people how to put
on these events in a way that's gonna, you know,
open their eyes and make them a lot of money.
And so you know, yes, you buy software when you
come to us, but you also get to talk to
(19:43):
me and the rest of our team, and we're awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Just talking to Rober just the price for admission, you know,
I will ask you a question.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
I'm an old person, so.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
I think you and I are peers. But that's okay, you're.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
All too, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I I mean, I have degrees and stuff, but I
to think.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
But it's sometimes becomes technology.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I didn't grow up with technology, so I got to
like learn it. So my question to you is, I
know a lot of folks my agent older will ask
this is it user friendly? I mean, I've been your website.
I would use it obviously, I've seen it, But is
it user friendly?
Speaker 4 (20:24):
So when we prioritize the the maintenance and the development,
the ongoing development of the software, and we continue to
develop it, I will tell you that job number one,
at the top of the list, the highest priority is
always credit card security. Number two is user user friendliness
(20:45):
in the interface there and the reason why it's pretty simple.
I referred to this earlier. Most of the people I'm
working with are not event planners. Most of them just
volunteered at the wrong time, and they generally have too
much to do anyway, because of the people who get
stuff done tend to be the busiest people in the
right exactly, so they're really really busy. They don't have
(21:06):
time to learn this nonsense and they and furthermore, if
I sell to a customer and then I work with
them the next year in between events, they've forgotten all of them. Right,
they just do, because who wants to keep thinking about
your event software after your event is over? No, this
is now that you've done that and you've fulfilled your obligation,
you move on and you take care of other things. Yes,
so user friendliness in the interface is the difference between
(21:30):
me retaining a customer or losing them. And I only
make money if I hang on to my customers for
four or five years.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Oh really, it's okay.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Yeah, it's an investment for a while, you know, especially
when we're talking about smaller groups. You know, sometimes you
kind of got to get them, get them, get the
get the wheel rolling, you know, get them, get them
pointed downhill for a little while before you can actually
you know, before it actually pays off. But that's okay.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
You know.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
In the meantime, I'm helping to put playground equipment on
playgrounds and lib you know, computers in the library and
that kind of stuff, and I couldn't feel better about
that work.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
But yeah, I mean obviously it's very food warning works.
I'm like, yeah, puty arts and school back in schools
and pee equipment. I mean, I'm sure all that stuff.
I'm sure all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
It's it breaking it down. So when somebody.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Who gets your software, yeah that's what said. It's the
event planning show. So again can help you. Can't help
you with location, can be with lo catering.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Can be right. Help you with is the actual maintenance
on site maintenance, before, during, and post events. Correct.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Absolutely, Before the event we're doing we're doing event prep stuff.
You're selling your tickets, you're producing all of your collateral
that you're going to use to merchandise your auction at
the event. You're getting everything into the database so that
it's ready to go on the night of the event.
Job number one is process all of the guests through
the event, because not only are you just saying, oh, hi,
(23:05):
you're here, you have to equip them. If you're doing
mobile bidding, you have to tell them how to get
logged in. If you're doing paddles, you have to give
them a paddle. You may there may be you know,
the usual stuff like seating assignments and meal choices and
things like that that you have to manage, but you
also have to set yourself up to make sure that
the organization gets paid on all of the commitments that
(23:27):
are made during the course of the event. And if
you do not do that, your event will shrink. You
may think you raised one hundred thousand dollars and after
it's all over, you've really only collected, say eighty thousand dollars,
or you think you've raised twelve thousand dollars, but you've
only collected four and that can be really, really problematic.
And so building the systems in to ensure that the
(23:49):
organization is going to get paid for the commitments that
are made is a is a big deal. So we
have a you know, we have a protocol. It's a
common protocol in the industry. When a guest at the event,
we ask them for a credit card, but we swipe it,
we store it securely in a place where we can't
retrieve the card number and nobody else can get it,
and it's totally safe. But it's there and we can
(24:10):
charge it later. Guests doesn't have to be there, etc. Great,
that's called checking. We get them in the door, they
go off, then they make all of their commitments. Then
we have to get all those commitments recorded so that
we can decide what their bill is, and then we
have to charge them and then send them home, hopefully
without making them stand in any lines at the end
(24:31):
of the night. Because one of the real bummers about
fundraising events in particular is that guests want to go
home at ten o'clock and you might still have work
you need to do. If you haven't prepped really well
ahead of time, you may still have an hour's worth
(24:52):
of work that requires those guests to be there, and
they're getting cranky and they don't want to be there
and they want to go home, kiss the kids, send
the babysitter home. Don't flip those and you know, so
we build in the payment system there and we all
of that is there to ensure that balls don't get
dropped that during the course of the evening. Really, things
(25:16):
are not going to slip through the cracks there if
you're just following the uh the protocols that we've got
set up in there.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
How easy is it is to actually have tech support?
M I always think it's a Grant's a big question
to you for us all folks. Is it chatbot? Is
it we call? I mean, is it twenty four hours?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Is it? And during the event are you available? Like?
How does that work?
Speaker 4 (25:41):
It's a huge question. It's a huge thing we had
to crack. We are continually improving upon it. When you're
working in advance before the event, so doing all the
stuff to get ready, selling your tickets, cataloging your items,
doing all of that work. There's you do have access
to a support team. They work business hours out here
in Portland, so after six o'clock or so, you know,
(26:01):
wait till tomorrow. But you have access to a support team.
You have access to lots of built in contextual documentation.
So pretty much every every time you might type something
into the software, the place where you would type it,
it's called a field. Every field has got a little
explainer that you can access anytime you want. We have
(26:21):
training videos built in throughout the software, so we've got
all the documentation built in, including videos, short videos, you know,
two to four minutes that pop up and tell you
how to do a particular thing. And then this summer
we've added a chat bot. Yeah, we've added a chatbot.
I'm telling all my customers, you know, you tell me
(26:42):
how well it works afterwards. You know, I'm not entirely
sure it's going to be great, but we have trained
it only on our documentation, so it shouldn't hallucinate too much.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
And we'll see how well it does.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
But we think that that's going to be really important
because you know, a key element of working with this
particular market is that this particular market. Think of the
PTA mom. She's not working on the auction during her
work day, she's not working on her auction during her
family time, not when she's taking the kids to soccer
(27:13):
practice or whatever, she's doing an inner volunteer time. And
how much of that is there in a day less
than the other buckets, right, And oftentimes it happens really
late at night. So I tell my customers it's like,
if you're up at two in the morning, you know,
entering in auction items and many of them are that
last week before things are going on, and you know
(27:34):
that they can be burned in the midnight. Well, it's
like the chatbot is here to help you during those
hours the rest of us are asleep. And then of course, yes,
on event night, you get telephone support up until I
think ten BM Pacific time. So for my East Coast customers,
that's way after they've.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Gone to bed.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
But I was just curious. That's a big deal too.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Nowadays it's like if their support it or tech support
a kind.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
Of we have to, we absolutely have to. There's a
lot of moving pieces in the software. Nobody's gonna nobody's
gonna know all of it. Nobody's going to be a whiz.
It's okay, you know, but yeah, that's that's how we
make that work.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I mean it sounds very straightforward and very useful. That's
really all the questions I really have for I was
just curious about how much I really wanted to let
people know that there's something out there that's straightforward and
possibly beneficial. Because I said, school starting, school starting, Yeah,
(28:39):
any of us.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
Well, let me let me let me interject one piece
of advice for your audience in particular here, Okay, for
the professional event planners, because we see this whole process
that starts maybe six months before the event and ends
two weeks after the event. We see this as an
integrated process where things build on each other. We've built
(29:04):
full service software that goes end to end. Oftentimes, when
I work with a group and it's a professional event planner,
they wouldn't have started thinking about bidding software until after
they've started selling their tickets and maybe they've done a
whole bunch of other things, and then they kind of
have a hard time because they got to integrate that
work that's already been done into the flow and into
the software there. So I would say, if you are,
(29:27):
if you have charity, charity customers, et cetera. Don't think
of auction software as bidding software that's a piece you
append onto your event. Think of it as event management
software for a particularly proscribed, narrow type of event, which
is a fundraising gala.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
There's fundraising gallus. It's fun raising.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Exactly, or an online auction or you know, there's twists.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
But but that's what would just say, I guess it
is not for a fundraising of a company, is that
well right?
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Not?
Speaker 4 (29:59):
Yeah, And I just want to tell the event planners
out there, don't piece meal a solution together. Really you
don't have to buy mine, but by something that's integrated,
because it just saves you so much work. If you
come to me and you've sold half your tickets through
event bright already, it's like, okay, all right, we'll work
on it. But you know, yeah, we can make it work.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I'll talk to you.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Absolutely, and I'll help you because we know all how
to do that. But it would be easier on you
if you had an integrated thing where everything is part
of an integrated process, because at the end of the day,
it's all about moving those wallets through the room, sucking
money out of them and putting it in the bank account.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Yes, and I'll be accounted for itemized.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
You know, all that stuff, all of that good stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Guys have that all unlock, he says, it always it's
all there. And we love records. Hell, we have records
and all that stuff, so you can subdult. So you
love that. I mean that's just when, because they said
when it comes to fundraising and involves money, other people's
money be a little tricky.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
So good to know. Save space. Everything's fine for credit cards.
Save ye. Yes, today's too. Looks like data.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
You know, if we need to, like if we need
to collect any permissions from a guest, or we need
to collect any information from them, we can build that
into the ticket sales process. So when you buy your ticket,
I can ask you would you like a gluten free meal?
Or I can say what homeroom was your kid in?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Are also assuming with this also you have an email list?
Sure mailing list tells you out of this too.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Well, I'm not going to have a mailing list of
potential guests to your event. What I do have is
I do have a lot of information on companies that
donate items to auctions.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
So that's helpful. Definite sure, Okay, very good.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Well, thank you Roger, and I think for being on
the show.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
James, I'd like to come back.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
If you'll have me, I'll tell you have you, I'll
tell you how you come back. So tell folks, okay,
all your information. I'm working.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
I mean, I think school auntion dot net is and
whether but tell me what to get you also found
you a place, so tell me you find you.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Yep, Www.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Got school auction dot net is where we keep you know,
the portal, the entry that you can sign up for
the software. There, you can take a demo et cetera,
et cetera. If you want to get in touch with
me personally, my email address is Roger R.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
O G E.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
R at school Auction dot net. Pretty easy to remember,
and I'm here to take questions and calls all the time.
Love to work with any organization that's interested. But even
if you're doing your gallow with somebody else and you
just want to keep it a little bit, I'm happy
to talk with people.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Yeah. I always say vet people, check them people out.
Just you never know.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Absolutely might be a good fit.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
I'm James log and I'm still devoted to talking about
events and event planning issues, including companies or do stuff
like this. Well, I'm back for some other stuff later
down the line. It's just it's it's uh. I got
into it by accident a brillion years ago and just
stayed in it. I mean I just kind of stayed
(33:06):
in there and found that I could do it.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Well, we're members of the tribe, right, you know.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
It's where we belong, This is where we live.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
And there are a lot of us out there. There's
a lot of us out there.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
There are so I just I really wanted to say
thank you for Roger Devine for coming on the show.
We are on during the week. We always release episodes
on different days. I don't have a saent day for
the show. We just put about what we feel like
play amounts. So you'll just follow us at all audio,
let's say, Creigle all audio streaming service platforms. We are
(33:35):
there on Apple, Audible, Spotify, iHeartRadio, cast Box, everywhere where
under all Access colon event Planning. There's also another all
Access something else that's not us, but it's All Access
event Planning, So check that out.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
There.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
We're also, of course, if you're watching us, we're on
the granddaddy of them all YouTube under jail JPD. That's
the place, right YouTube, chanting YouTube is getting what's more important.
People are, people are really they're looking at TV things.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
It's still the largest podcasting platform out there, right.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
It is, and that's why I'm here.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
So anyway, and to all the schools up there, I
support all of your program just blindly support all your
programs and all your fundraising efforts to keep your keep
stuff going.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Please keep it going, whatever it is, I support it.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
I have times on Junior. I'll talk to you next time.
Well, welcome to another edition of All Access Event Planning.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm James, engineer jail Ja Media, and he actually is
my first guest. I think on this show you have
to start somewhere because you never forget your first Thanks.
But this is just somebody that is on the same
coast as me. He's up in or Portland, Oregon, which
I love that city. It's very green. I love Brening.
(00:25):
And he has this is this fundraising app and the
he work is working on call. It's called school Auction
dot Net. We're gonna talk about what that is, what
that does, what he does, how you founded it, and
why it might be beneficial to you if you're a
nonprofit or a school.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
That's because we're on this show. We want all aspects
of event planning.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And schools always have events.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yes they do. Help me. Welcome founder Roger Divine.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hi, Roger, Hey there, James. How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I am good? How are you today, sir?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Today is a great day.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
It is a good day. It's a really good day.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Okay, So I want okay. So I was like, because
he came across I say, I'm an old person. He
came across my desk, my desk and I don't have
to say that. I still say rollingdex, I say all
that stuff across my desk. And I was like, oh,
I said, I love it because I do have some
more guests coming on the show. But I said, I
like talking about all aspects of event planning. And he
(01:26):
mentioned where my shows and how I talk about certain things.
I'm like, yes, and there's shows you guys know at home.
I'm guiding you through from my twenty years experience of
event planning all the different things that go into it
during facets. This gentleman here, like I said, you heard
the name School Auction. You're hearing that, so let's find
(01:46):
out what that means. So, Roger, what is this School
Auction dot?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
That is?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Let's start there. What is it?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Well, it is is a product that my company has developed.
It's a piece of software and it is designed for
the event planner who needs to put on a fundraising
gala or you know, things have evolved over the years
now there's lots of online types of events you can
do too, but the traditional, the traditional use of the
(02:15):
software is you know, a school or some other grassroots charity,
some local nonprofit. Those tend to be our customers, the
ones we want to I'm not chasing the American Cancer Society.
I'm chasing the local elementary school that's putting on a
fundraising event. There, those are who I want to work with.
And you know, fundraising gala is a very.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Interesting type of event.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
I will tell you that My analogy for them is
that they're a department store that's only open for six
hours a year. Because usually when you walk in the
door to a fundraising gala, there are going to be
multiple ways in which you could contribute to the organization
that's putting it on. You might buid in an a
silent auction, you might build in a live auction, you
(03:00):
might buy raffle tickets, you might sign up for some
future events. There's a s mortgage board, and every guest
is going to spend their money in a slightly different way.
So I like to think of it as you know,
these are all the boutiques in your in your event here,
and your people are going to visit the different boutiques
and spend money in their own ways there and at
the end everybody will be happy and they will raise
(03:22):
a lot of money for the organization. At least that's
the theory. As you can imagine with multiple boutiques like this,
a silent auction of live auction and raffle, some sign
of parties, you know, a bunch of things like this,
a special appeal. It's a complicated event. There's a lot
of moving parts. There's a lot of pieces that go on.
(03:42):
So when we started the company, I will say that
I had an investment. I had a stake in how
well we did. I was a PTA president. My kid
was in second grade and I'm a PTA president and
I have a long career in software elipment on the
sales and marketing side. And I got laid off, got
(04:06):
laid off from my dot com gig up here it
was you know, stuff happens, and I do what you
do when you do that, You printed little business cards,
it's say a consultant. And I walked around, you know,
trying to figure out who I was and what I
was doing, and wound and wound up at a meeting
of our local Schools Foundation where they were talking about
(04:28):
maybe putting together some sort of a joint buying program
for vendors and services that schools might engage with to
help produce fundraisers and I went up and I said
what I Afterwards, I asked them what about software? And
they're like software, Like, yeah, software, I'm a software guy.
There's gotta be software that helps these things, right. And
they're like, there's these guys on the other side of town,
(04:54):
and you should talk to them. And she put me
in touch with these and these there are two guys
who just built a system for their lives to use
at the local school auction. They were thinking they wanted
to turn it into a company. The hell, I wasn't
doing anything else the time.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Let's go for it.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
And we put together this software. There are things that
we have learned along the way that have made the
software so so much better and us as a company
so much better. One of them, which I think will
be interesting for your audience, is that very few of
the people I'm working with actually are event planners. Most
(05:31):
of the people that I'm working with, especially down at
the local elementary school, they're simply good hearted people who
volunteered for something they didn't understand at the wrong time,
and they got stuck with a six hundred hour volunteer
job and oh my god, what do they do now?
How do they make these things work anyway, what's involved
in what's going on? You know, these are PTA moms.
(05:53):
They're very, very accomplished individuals usually, but they've probably gotten
off of the career track or the juggling everything in
the world, and in either case, they don't necessarily have
a whole lot of time to learn about how to
put on this thing that they're choosing to put on.
What we do is we give them the IT infrastructure
underneath it everything they're going to need to all the
(06:15):
tools are going to need to execute their event other
than things like a caterer and an a venue. Can't
get those through software, but anything you can. Let's sell
your tickets, Let's catalog all of your auction items, and
let's merchandise them, and let's set up a bidding system
for them so that people can participate. Nowadays, the trend
(06:36):
is all to do bidding on your phone rather than
on bidsheets and with battles and things, So we can
support all of that. And at the end of course,
we couple payment processing into this, and we couple reporting,
so we give everybody kind of a turnkey toolbox that
they can use to produce a fundraising event. So that's
the overview. That's the answer to question number one.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
We'll get in were gonna break it down, but that's okay,
So I want to stop there, all right. So number one,
I did enough for these shows, and myself included as
an entrepreneur, I think it's great lesson folks out there.
Do just assume it may seem like it should just
be a common thing. Do not assume it's already done.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Never never.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I know when I look for my business names instead,
I have two business names. I thought they were taken
for sure, and I almost just said, well, I'll screw it.
I'll just get something out like no.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Check check this way to work and.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I and I got I checked, and I was like,
now I can have the names I want. So I
was like, I just I just I just And there's
times I'm like, there has to be a show on
this or and there isn't. Yeah, you're a great example
of taking something up. So it seems like it could
be just common place, but it's not.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Well.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
And I will say this, there were competitors when we
did this, and the reason that I didn't like any
of the companies that were in the space at the
time was because of their business models. And let me explain,
when you're going to put on a fundraising event, if
you engage a company like mine, there is a really
high chance that part of the way that company is
(08:24):
going to price its services is by taking a percentage
of what you raise at your event. There may be
a license fee in addition to that, there may be
some upfront costs, or maybe you know, it's software, so
there can be all sorts of complicated ways you can
price the product. And if you're selling to a fortune
five hundred company, go crazy, baby, you know, go crazy,
(08:45):
build the craziest fricking pricing structure you want. They've got
professional buyers, they can interpret it, they can negotiate. When
I got into this, remember my point of view is
I was a PTA president at that time and a
software industry and I looked around and I thought, no
way I want to give any software company a percentage
(09:07):
of what I'm raising at my event. I don't have to,
and I don't want to. Like, I'll pay for software
the way I pay for software, which is I'll give
you a license fee. You know, I'll pay my license
fee and then I've got my software. And then I
wanted to use it, and there was nobody at the
time that was doing that. And you know, and it
makes a certain amount of sense to have a variable
(09:28):
cost kind of pricing structure like that for professional charities
that again probably have access to a lawyer, and for
really really tiny events where maybe they can't afford a
regular license fee, so you kind of do a little
of this and a little of that to help them
through for a little while. But our whole mission and
(09:50):
our whole point of view is we want to help
you raise money. I want to make enough money that
I can pay my bills, feed my programmers.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
But I also really believe.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
In the concept of enough, and once I make it enough,
I don't have to make anymore.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
It's okay, So maybe clearfo at home, Yeah watching this
because you use either word fundraiser, So we make you,
guys understand this isn't a go fund me thing. No,
I have something totally different. We're talking actual events that
has a fundraising component.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yeah, and almost all of these we're talking about registered
nonprofit organizations with a five oh one C three tax
identification number. Now this can include things like PTA's. They
can get those numbers and they do. They have them,
any organization that you can make a charitable donation to
and expect some kind of tax deduction in return, you know,
(10:52):
some ability to write it off on your taxes. Those
are the types of organizations we work with. Those are
the types of events.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
We occasionally will.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Work with a for profit company that wants to do
an event to raise money for United Way or something
like that, We'll work with them on those. But other
than that, no, this is charities that need to fundraised.
And James, I'll tell you the reason why I'm going
out and talking more about it this year in particular,
is because there's a lot of funding pressure on all
nonprofits in our country right now. Everything is upside down
(11:26):
with the suspension, review and cancelation of many, many, many
federal grants since the beginning of the year. And we
don't have to talk politics, I don't need to get
it into that. Just let me say that that is
a shock to the system and it continues downstream. So
private foundations are under a lot of stress right now
to pick up the slack for the federal grants that
(11:49):
are not there. They're starting to push back on charities saying, hey,
there's too many of you out there, et cetera, et cetera.
So yeah, you know, yeah, this is what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
It's hard not to go super political right now.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I have many things I would like to say, but
I'm not going to either, Nah, not the podcast for it,
but I but but but I'm you mentioned it's good still,
it's still life, and you can mention it's a bit
that this is what's going on. So more school, school districts,
associations may need to come to this kind.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Of absolutely, you know, churches, sports leagues, things like that.
You know, one of the customers we work with on
a regular basis is Young Life. We work with a
lot of Young Life chapters across the country.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
There.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
You know, it's a beautiful organization, full of great people
in it, and they put on these lovely fundraisers that
are kind of mid sized fundraisers and they just do
two hundred of them y or six hundred of them
a lot.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, So folks that just may say, so, these are
fundraising These are fundraising options at events.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
That are happening exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And then again for sports teams, for art class or
what it could be anything, right.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
And let's address the role that events specifically play in
the fundraising mix for charities because they have there's there's
basically two things to know about the way people think
about events. One that any nonprofit or charity that can
afford higher fundraising talent, so the kinds of people who
(13:27):
know lots of fat wallets and can ask to get
into their wills, you know, and if you can do that,
you absolutely should. It's definitely the best way to raise money.
But assuming that you don't know that many fat wallets
that are close to death, you know, what else are
you gonna do?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Right?
Speaker 4 (13:41):
And events are away that organizations without highly developed fundraising
talent can run a fundraiser because.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
You can kind of do an event.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Like it's the little rascals. It's like Sparky go sell
some tickets and Darlag go get some auction items, you know,
talking about references here they go back always Okay, I
just I just read that out of my file of facts.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
How's that?
Speaker 1 (14:12):
There? You go? I love it facts and check you
with a microfiche.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Oh go, So the uh SO events fit in there.
But generally at organizations that do have the high end talent,
they don't want to do events. They think of them
as day class a they think of them as not
worth the time, not worth the effort, and they have
a you know, generally high end development people have an
(14:40):
attitude that events, well, I guess I'll do one if
they break, if I can get it to break even,
but I'm not treating it as a big part of
the fundraising mix. You know who does not think that
way the local PTA. The local PTA looks at their
event as their primary fundraiser and so they know how
to make make money from them. And the bigger charities
(15:02):
could take a lesson from the schools and the churches
that do these and actually rely upon them for their
fundraising mix, because right now, with all the pressure everywhere
else in the system, organizations that are not running events
need to consider at least bringing them back into their mix.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Well, the whole thing is that I those finals for facts,
I'm involved with sam things. A lot of schools. We
lie on their community, yes, parents, alumni, local businesses to
help fund them. It's like, so it's a whole bringing back,
putting back in situation.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
So these things, yeah, they always have the they always
have the feel of a barn raising, like we're getting
together in our community to build something for our community
to use this is going to benefit us. We need
to come together and do this.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
So I think it's just kind of that's so I'm
gonna say, so people know that it really is happening.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
More and more.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I have I have grandchildren, and I have great nieces
and nephews and signephew called their school's always got some
some fundraising going on.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Uh effort going on for Sully, for cheer, for this.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
I'm just saying that you're you're very smart because this
is something that I mean, there's a billion schools out there.
First of all, I mean there are market It's like,
I mean, if I get to the weeds of business,
your target market is perfect.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Yeah, you can. You can go anywhere with this.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
It's not even was that was that a thought also
when you thought the idea after you go, wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Go anywhere?
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Well, funny you should mention that, James.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Okay, So in the first and when we when we
go back to the origin story of the company, I
go meet with these couple of guys that have just written
a piece of software and they want to turn it
into a company. And they don't have a name. They
don't have a name, for the company yet and they
had named the product Tofino Auctions. Now, Tofino is a
city in British Columbia. But it's tiny, it's not even
(16:55):
a city. It's tiny little place in British Columbia. But
great climbing, great rock. I'ming there, really beautiful, fantastic place.
Go if you can. And they said, you know, you
can change the name if you want. You know, if
you're going to be the marketing guy, you should. You
should know that we don't really care about the name.
You can, you can take over. And I said, well,
at the minute, for the moment, we'll leave it because
(17:15):
it's kind of pretty. It's kind of a pretty word.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
To Fina. Okay.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
But then I started doing some research and I started
playing around, and one of the things that came across
it's the fact that's seventy five percent of the fundraising
events put on in the United States every year are
put on by schools. That's where the bulk is. It's
not necessarily where the highest dollars are, but it's where
(17:42):
the bulk of all the auctions are.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I believe it.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Yeah, So we did that. We started playing around. On
we went I went to Google AdWords, and I set
up an AdWords campaign. One of the things you can
do there is you can put a display URL in.
So I bought fifty or sixty domain names and I
just used them to test things out, and school auction
dot Com got the greatest response, so we decided that
was the name.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
So I work in Hollywood and one of my mentors
ten years ago had taught me the whole thing about
sometimes keep a name simple, and people need to know
exactly what you are with the first few seconds the
short attention spans. So that's what's out there. So if
(18:24):
you know, all my shows my network are very simple,
They're not fancy. I get a lot of hits because
as they type in a word event planning or all that,
I pop.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Up, Yeah, you got nice, good generic terms in there.
It's like Holy Moses man access.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
So the thing about that planning students, Yeah, we know
what you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
You literally know what you're talking about. This is what
we are.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
And you know, most people I will say this, you
know you're in the event planning world. I'm in the
event planning world. We're talking to a bunch of event planners.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
We know the deal.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Most people out in the world want to stop thinking
about their event as fast as they can once it's over.
And those of us on the inside, we think about
events three sixty five, you know, twenty four seven, three
sixty five. And so in the I say, we're in
the tribe. We're in the tribe of people who put
these things on and know how to do it and
aren't flustered by them and can get it done. And
(19:22):
my primary role, the one that I want to play
in that part of the industry, is educator. I really
want to be out there teaching people how to put
on these events in a way that's gonna, you know,
open their eyes and make them a lot of money.
And so you know, yes, you buy software when you
come to us, but you also get to talk to
(19:43):
me and the rest of our team, and we're awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Just talking to Rober just the price for admission, you know,
I will ask you a question.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
I'm an old person, so.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
I think you and I are peers. But that's okay, you're.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
All too, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I I mean, I have degrees and stuff, but I
to think.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
But it's sometimes becomes technology.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I didn't grow up with technology, so I got to
like learn it. So my question to you is, I
know a lot of folks my agent older will ask
this is it user friendly? I mean, I've been your website.
I would use it obviously, I've seen it, But is
it user friendly?
Speaker 4 (20:24):
So when we prioritize the the maintenance and the development,
the ongoing development of the software, and we continue to
develop it, I will tell you that job number one,
at the top of the list, the highest priority is
always credit card security. Number two is user user friendliness
(20:45):
in the interface there and the reason why it's pretty simple.
I referred to this earlier. Most of the people I'm
working with are not event planners. Most of them just
volunteered at the wrong time, and they generally have too
much to do anyway, because of the people who get
stuff done tend to be the busiest people in the
right exactly, so they're really really busy. They don't have
(21:06):
time to learn this nonsense and they and furthermore, if
I sell to a customer and then I work with
them the next year in between events, they've forgotten all of them. Right,
they just do, because who wants to keep thinking about
your event software after your event is over? No, this
is now that you've done that and you've fulfilled your obligation,
you move on and you take care of other things. Yes,
so user friendliness in the interface is the difference between
(21:30):
me retaining a customer or losing them. And I only
make money if I hang on to my customers for
four or five years.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Oh really, it's okay.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Yeah, it's an investment for a while, you know, especially
when we're talking about smaller groups. You know, sometimes you
kind of got to get them, get them, get the
get the wheel rolling, you know, get them, get them
pointed downhill for a little while before you can actually
you know, before it actually pays off. But that's okay.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
You know.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
In the meantime, I'm helping to put playground equipment on
playgrounds and lib you know, computers in the library and
that kind of stuff, and I couldn't feel better about
that work.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
But yeah, I mean obviously it's very food warning works.
I'm like, yeah, puty arts and school back in schools
and pee equipment. I mean, I'm sure all that stuff.
I'm sure all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
It's it breaking it down. So when somebody.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Who gets your software, yeah that's what said. It's the
event planning show. So again can help you. Can't help
you with location, can be with lo catering.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Can be right. Help you with is the actual maintenance
on site maintenance, before, during, and post events. Correct.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Absolutely, Before the event we're doing we're doing event prep stuff.
You're selling your tickets, you're producing all of your collateral
that you're going to use to merchandise your auction at
the event. You're getting everything into the database so that
it's ready to go on the night of the event.
Job number one is process all of the guests through
the event, because not only are you just saying, oh, hi,
(23:05):
you're here, you have to equip them. If you're doing
mobile bidding, you have to tell them how to get
logged in. If you're doing paddles, you have to give
them a paddle. You may there may be you know,
the usual stuff like seating assignments and meal choices and
things like that that you have to manage, but you
also have to set yourself up to make sure that
the organization gets paid on all of the commitments that
(23:27):
are made during the course of the event. And if
you do not do that, your event will shrink. You
may think you raised one hundred thousand dollars and after
it's all over, you've really only collected, say eighty thousand dollars,
or you think you've raised twelve thousand dollars, but you've
only collected four and that can be really, really problematic.
And so building the systems in to ensure that the
(23:49):
organization is going to get paid for the commitments that
are made is a is a big deal. So we
have a you know, we have a protocol. It's a
common protocol in the industry. When a guest at the event,
we ask them for a credit card, but we swipe it,
we store it securely in a place where we can't
retrieve the card number and nobody else can get it,
and it's totally safe. But it's there and we can
(24:10):
charge it later. Guests doesn't have to be there, etc. Great,
that's called checking. We get them in the door, they
go off, then they make all of their commitments. Then
we have to get all those commitments recorded so that
we can decide what their bill is, and then we
have to charge them and then send them home, hopefully
without making them stand in any lines at the end
(24:31):
of the night. Because one of the real bummers about
fundraising events in particular is that guests want to go
home at ten o'clock and you might still have work
you need to do. If you haven't prepped really well
ahead of time, you may still have an hour's worth
(24:52):
of work that requires those guests to be there, and
they're getting cranky and they don't want to be there
and they want to go home, kiss the kids, send
the babysitter home. Don't flip those and you know, so
we build in the payment system there and we all
of that is there to ensure that balls don't get
dropped that during the course of the evening. Really, things
(25:16):
are not going to slip through the cracks there if
you're just following the uh the protocols that we've got
set up in there.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
How easy is it is to actually have tech support?
M I always think it's a Grant's a big question
to you for us all folks. Is it chatbot? Is
it we call? I mean, is it twenty four hours?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Is it? And during the event are you available? Like?
How does that work?
Speaker 4 (25:41):
It's a huge question. It's a huge thing we had
to crack. We are continually improving upon it. When you're
working in advance before the event, so doing all the
stuff to get ready, selling your tickets, cataloging your items,
doing all of that work. There's you do have access
to a support team. They work business hours out here
in Portland, so after six o'clock or so, you know,
(26:01):
wait till tomorrow. But you have access to a support team.
You have access to lots of built in contextual documentation.
So pretty much every every time you might type something
into the software, the place where you would type it,
it's called a field. Every field has got a little
explainer that you can access anytime you want. We have
(26:21):
training videos built in throughout the software, so we've got
all the documentation built in, including videos, short videos, you know,
two to four minutes that pop up and tell you
how to do a particular thing. And then this summer
we've added a chat bot. Yeah, we've added a chatbot.
I'm telling all my customers, you know, you tell me
(26:42):
how well it works afterwards. You know, I'm not entirely
sure it's going to be great, but we have trained
it only on our documentation, so it shouldn't hallucinate too much.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
And we'll see how well it does.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
But we think that that's going to be really important
because you know, a key element of working with this
particular market is that this particular market. Think of the
PTA mom. She's not working on the auction during her
work day, she's not working on her auction during her
family time, not when she's taking the kids to soccer
(27:13):
practice or whatever, she's doing an inner volunteer time. And
how much of that is there in a day less
than the other buckets, right, And oftentimes it happens really
late at night. So I tell my customers it's like,
if you're up at two in the morning, you know,
entering in auction items and many of them are that
last week before things are going on, and you know
(27:34):
that they can be burned in the midnight. Well, it's
like the chatbot is here to help you during those
hours the rest of us are asleep. And then of course, yes,
on event night, you get telephone support up until I
think ten BM Pacific time. So for my East Coast customers,
that's way after they've.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Gone to bed.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
But I was just curious. That's a big deal too.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Nowadays it's like if their support it or tech support
a kind.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
Of we have to, we absolutely have to. There's a
lot of moving pieces in the software. Nobody's gonna nobody's
gonna know all of it. Nobody's going to be a whiz.
It's okay, you know, but yeah, that's that's how we
make that work.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I mean it sounds very straightforward and very useful. That's
really all the questions I really have for I was
just curious about how much I really wanted to let
people know that there's something out there that's straightforward and
possibly beneficial. Because I said, school starting, school starting, Yeah,
(28:39):
any of us.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
Well, let me let me let me interject one piece
of advice for your audience in particular here, Okay, for
the professional event planners, because we see this whole process
that starts maybe six months before the event and ends
two weeks after the event. We see this as an
integrated process where things build on each other. We've built
(29:04):
full service software that goes end to end. Oftentimes, when
I work with a group and it's a professional event planner,
they wouldn't have started thinking about bidding software until after
they've started selling their tickets and maybe they've done a
whole bunch of other things, and then they kind of
have a hard time because they got to integrate that
work that's already been done into the flow and into
the software there. So I would say, if you are,
(29:27):
if you have charity, charity customers, et cetera. Don't think
of auction software as bidding software that's a piece you
append onto your event. Think of it as event management
software for a particularly proscribed, narrow type of event, which
is a fundraising gala.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
There's fundraising gallus. It's fun raising.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Exactly, or an online auction or you know, there's twists.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
But but that's what would just say, I guess it
is not for a fundraising of a company, is that
well right?
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Not?
Speaker 4 (29:59):
Yeah, And I just want to tell the event planners
out there, don't piece meal a solution together. Really you
don't have to buy mine, but by something that's integrated,
because it just saves you so much work. If you
come to me and you've sold half your tickets through
event bright already, it's like, okay, all right, we'll work
on it. But you know, yeah, we can make it work.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I'll talk to you.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Absolutely, and I'll help you because we know all how
to do that. But it would be easier on you
if you had an integrated thing where everything is part
of an integrated process, because at the end of the day,
it's all about moving those wallets through the room, sucking
money out of them and putting it in the bank account.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Yes, and I'll be accounted for itemized.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
You know, all that stuff, all of that good stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Guys have that all unlock, he says, it always it's
all there. And we love records. Hell, we have records
and all that stuff, so you can subdult. So you
love that. I mean that's just when, because they said
when it comes to fundraising and involves money, other people's
money be a little tricky.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
So good to know. Save space. Everything's fine for credit cards.
Save ye. Yes, today's too. Looks like data.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
You know, if we need to, like if we need
to collect any permissions from a guest, or we need
to collect any information from them, we can build that
into the ticket sales process. So when you buy your ticket,
I can ask you would you like a gluten free meal?
Or I can say what homeroom was your kid in?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Are also assuming with this also you have an email list?
Sure mailing list tells you out of this too.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Well, I'm not going to have a mailing list of
potential guests to your event. What I do have is
I do have a lot of information on companies that
donate items to auctions.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
So that's helpful. Definite sure, Okay, very good.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Well, thank you Roger, and I think for being on
the show.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
James, I'd like to come back.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
If you'll have me, I'll tell you have you, I'll
tell you how you come back. So tell folks, okay,
all your information. I'm working.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
I mean, I think school auntion dot net is and
whether but tell me what to get you also found
you a place, so tell me you find you.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Yep, Www.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Got school auction dot net is where we keep you know,
the portal, the entry that you can sign up for
the software. There, you can take a demo et cetera,
et cetera. If you want to get in touch with
me personally, my email address is Roger R.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
O G E.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
R at school Auction dot net. Pretty easy to remember,
and I'm here to take questions and calls all the time.
Love to work with any organization that's interested. But even
if you're doing your gallow with somebody else and you
just want to keep it a little bit, I'm happy
to talk with people.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Yeah. I always say vet people, check them people out.
Just you never know.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Absolutely might be a good fit.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
I'm James log and I'm still devoted to talking about
events and event planning issues, including companies or do stuff
like this. Well, I'm back for some other stuff later
down the line. It's just it's it's uh. I got
into it by accident a brillion years ago and just
stayed in it. I mean I just kind of stayed
(33:06):
in there and found that I could do it.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Well, we're members of the tribe, right, you know.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
It's where we belong, This is where we live.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
And there are a lot of us out there. There's
a lot of us out there.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
There are so I just I really wanted to say
thank you for Roger Devine for coming on the show.
We are on during the week. We always release episodes
on different days. I don't have a saent day for
the show. We just put about what we feel like
play amounts. So you'll just follow us at all audio,
let's say, Creigle all audio streaming service platforms. We are
(33:35):
there on Apple, Audible, Spotify, iHeartRadio, cast Box, everywhere where
under all Access colon event Planning. There's also another all
Access something else that's not us, but it's All Access
event Planning, So check that out.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
There.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
We're also, of course, if you're watching us, we're on
the granddaddy of them all YouTube under jail JPD. That's
the place, right YouTube, chanting YouTube is getting what's more important.
People are, people are really they're looking at TV things.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
It's still the largest podcasting platform out there, right.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
It is, and that's why I'm here.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
So anyway, and to all the schools up there, I
support all of your program just blindly support all your
programs and all your fundraising efforts to keep your keep
stuff going.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Please keep it going, whatever it is, I support it.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
I have times on Junior. I'll talk to you next time.
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