Learn more about the history of BidBoard and why we do what we do to make BidBoard work for your fundraising event.

A Letter From BidBoard's Founder

BidBoard was founded out of a personal need for a more efficient silent auction process. In 2012, my family pioneered the 65 Roses Golf Tournament in support of Cystic Fibrosis, after my sister was diagnosed with the disease at the age of 22. Each year we hold a banquet and auction for 400 people the night before the golf tournament. The first year, it was frustrating to see people walk through the line of silent auction items only once before making their way into the dining room and rarely returning to see and bid on the items over the course of the night. We realized that if an event has a cocktail hour, dinner, speaker and live auction in the span of three hours, only one of those hours is really open to supporting the silent auction. We knew there was a better solution.

After our inaugural event, we began looking for options to help streamline and mobilize the silent auction bidding process. We realized there were a handful of options out there—some gave you beepers, others sent you a text message on your phone, while others allowed you to bid on iPads scattered around the event. None of them, however, gave you all of the power of the silent auction in the palm of your own hand. Not to mention, all of these other solutions cost thousands of dollars. Thus, BidBoard was born.

The concept was to provide an efficient, low cost solution to mobile bidding for silent auctions. We wanted organizations to be able to utilize their own resources and not be forced to pay for the overhead needed to run a company. We wanted event organizers to be able to reach all of their mailing lists for a silent auction, not just the people who are attending the event. And most importantly, we wanted to help generate more revenue for all of events and organizations.

Sincerely,
Charles M. Nettles, III