GOODBIDS was a novel approach to online fundraising—positive auctions, with a twist. Every bid was a donation, and every donation increased in value. It was only up an running for a short while, but in that burst of compassionate creativity we made an impact:
Over $70K raised across 14 auctions, all in support of 8 Nonprofits doing meaningful work.
In the auctions we ran, nonprofits like Save The Children and Charity:Water raised funds with online auctions that took minutes to set up. Supporters won prizes like Apple Watches, appearances in Future Best-Selling novels, and concert tickets, all for a fraction of their market value.
Goodbids was conceived by Seth Godin, and brought to life by an international team of ruckus-makers: Anne Marie Cruz, Avaleen Morris, Blessing Abeng, Fannie Theofanidou, Felice Della Gatta, Jasper Croome, Jennifer Myers Chua, Ramon Ray, Scott Perry, and the team at Viget.
While the original intent was to commercialize the idea, we’ve now pivoted to open-sourcing the code with the hope that someone will bring this idea to the world. The source code is available here.
Felice Della Gatta is a brilliant designer. He’s a skilled, empathic and generous creator who brings magic to every project he takes on. He’s insightful and productive, sharing a point of view without letting ego get in the way. If you have the chance to work with him, don’t hesitate.
Seth Godin
Founder
I’ve had the honor of working with Seth Godin and the rest of the GOODBIDS team in the past on the Carbon Almanac, a never-before-attempted, global, volunteer-based editorial project on the most pressing issue of our time—but I digress.
When he talked to me about GOODBIDS the first time, he had already started riffing with my friend and engineer extraordinaire Jasper Croome, and now they felt the need for someone with an eye for design to make the product beautiful. I said I could help with that.
GOODBIDS wants to turn charity auctions upside down and inside out with a simple tweak to traditional auction mechanics: in a GOODBIDS auction, every bid is a non-refundable donation to the nonprofit hosting the auction. Our success hinged on the out-of-this-world generosity of those who would resonate with the idea.
To celebrate that generosity, we created a mascot—Gibby—to support a brand identity that’s energetic, fun, and approachable by combining timeless typography and modern color themes. Gibby is ever-present across all applications as it lives in the GOODBIDS icon, a stylization of its big eye and friendly smile.
Although the GOODBIDS web app is similar in structure to traditional online auction platforms, we didn’t want to play it too safely. We wanted the product to stand out and make a lasting impression. So, we let it ooze character through its light green background and the exaggerated softness of the UI elements, reinforcing the brand’s friendly and modern character.
GOODBIDS allows non-profits to create custom auction sites in a few clicks. We asked ourselves how we might allow our users to launch beatiful sites, in line with their brand identity, without getting lost in a myriad of settings and with virtually no learning curve. So we designed a minimalist theme with a few color settings and the opportunity to pick fonts from the google fonts library which makes custom GOODBID’s auction sites ready to go live in minutes.
