Virtual Events - Handbid is Here for You!

Thank you so much for entrusting your mission-critical fundraising events to Handbid. We take this responsibility very seriously, ensuring we deliver on our promise to you every day.

Given the current outbreak of COVID-19 and the impact the virus is having on our fundraising heroes (you), your guests, our families and our community, we would like to take a minute to share our Business Continuity plans with you.

‍

Why Handbid for your virtual event

As a technology leader in auction and event software, we are honored to partner with thousands of charity heroes globally, providing them a secure and trusted platform and a capable and dedicated support team for their fundraisers. Despite the uncertainty of COVID-19, we expect to continue to deliver the same level of product & service excellence to our customers, and have the following measures in place to ensure your success:

Availability of our Team

Handbid is a global company, with employees across all departments that are equipped to work remotely (from anywhere they can access the Internet). In other words, being distributed and remote is not new to us it is commonplace. We feel confident in our continued ability to serve you, regardless of our physical work location.

Therefore, it is "business-as-usual” for our team regarding operations and support. You should not notice any difference in our service times or quality of service delivered. We look forward to serving you as always.

If you plan to have your event and have hired our staff to attend, we will do our best to ensure that they show up as scheduled. If you need to reschedule your event and our staff, please let us know as soon as possible by emailing us at service@handbid.com.

Availability of our Platform

Our technical platform is fully automated and designed to be distributed across the Internet. Each day, we serve tens-of-thousands of requests from end-users and auction managers on our systems. Failures at the software and hardware level are rare due to our redundancy and ability to scale. Moreover, we have a 24/7 team of operations engineers who actively monitor and manage our servers and data centers.

During this time, we have taken measures to ensure that our teams and data centers remain closely monitored, staffed and operational. We have also reviewed and confirmed our disaster recovery and business continuity processes. You should be comforted to know that we don't expect any system impacts.

Tips for Moving your Auction to Online-Only

Handbid, by nature, is uniquely positioned to handle your online-only auction event or virtual gala. Our platform at events.handbid.com is accessible to anyone on the Internet, making it easy for remote or virtual guests to find your auction and bid within it.

If you choose to cancel your live event and just run an online auction, please let us know as soon as possible. We are happy to help make recommended adjustments to help make your event a success.

If you have Handbid staff scheduled to attend your event, please contact us at service@handbid.com immediately after making the decision to go "online-only,” reschedule or cancel your event.

When you change your event to be "online-only”, consider these best practices:

• Open your auction as soon as possible and plan to leave it open as long as 1 to 2 weeks.
• Maximize registration by promoting your auction through social media or email invitations.
• Use the Handbid Invite list functionality to mass email or text to your contacts & previously registered donors.
• Use social media buttons embedded within the platform to promote specific items.
• Use Facebook Live to stream Handbid TV (the real-time dashboards showing top items and bidding activity)!
• Consider using Facebook Live or an online conferencing platform if you want to do any form of Live Auction.
• Make sure you have donation items set up in your auction and encourage people to donate in lieu of an in-room paddle raise (you can even show a live thermometer on HandbidTV via Facebook/Instagram Live if you prefer).

Consider Running a Peer-to-Peer or Crowdfunding Campaign

If you need to raise additional funds, consider also running a peer-to-peer fundraiser on Handbid. All of our auction clients have access to the peer-to-peer features and it is easy to set up a campaign.

‍

Thank you for being our hero!

Thank you for entrusting your business to Handbid and for all that you do to advance your cause and support our community. All of you are truly our heroes and we are very grateful for the role we play in your lives and work. We remain as committed as ever to ensuring your success and wish you, your colleagues and families safety, wellness and positivity during these challenging times.

With Gratitude,

The Handbid Team