cMarket announced the completion of the 2008 Jerry Lewis Telethon Online Auction, raising an additional $580,000 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The Telethon, held on Aug. 31 - Sept. 4, raised a record-breaking $65 million. Overall, nearly 20,000 bids were placed. This was the first national auction for the Association.
In 2007, some MDA offices trialed the cMarket online auction platform in specific communities and based on the success of those auctions, MDA decided to create larger, national auction with a single access point through which consumers from all over the country could shop from one catalog. Similar to the BiddingForGood portal into all cMarket auctions, cMarket designed the main catalog view to make it easier to shop the over 3,800 items.
"This was a really exciting auction to watch," said Jon Carson, CEO of cMarket. "In just 15 days, we saw generous donations, coordinated efforts and consumer shopping align in a virtual marketplace to benefit research and treatments for muscular dystrophy. Despite a down economy, MDA engaged an additional 3,200 people, drawing over half a million dollars of discretionary income for their cause. That signals a significant shift in consumer behavior that is likely to have broad implications for how we fund social causes in the future and we're thrilled to be a part of that change."
