The 2013 AmeriTitle Deschutes County Shop With a Cop E-Auction was once again a smashing success.
For the 11th year, AmeriTitle has teamed up with Deschutes County in an effort to benefit local children in need during the holiday season. Through the years, Amerititle’s methods to raise funds have evolved from selling raffle tickets, gift baskets and hosting a silent auction to what it is today – a live internet auction. To date, we are proud to say that we have raised over $23,000 for the Deschutes County Shop With a Cop Program. 
Each year, the troops of AmeriTitle venture into the community asking for donations, gift certificates, items for purchase and gift baskets. Donations this year included a foursome to Brasada Ranch ($640 value), a cancer survivor bracelet from Ija Designs ($80 value), and a gift basket from our friends at Newport Market ($100 value). Descriptions of each item were placed on a page of the E-Auction website for the respective category. The website was then pushed out to the community for viewing and bid submission.
As the website moderator, I struggled to keep up with bids as they were coming in faster than I could update. Each time I updated an item, I would get a higher bid. It was a lot of work for me, but I knew that the faster I went, the higher the bids would be. A “labor of love” is what I was calling it.
My fellow peers even brought me coffee and lunch on the final day of bidding. Coincidentally, it was a Friday and we were in the middle of the massive snowstorm. So, sitting at my desk for the day wasn’t the worst thing to be doing.
From my perspective, the E-Auction seemed like a great teambuilding exercise. Many of our title and escrow teams placed bids on the items regularly. You could feel a buzz in the title department as folks began purposely bidding up items that weren’t on their wish lists just to be competitive.
We had some great prospective customers bid on items as well. Two of our 26 items were purchased by industry folks who do not use AmeriTitle. The dialogue created with these people was worth the hard work and auction by itself.
In an unexpected twist, our friends at the Central Oregon Visitors Association Tweeted our E-Auction to over 26,000 followers. We ended up seeing multiple bids from folks in California and Washington. In the end, we sold a Sunriver Resort VIP pass to a person in San Diego who loves visiting Central Oregon during the summer months.
We are fortunate at AmeriTitle that we have leaders who support this community in such a way that we have 6 employees who are able to spend the second half of their work day wrapping the gifts right in front of the children for the Shop With a Cop Program. The gift wrapping day is scheduled for Wednesday, December 18th, 2013 from 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. at the Bend, Oregon Walmart.
This year, the AmeriTitle Deschutes County E-Auction raised $2,230. We are extremely grateful for all of the bidders, the local businesses who donated, and the relationships built purely from the generosity that comes from the greatest community out there. There is nothing greater to us in the business development world than to utilize our connections for the greater good.
Thank you Central Oregon!