24 hour web team auction for charity

Today at 9:15am the 24 hour web team eBay auction was won by Youth 2 Youth. There was some serious adrenaline pumping Jessica Kiely, Director of Youth 2 Youth says at the end when they sneaked their bid in on the last 15 seconds. I interviewed Jessica and the conversation follows:

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
Why did you want to bid for the auction?

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
We wanted to bid because – we love Freestyle and we have some stuff on our agenda that we could use their services for. The idea of having it done in 24 hours is VERY exciting for us – as we will get it a whole lot quicker than normal. Of course because we know that the money is going to a good cause – is so awesome, and warm and fuzzy and all of us know someone who has or is affected by cancer.

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
You said each of you know someone who was affected. Describe this warm and fuzzy feeling you have now?

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
Warm and fuzzys – mmmmm……knowing that your $$'s (dollars) are helping research is awesome. As a social enterprise here at Youth 2 Youth we are all about making a difference, so in everything we do we try and live this……so this is another great way to do that. We see it as a win win here – the Cancer Council gets money for research, we increase the profile of cervical cancer, Youth 2 Youth gets a new project worked on by a world class online marketing agency and as Youth 2 Youth is a social enterprise this new project will then go on to help others……everyone say argh!!!!!

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
So what are you thinking of building and promoting with the auction win?

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
A brand new website! Its a little tricky to talk about the website because – we are in the process of 'teasing' our clients, customers and colleagues….about stuff that is going on here – so I don’t want to give too much away.

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
Sure.

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
But it will be authentic, innovative and fun. And the Freestyle Media team are one of the best teams to work on it.

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
What do you think you will do with the 500,000 emails?

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
mmm – not to sure about that one……something to all of the schools in Australia possibly…..we may need some advice on how best to use that for our project. But it is very exciting – because we could get some great coverage for our services.

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
Have you ever used paid search for your promotion? What’s your thoughts on the websearch.com.au 12 month listing?

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
We haven’t used it before, so will be an exciting area to go into! It will help us increase our own web knowledge at the same time. Again…..we aren’t very web-savvy in using the web technology for our biz, so far….so we are really looking forward to utilising those new things to develop our business further. Part of the 'project' will be also seeing how we can incorporate increased awareness for the Cancer Council and cervical cancer as well.

Fred Schebesta – Freestyle Media
Great! Any final comments?

Jessica Kiely – Youth 2 Youth
Well done to Freestyle Media, websearch.com.au and Returnity for making all of this possible. It has been very exciting and so great to be a part of such an innovative solution – perhaps this is the new way for NFPs to do fundraising…..because its great!!! Look forward to presenting our money to the Cancer Council and working with the Freestyle Media team for that crazy 24 hours!