Time Auction

My social enterprise, Time Auction, enables people to trade volunteer hours to bid for experiences money can’t buy. Visitors to the website can browse rewards and bid the hours they’ve spent volunteering for a chance to meet with some pretty amazing people, such as Ron Joyce, the Co-Founder of Tim Hortons. The more hours bid, the better the chance of winning the auction. I believe volunteerism improves our communities and deserves to be recognized. Time Auction makes it more enticing for people to get involved and help others.

The most fun I’ve had so far has been hearing about the great volunteer work our bidders have done. Each bid needs to be verified, so we contact references at volunteer organizations to confirm that a bidder has completed the number of hours they’ve bid. That’s how I’ve found out about people who have donated their time to serve food to the homeless, coach sports teams, and even teach Zumba classes for free. Others serve on boards, help preserve national parks, facilitate support groups, file tax returns for low-income and elderly individuals, or play with kids in palliative-care facilities.

Something less fun, though quite exciting, was the crashing of our server due to a surge in traffic after someone posted on Reddit our auction for a chance to meet that company’s co-founder, Steve Huffman.

What the business needs right now is more bidders and donors. If you’re a business leader, talented artist, inspiring community worker or leader in an interesting field, consider offering a meeting with you as an auction reward. We are likely to leverage each hour you offer in your reward into 20 volunteer-hours benefitting charities in your community. You can also check out the interesting people we have for our next round: CEOs, a foreign affairs reporter, VCs, finance gurus, and even a professional boxer. To date, Time Auction has collected more than 8,000 volunteer hours.