Rodrigo Aguirre de Cárcer

Rodrigo Aguirre de Cárcer has created a channel through which citizen organizations can monetize the value of in-kind donations from businesses and individuals. By leveraging Internet auction platforms such as eBay, he is reaching large numbers of citizens in a continuous and scalable way, offering them public opportunities to contribute to the citizen sector while also getting great deals on products, services, and experiences.

Rodrigo has created a new channel through which citizen organizations (COs) can extract liquid value out of in-kind donations from businesses and individuals. SocialBid, his organization, uses online auction platforms—such as eBay—to monetize in-kind donations by selling them to e-consumers. SocialBid accepts and markets a wide variety of products and services (from iPods to holiday trips) that are sold using existing platforms to millions of users with varying interests. Through his online bidding tool, Rodrigo is engaging new contributors that traditional charity auctions and fundraising campaigns generally cannot reach. He is also tapping into a new pool of resources by opening the door for more types of businesses to participate in funding the citizen sector, whose donations of products and services were previously difficult to accept on behalf of most COs.

For example, in 2009 a travel agency wanted to donate what they do best: Organized holiday travel packages. Previously, this donation would have been practically useless and most likely would have been rejected by most COs. SocialBid, AeA (Help in Action), a well-known CO that conducts development programs across the world, and a travel agency worked together to organize an auction that offered 24 holiday trips starting from 1€! The successful campaign raised over 10,000€ for AeA and also raised awareness among thousands of online bidders about AeA’s work.

Rodrigo offers a varied marketplace in which businesses contribute, citizens purchase, and COs benefit. In contrast to other approaches, SocialBid provides a continuous flow of monetary exchanges that result in financing for COs. The model, however, goes beyond simply providing liquidity: Rodrigo aims to build a culture where businesses and individuals play a legitimate and recognized role in building a strong citizen sector. On one hand, Rodrigo brings value to in-kind donations from businesses in order for them not only to become useful to COs but also, by monetizing their value, to help businesses achieve legitimate tax reductions for donations that previously did not apply to in-kind donations. Citizens are drawn to contribute mainly because they find the available products and services cheap and attractive. However, they are also attracted to the fact that their purchases are opportunities to contribute to socially minded initiatives. By bringing these three groups together—businesses, COs, and citizens—Rodrigo is creating synergies that increase funding and awareness through new and large communities of Internet users.

It has always been a challenge for COs to leverage financial resources, particularly liquid funding. In Spain, organizations depend heavily on public funding, comprising an average of 40 percent of CO’s budgets. As organizations increase in size and number, and governments decrease their financial support, COs are forced to find new funding sources in order to survive. Moreover, depending on high levels of existing government funding is unhealthy for the sector, as it often limits an organization’s freedom in setting goals independent of political interests. Organizations are discovering that diversifying funding sources and including new participants (such as private businesses) is vital not only for their long-term survival, but also for building a strong and competitive citizen sector.

As COs turn to private businesses for funding, they have discovered that a gap often exists between what they are requesting and what businesses are interested in giving. Increasingly, successful companies are offering in-kind services and products instead of simply handing over cash. Although this trend, often referred to as corporate social responsibility, is theoretically bringing the private sector closer to the citizen sector, it can also present a serious barrier for collaboration. Many times the services and products that businesses offer simply are not useful to the CO in question. For example, a private olive oil manufacturer in Spain, impressed with the work of a CO in an African country, decides to donate what it does best: Prime quality olive oil. However, the sheer logistical costs and complications of bringing that oil to Africa makes it impossible to accept on behalf of the receiving organization, obliging them to decline the offer and lose an opportunity to form an important relationship with a corporate entity.

On paper, the monetary value of in-kind donations that businesses and individuals offer is often much higher than they would be able to give in monetary funding. However, so far there have been very few successful attempts at capturing that value in order for COs to profit fully from quality donations. One such attempt has been the traditional charity auctions in which an intermediate organization gathers high valued objects—generally from celebrities or wealthy individuals (i.e. Babe Ruth baseball bats)—and puts them on sale, donating the benefits to COs of choice. Although these auctions have indeed resulted in needed liquidity for the receiving entities, they are limited to intermittent periods (there are only so many Babe Ruth bats) and to a narrow interest group. Without a channel through which to make in-kind donations profitable to COs, a great opportunity is lost to involve new players in the citizen sector.

SocialBid has quickly become one of the largest eBay shops in Spain, with a community of over 15,000 buyers. In this time, Rodrigo has generated over 400,000€ for COs through the sale of over 7,000 products and services.

Rodrigo is leveraging online auction platforms such as eBay, which alone reaches over 4 million Internet consumers in Spain, to enable a constant flow of exchanges that create liquidity for COs. With this large market of consumers at hand, Rodrigo can commercialize a wide variety of products and services. While on paper the in-kind donations from businesses are made directly to the desired CO, SocialBid handles the logistics, placement, and sales process. This way Rodrigo is able to offer potential buyers thousands of products, services, and experiences (e.g. from mp3 players, to swimsuits, to dinners with celebrities) in a professional and efficient way. Through key partnerships with eBay, Rodrigo has gained privileged placement on the top of search lists as well as in key advertising space.

Rodrigo recognizes that he must make SocialBid’s channel cheap, simple, and fast to attract and maintain his users. This requires a highly professional structure able to compete with other online stores. To achieve this, Rodrigo has built his organization as a social business (it receives no profit) that charges small commissions for monetizing in-kind donations. Instead of having a fixed fee for every auction, he charges the donating businesses small-scale commissions on the final price of the items and only if they are sold. Once the items are sold, COs receive the amount raised and are able to give their donors a receipt for the precise amount that was raised through their donation. Businesses can then apply for important tax deductions on their contributions. The simplicity of the process and variety of sellable products has enabled many companies to recycle immobilized stock while contributing toward the social sector without losing brand value. On the other hand, COs are not only receiving much needed liquid donations, but are also developing new links with private companies that opens doors for further engagement opportunities. Rodrigo believes that these relationships are essential to model the synergies produced by different kinds of organizations working together to strengthen the citizen sector. Already a number of non-profit organizations are partnering with for-profit firms on other programs, after having connected through SocialBid.

Rodrigo is also very aware of the important role individual citizen’s play in giving real value to in-kind donations made by businesses to COs. As much of Rodrigo’s strategy involves identifying incentives for businesses, COs, and individuals to extract value out of this system, he spends a great deal of time analyzing how people initially engage with SocialBid. He found that people learn about SocialBid through different motivations: Some are interested in contributing to a given COs activity, others find the idea interesting, and others simply want a well-priced item that SocialBid offers. However, Rodrigo’s aim is for all to know where their money is going and to begin to understand their ability to use their consumer power for social good. He achieves this end with two strategies: First, he includes a small summary of the beneficiary COs work in the product description that users read while verifying the product’s characteristics. Second, Rodrigo is building an online social network of buyers and others interested in using their purchasing power to contribute to the citizen sector. From this network, with already over 3,000 users, he plans to launch other initiatives focused on providing opportunities for further involvement.

Having engaged over 40 COs and 180 donating businesses and individuals in SocialBid, Rodrigo is focusing on improving the user experience to gain speed and efficiency as well as incorporating new and creative ideas to increase the organization’s reach. One of the key aspects Rodrigo is developing is marketing. He has discovered that SocialBid is an excellent platform for both COs to share their work as well as for businesses to show their social commitment to clients. To leverage this capacity, SocialBid has put a series of indicators in place in order to measure the impact that each auction campaign has achieved. This is instrumental in helping Rodrigo stress to COs the importance of communicating their message well and to show businesses that their contributions are important. Rodrigo is now developing a series of studies with strong media impact and strengthening ties with offline media to reach new people, increase traffic to their site, and raise awareness on opportunities for individuals to support the citizen sector.

Rodrigo’s goal is that shopping for products that contribute toward social good becomes a central consideration in citizen’s consumer routines. He believes that consumer habits can be channeled to support social good and that as people realize this, businesses will find themselves under pressure to prove they are contributing to the citizen sector. To reach this, Rodrigo is focusing on building a critical mass of organizations and individuals involved in SocialBid Spain. As this network is consolidated, Rodrigo has plans to use his multinational partners (eBay as well as participating COs and businesses with international reach) to replicate the model in different countries where e-commerce markets are more stable than in Spain. He is also developing SocialBid’s own selling platform to increase traffic as well as test and develop new initiatives.

As a son of a diplomat, Rodrigo spent his childhood and youth in 4 different continents, giving him the chance to see firsthand important social inequalities between countries and people. For example, when Rodrigo was 10 he moved from the U.S.—where he had spent 5 years—to Pretoria, South Africa. He recalls having great difficulties in understanding why black people were treated so differently from whites and why he couldn’t befriend them as he did in the U.S. He was particularly confused when he was asked to vote whether black children could attend his school or not, shortly after Apartheid ended. When he was older, he began carrying out volunteer work to better understand and learn how to solve some of these injustices. It was during this time that Rodrigo also became convinced of the importance of bringing economic resources to COs so that they could become motors of change to bring about social change.

At university, Rodrigo studied economics as a means to help solve social injustices from a financial perspective. He then spent time learning the trade in top firms such as Goldman Sachs and Bain & Co., where he worked on projects in corporate strategy and private equity, among others. At Bain he developed a pioneer pro bono initiative to source COs with high level consulting to improve their practices. Rodrigo also began planning a series of initiatives that connected COs and businesses in significant ways.

While talking with a senior partner at Bain about the possibility of using eBay to sell an in-kind donation of many tons of olive oil to support an organization in Africa, Rodrigo became aware of the vast pool of resources that businesses could generate through non-financial donations. In a relatively short time and with the support of a few key partners, Rodrigo developed the basics of an initiative that would place citizens as the central element in tapping into these resources and, in the process, bring businesses and COs together to improve the citizen sector. He engaged eBay Spain as a key partner and began to develop his Internet auction interface to test his idea with a variety of donated products. The next step included knocking on doors of hundreds of COs and businesses to engage them in the initiative. During this period Rodrigo developed key aspects of his idea, enriched by conversations with experienced people in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors.

When SocialBid became a reality, Rodrigo knew his commitment needed to be complete in order for it to prove successful. Therefore, he left his high paying job at Bain—who had offered to sponsor him for an MBA at INSEAD in Paris—so that he would be able to dedicate himself full-time to take SocialBid to a level where all citizens can have access to contributing to COs in a lasting manner.