While I was organising the Liverpool event for Twestival Global this year, a number of businesses offered me their services as prizes for our raffle. These services ranged from photography lessons, seo consultations, digital prints etc and I was so grateful. I got them included in the twestival blog, links to their websites were put on the Liverpool Twestival facebook page, the twitter account, retweeted by me and anyone else interested in Twestival, and generally a lot of people got to hear about them. The event was attended mostly by the local twitter crowd, including local councillors, newspaper journalists and tv stations.

My question is, have any of you offered a couple of hours of your services as a prize to raise money for a charity and made contacts/got work as a result of publicity received? I think it's a fantastic idea, plus people think better of you and you feel good about yourself for doing something for charity!

I would actually consider this for a non-profit organization. There are a few in my community that have 'auctions.' Local businesses put up a product or service & event attendees bid on them.

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Lezly Harrison
Laserdog Productions - Code that Doesn't Bite

Hi Pauline, I haven't done this [yet] but have absolutely considered it and will surely be giving this a shot in the future. I agree, it's an excellent idea.

If you do pursue this I'd love to hear more about what you did and what response you received.

When we get settled in our new city this summer and I have a chance to do this myself later this year I'll post back as well!

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Pauline -
Yes, I have actually done this. Our local high school was having a silent auction and asked for donations. I donated a "gift certificate" good for a couple hours of virtual assistance. I attended the auction and actually overheard a conversation where a group was discussing who I was and what a virtual assistant does.
Also, the school had prepared a PowerPoint presentation to say thank you to all those who had donated. So my company name and logo was up on the "big screen" all night long!

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Kathy
www.theofficevirtuoso.com