ViaData supports StarFish Foundation

May 8th, 2008 | by admin |

As part of our ongoing programme of social responsibility ViaData has partnered with a group of enthused Capetonians to support a Dinner of Hope in aid of the StarFish Foundation. The Dinner Of Hope programme encourages individuals to host dinners in their homes or at public venues supporting the StarFish philosophy that if many people do a little they can achieve a lot. This group of Capetonians has taken the concept to another level, organizing a ball for 150 guests with a concurrent auction of art, vacations, food, wine and other luxury items and hopes to raise over R150,000.

ViaData has been involved in supporting the dinner in three ways.

Firstly, in order to provide sponsors and donors with some much deserved advertising and exposure – ViaData developed a website to provide guests, sponsors and other interested persons with information about the ball and the StarFish foundation – this website can be viewed on www.dinnerofhope.org.za

Secondly, ViaData reached out to their business partners to secure cash and prize sponsorships for the event.

Finally, as the major fundraising activity for the evening will be a sealed bid auction of about 40 items to the 150 guests, the dinner committee was very concerned about the logistics of managing the auction and the bids. The requirement was to collect, record and process all bids and release the results within 1 hour of closing the auction. The committee also didn’t want to burden themselves with a massive administration requirement as ultimately the main objective is to have an enjoyable evening while raising funds. To address the requirements, ViaData developed a bid management system and will provide all the hardware required on the night of the ball. The system was developed using the Catalyst tool and allows for the generation of personalized bid booklets, the capture of all the bids received on the evening, the calculation of winning bids and the printing of certificates for all winning bidders that can be signed and secured on the night of the ball. The system was developed with only 8 hours of development effort and will allow the entire auction to be managed efficiently using only two administrators on the night of the ball.