Case Study: Friends of Riley achieves 2x auction revenue growth and scales mobile bidding with OneCause

How Friends of Riley Grew with OneCause

Friends of Riley (FOR), an Indianapolis nonprofit supporting the Riley Children’s Foundation, faced a scaling problem: their annual silent auction had grown to 60+ packages and 250+ attendees, and the old pen‑and‑paper bidding process could no longer support growth. To modernize and improve the donor experience, Friends of Riley partnered with OneCause to implement its mobile bidding and auction management platform.

OneCause delivered mobile and remote bidding, real‑time outbid text alerts, countdown tickers and streamlined payment/registration workflows, letting attendees bid from their phones while mingling. The results were immediate: Friends of Riley doubled their auction revenue in the first year, raised 110% of their auction goal, simplified winner tracking and donor data capture, and are now planning to scale further with a live auction for roughly 500 attendees.

Friends of Riley

JD McVey

Board Member and Silent Auction Chair