Lutheran Services in America to Be 'Trading Graces' on eBay

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Lutheran Services in America (LSA) will host "Trading Graces," its first annual online auction, from noon Feb. 26 to noon March 8 on eBay to benefit Lutheran social ministry organizations across the United States and Caribbean.

"Congregations and all sorts of people can partner with Lutheran social ministry organizations on this and spread the word, donate, volunteer and buy," said Jill Schumann, LSA president. "We're inviting everybody into this project, and we're partnering with those 100 million-plus existing eBay users to reuse, recycle and tell the LSA story," she said. LSA is an alliance of nearly 300 social ministry organizations, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. eBay is a platform on the World Wide Web where millions of items are traded each day. Lutheran health and human service organizations in thousands of communities provide care -- ranging from health care to disaster response, from services for children and families to care for the elderly, from adoption to advocacy -- to 6 million people annually, and employ a quarter of a million staff and volunteers.

One purpose of Trading Graces is to raise public awareness, Schumann said. "For a long time we've heard that Lutheran social ministry is one of the best kept secrets. We've been working hard to liberate that secret and make sure people know more about Lutheran social ministry," she said. Schumann noted that Girl Scout Cookies (registered trademark) and the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life raise awareness for their organizations while raising funds for their programs. She said she hopes Trading Graces will give LSA similar notoriety. The 10-day auction has been preceded by a year of planning, Schumann said. The social ministry organizations went "to their constituents, their employees, their donors, congregations, their business partners, and asked for items and services to donate,"she said. Pre-auction descriptions and photographs of items scheduled for sale were listed in the "Trading Graces Preview Gallery" on http://www.lutheranservices.org/ -- the LSA Web site. An LSA news release listed several items that will be up for auction, including a classic 1948 DeSoto car, vacations, sports memorabilia and a collection of more than one million sports cards. John B. Carter, LSA's Trading Graces online auction event manager, said the auction will look familiar to eBay regulars."The seller, a Lutheran health and human services nonprofit organization, places items up for sale to the highest bidder," he said.

"Buying on eBay can be a unique shopping experience, and bidders need to register with eBay in order to buy items online. Registering with eBay requires providing eBay with some very basic contact information which eBay keeps private on eBay's secure servers," Carter said. eBay confirms a completed registration by e-mail. While the auction is in progress, potential bidders can access Trading Graces online through the LSA Preview Gallery, by logging on to eBay at http://www.ebay.com or by searching for items at http://www.missionfish.org/ by a specific nonprofit organization's name. "Bidders can watch items over the course of the event, and the highest bidder will be notified by eBay that they have won an item," Carter said. "Afterward, the buyer and seller have an opportunity to converse through e-mail to make final arrangements for shipping, "Carter said. "Following shipment, both the buyer and seller rate each other on how the transaction was handled via mechanisms setup in the eBay system, " he said. Mission Fish is providing technical support for Trading Graces. Mission Fish has conducted online auctions since 2000 and teamed up with eBay in 2003 as the exclusive charity solution provider for eBay Giving Works and as a service of the Points of Light Foundation. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a nonprofit financial services organization based in Minneapolis, helped fund Trading Graces.