Volunteer fundraiser tries to sell herself on eBay

Fundraising | 1 Dec 2007

eBay for Charity has proved itself to be a great fundraising channel, but when one volunteer attempted to raise money for charity by selling a date with herself on the site, nobody was very impressed.

Leah Levin-Martin, an 18-year-old international development student at the University of East London and part-time glamour model, decided that rather than hold a traditional cake sale or sponsored swim to raise money for her trek up Kilimanjaro next year with ChildReach International, she would put herself up for auction on eBay. The photo she used had her clad in black lingerie.

Levin-Martin, from Catford, East London, planned to offer the winning bidder the chance to spend an evening with her, although her father Trevor would have been lurking at a nearby table. She hoped to raise some of the £2,000 she needed to go on the charity trek.

But eBay took down the listing last week because it contravened their rules on what can be sold on the site, and unsurprisingly ChildReach International were not best pleased either.

Dan Quille, the charity’s director, said as soon as he saw that Levin-Martin had posted the listing, he knew it was an inappropriate way of fundraising. The charity spoke to Leah and told her as much.

“We’re very pleased she’s enthusiastic but we didn’t think this one was appropriate,” he said.

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.