While they’ve used the public humiliation of their own staff as a theme in the past, this year NTEN is celebrating the collective awesome of the NTEN community. Which means, many of us in the community offered up ourselves or our favorite things to help the cause! For example, I’ve got two things in the auction: a 2-hour community building consultation session, and my very own gluten free and vegan carrot cake recipe!

You can bid on nearly 100 items in the first silent auction, getting something great for yourself, and supporting the campaign at the same time.

Here’s how you can participate:

1. Create an account at our auction site. You must use our link to register: http://allthis.com/rR1BK. (The system will send you a confirmation email you must respond to before you can log in for the first time. It went into my spam filter, FYI.)
2. When you see an offer you want to bid on, click the “I want this button” in the upper right hand corner of the item. You should also choose to “Follow” any items on which you bid.
3. Each day, all auction items will be updated with the latest bids, so keep an eye out to see if you’ve been out-bid.
4. Bidding closes at 5pm Pacific on February 11. We’ll contact winners and arrange for payment then.

Sharing auction items with your friends is easy via the handy Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and e-mail integrations built right into each listing. And you don’t have to be an NTEN member or attend the NTC to make a bid and support our campaign!

You can also support the 2011 NTC Scholarship Campaign by donating an item to the auction. It’s not too late! Just submit your item to us.

So, please go create your account now. Then you can view all the items donated to the 2011 NTC campaign.

I mentioned before that Convio, the main sponsor of 09NTC (the Nonprofit Technology Conference from NTEN), is matching funds in NTEN’s scholarship appeal.  Holly Ross, the Executive Director of NTEN, is upping the challenge by throwing herself into the ring:

Visit nten.org/scholarship and donate now to get your vote for Holly’s fate!

Here’s the fundraising widget you can embed on your blog or website to help spread the word and raise funds to send more and more great nonprofit staff to join us at the NTC this year.  The NTC is the best place for connecting, learning and sharing with hundreds of other nonprofit staff and consultants working in the changing environment of new technologies and social media.  Novices and experts, and everyone in between, all come together and learn from each other (and have fun!).  It is truly an inspiring and unique event; I can’t recommend it enough.

Visit nten.org/scholarship and help one more person get to the NTC!