Steve Klodd and Curt Pederson took the simple idea of holding silent auctions at events and introduced the idea to the Internet, launching 32auctions in 2009.

“As technologists and parents who have chaired and participated in silent auctions, we quickly recognized the inefficiencies in traditional, on-site-only silent auctions and knew it could be improved,” Pederson said.

The two met as coworkers at American Family Insurance, and they worked nights and weekends on their project, which aims to help organizations, companies and individuals raise money for their causes.

According to Pederson, he and Klodd were in a rush to figure out a name for the company and got one by rolling a pair of dice.

To date, 32auctions has helped more than 13,000 causes worldwide, which includes some in our own backyard.

“In 2013 alone, over 30 Dane County organizations used our site to host their fundraiser,” Pederson said.

How 32auctions works is that anyone can host auctions for free with no commission charges. The only fees users may encounter are for optional upgrades.

“A popular upgrade is the Live Event Package, which makes simple work out of starting a silent auction online and transitioning it to a live event with the use of printable bid sheets,” Pederson said.

32auctions’ flexible platform allows auction administrators to customize their auctions that may run online anywhere from 15 minutes to 45 days. Some unique features include fundraising goal tracking, basic auction analytics and multiple bidding styles.

“It has been very fulfilling to see our service benefit thousands of worthy causes across Wisconsin, America and beyond,” Pederson said. “We’re anticipating growth, which will positively impact tens of thousands more people with funds raised through our service.”