That’s the staggering amount raised at an auction conducted in Queenstown last week by local realtor Brendan Quill for New Zealand’s StepUp Foundation.

The organisation has provided life motivation for almost 4000 teenagers from 14 to 18 in six programmes over the past 18 months.

Quill is pictured (left) with foundation boss Yvonne Hilsz and StepUp benefactor, Brisbane-based business performance coach Rob Nixon.

The auction was held during a four-day seminar in Queenstown that Nixon took for 65 Australian and NZ accounting firms.

Successful bids of $30,000, $8000 and $20,000 respectively were made for one-day training sessions by Nixon and two other performance coaches, Ryll Burgin and Michael Sheargold, who also fund StepUp.

Then, after raking in the initial $58,000, auctioneer Quill extended more of the same coaching offers to all other tables in the room, but at lower prices.

This led to a further $272,000 being added to the kitty within a few minutes.

To put the Queenstown achievement in perspective, StepUp’s last charity auction raised $37,000.