How much can a disaster relief organization raise with an auction?

Short answer: how far the coverage reached, and whether you asked again when it had gone.

Working it out against an attention curve

Giving peaks in days and collapses in weeks, so the timing decision matters more than the list.

• Your existing donors, plus however far the coverage carried
• Businesses outside the damaged area — the ones inside it are beneficiaries
• People with family or history in the affected area, wherever they now live
• The cost of a relief unit: a month's housing, a debris crew day, a case-management hour

Then decide which campaign you are running. In the acute window the money is available and the competition is enormous; at month eight the money is scarcer and you are the only one asking, with evidence of what the first round did.

What moves it

Timing against the curve

In the window the money is available and the competition is enormous. At month eight the money is scarcer and you are the only one asking, with evidence.

Proximity, said plainly

A local organization's whole advantage is that it is here and will remain. Say it in every solicitation.

A named, costed unit

Housing for a month, a debris crew day, a case-management hour. Specific numbers answer the question the donor is actually asking.

Businesses that were not damaged

In a partially affected region, businesses outside the damage want to help and are reachable — while the ones inside it are the beneficiaries.

Setting the goal

Name the unit, publish its cost, and report against it — with photographs of the work rather than of people in distress. Then report again at six months, which is what makes the second campaign possible.

Goal and budget mechanics: fundraising goals and budget.

General information, not legal advice for your organization. Restricted gifts create binding obligations and the treatment of a surplus is fact-specific — your counsel decides how any of this applies, and the wording used at solicitation is what governs.