Launching after a disaster

Auction planning normally assumes eight to twelve weeks. This one assumes the storm was on Tuesday, three organizations have already launched appeals, and somebody needs to decide before the news cycle moves.

Four decisions, one hour

1. The designation wording. Exactly what donors are told the money is for, because that wording binds the organization. Write it once and use it everywhere — this is the single most consequential sentence: restricted gifts and surplus.

2. What the money will actually do. Not "relief" — the specific work, even provisionally. "Immediate needs and long-term recovery in this county" is honest and broad; "hurricane relief" is neither.

3. Who is running it, given that the organization's staff are responding. If the responders are also the fundraisers, nothing gets done well — board members, volunteers or a partner organization should carry it.

4. Whether to launch at all, or to point donors at whoever is better placed. An organization with no operational role that raises money because the moment is available has taken donations away from the response.

Then keep the auction simple

• Twenty items is plenty; people are not bidding for the items
• Phone photographs, short honest descriptions, no production
• A short window — seven to ten days, while attention is high
• One person handling collection, at an address that is functioning
• And a clear statement of what the money funds on every page

Logistics after a disaster are not normal. Check that your collection address, your postal service, your bank and your internet are actually working before promising anybody anything.

Coordinate rather than compete

Within days there will be several appeals — national agencies, a community foundation fund, church collections, crowdfunding pages, a neighbouring town's drive.

• Find out what the community foundation or the local coordinating body is doing, because there usually is one
• Say what your organization specifically does, so donors can choose sensibly
• Do not imply you are the official response if you are not
• Point people elsewhere where somebody else is better placed, which costs you nothing and builds something

Say what you do not yet know

In the first week the assessment is incomplete and the honest position is uncertainty. Saying "we do not yet know the full extent; this fund will support our response as needs are assessed" is accurate, it protects the designation, and donors accept it.

What produces trouble is specificity invented for the appeal that turns out to be wrong.

Protect the people running it

The organization's staff are working a response and may themselves be affected — their homes, their families, their own losses. An auction is administration on top of that.

Share it out, set an end date, and let somebody outside the affected area carry the logistics if they can.

And plan the second campaign now

While the first one is running, put a date in the calendar for month six or eight. It is the campaign that will fund the expensive part, and it only happens if somebody schedules it before the exhaustion sets in.

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.