Ambulance and equipment funds

Ask somebody what an ambulance costs and they will guess low. Ask what a cardiac monitor costs and they will guess very low. Publishing the real figures is the most persuasive thing an EMS campaign can do, and it costs nothing but a look at a quote.

Be honest about what an auction can fund

A whole ambulance is a capital project — grants, municipal contribution, a loan, and years of reserve. An auction is one component of that and saying so is better than implying otherwise.

• An auction can realistically fund: equipment, certifications, a year of a line item, a substantial down payment component
• An auction contributes to: an ambulance fund alongside grants and municipal money
• An auction should not claim: that it is buying the truck, unless it is

A squad that says "this auction funds the monitor, and the ambulance fund is at this point of its target" is more credible than one that implies a raffle bought a vehicle.

Units to publish

• A cardiac monitor and defibrillator
• A power stretcher or stair chair — the equipment that stops crews being injured
• An extrication tool set
• A ventilator, a suction unit, an infusion pump
• An AED for a public building
• A set of turnout or extrication gear for one member
• Radios and pagers
• A year of vehicle insurance, or a year of building costs
• An EMT or paramedic certification

The power stretcher is worth featuring. Lifting injuries end EMS careers, the equipment that prevents them is expensive, and a donor who learns that a crew is lifting patients manually because the powered cot is out of budget understands the problem immediately.

The readiness framing

Tie every unit back to the billing gap. "This monitor will be in a truck that responds whether or not the call ends in a transport we can bill for" explains the purchase and the funding model in one sentence.

Report against the list

Publish what was bought, what it cost, and where the fund stands. Then photograph it in the truck — equipment photographs well, involves no patient, and is the cleanest reporting available to this organization.

And publish the operational numbers annually

Calls, transports, non-transport calls, standby hours, mutual aid, response times, certifications held. Not only during a campaign.

A district that sees those numbers every year understands what it has, which is worth more over a decade than any single auction — and it is the groundwork that makes the next ambulance campaign possible.

General information, not legal advice for your squad. Whether you are a nonprofit corporation, a municipal department or a fire district service changes who receipts and who owns donated assets — check with your own adviser and your contracting municipality.