Silent auctions for refugee services organizations, set up in minutes

Identification can be a safety problem, not a privacy one

This is the constraint that governs everything, and it is different in kind from the discretion other organizations exercise.

A client named or photographed in a public campaign may have family still in the country they left, an asylum claim in progress that public statements could affect, or reason to fear a government that monitors its diaspora. The risk does not fall on them alone and it does not expire.

• No client named, photographed or described identifiably without their own informed decision and a protection review
• "Identifiable" includes indirect detail — a country, a profession, a family composition, a date of arrival, a distinctive circumstance. In a small community those combine
• Faces, voices and locations are all identifying, including in video
• Nothing about immigration status, case type or claim stage, ever
• Strip metadata from photographs, which carries location
• And nothing should be published without somebody with protection expertise reading it

Where a client wants to speak — and some do, powerfully — that is theirs to offer, with a genuine understanding of who might see it and a real ability to withdraw. But asking somebody who depends on your services to be public is not a neutral request, and the organization should not make it.

The parallel is the women's shelter constraint at international scale: silent auctions for women's shelters.

You are fundraising in a divided community

Nothing else in this trio is contested the way this work is. A share of the community actively opposes it, and that has practical consequences a fundraising committee has to plan for rather than discover.

• Decide in advance who responds to hostile comments and how — briefly, factually, or not at all
• Moderate comments on campaign posts, and expect to need it
• Do not publish the location of a welcome event or a client-facing programme casually
• Ask sponsors whether they want to be named, because some will face pressure and should be able to give quietly
• Keep the campaign's language about the work rather than the politics
• And have a plan for pausing if something happens locally or nationally

The sponsor point is worth building in. A business that supports the work may reasonably prefer not to be a target, and offering anonymity as a standard option gets donations that a public-recognition-only policy loses.

Say what resettlement actually involves

Most people's picture of this work is arrival, and almost none of the cost is. The expensive parts are the eighteen months afterwards — housing, employment, credential recognition, language, school enrolment, healthcare navigation, legal support, transport, and the slow business of a household becoming self-sufficient.

Naming those specifically does two things: it makes the ask concrete, and it corrects a public understanding that shapes how people feel about the work.

Your clients are present, and that changes the catalogue

Unlike an international organization, this one's beneficiaries are here — multilingual, skilled, and frequently wanting to contribute rather than only receive.

That is a genuine asset for a catalogue and it has to be handled so that participation is a choice rather than an expectation: cultural experience items.

Working it out from a committed base in a divided community

Smaller than a general public and far more engaged — and some of the community actively opposes the work.

• Congregations and co-sponsor groups already supporting households
• Employers who hire refugees, which is the strongest business ask available
• Established community members, reachable only if the campaign is not English-only

The full method: how much can an organization raise?

When an auction is the wrong instrument

In the weeks after a hostile local or national incident, when a public campaign becomes a focal point. If the only compelling material would require identifying a client, build it on provision instead. And if a sudden arrival surge has staff at capacity, a campaign is the wrong call on their time.

Reach the communities you serve, in their languages

Established community members — people who arrived five, ten or twenty years ago — are among the most motivated supporters available, and an English-only campaign reaches almost none of them.

It also matters symbolically. An organization whose public materials are only in English is saying something about whose organization it is: multilingual pages.

Employers are the strongest partner

Businesses that hire refugees have a direct, articulable interest: they have solved a staffing problem, their employees are stable and long-serving, and they want more of it.

• Ask them for items, sponsorship and a match
• Offer them the thing they actually want, which is help hiring and onboarding — credential recognition, language support, cultural orientation for managers
• Ask them to speak to other employers, which carries weight the organization cannot
• And ask about their supply chain and their own vendors

An employer partnership programme is frequently the most valuable thing a refugee services organization builds, and an auction is a reasonable front door to it.

Volunteers know things about your material

Organizations here have unusually engaged volunteers — interpreters, tutors, drivers, mentors, co-sponsors — many of whom are from the communities served or have worked closely with them.

Show them the campaign before it goes out. They will catch framing that reads as condescending, a translation that is wrong, an image that identifies somebody, and a claim that is not true — and they will say so where a donor would not.

For an organization working overseas rather than with people who have arrived, the distance changes the depiction problem substantially: international aid.

General information, not legal or protection advice for your organization. Client confidentiality where immigration status, asylum claims or family abroad are involved is a safety matter with legal dimensions — your legal and protection staff decide how any of this applies, and they should read anything public before it is published.

Twelve weeks, with a protection review first

• Week 12 — protection review of everything planned: imagery, copy, item descriptions, event locations. Nothing public is drafted before this
• Week 12 — translation planned for the two or three largest communities served, with a paid native-speaker reviewer
• Week 10 — employers, led with what the organization can offer them rather than with an ask
• Week 8 — congregations, co-sponsor groups, universities and professional bodies
• Week 6 — established community businesses and associations, approached as partners
• Week 4 — volunteers, professionals and the wider community
• Week 2 — catalogue closed; every item and image checked for identifying detail, in every language published

Three jobs, and one is protection

• Protection review — somebody with the expertise reads every public word and image, including translated material, in a language they can actually read
• Employer partnership — the strongest ask available, and frequently the most valuable thing the organization builds all year
• Community participation — anybody offering an experience is paid, freely choosing, and described as a professional rather than an exhibit

Where these auctions go wrong

• Indirect identifying detail — a country, a profession, a family composition and an arrival date, which name nobody and identify somebody precisely
• Anything about immigration status or case stage, ever
• Asking a client to be public, when a request from the organization they depend on is not a neutral act
• Community members donating labour while rebuilding a household's finances
• "Authentic cultural experience" framing that turns a professional into an exhibit
• An English-only campaign, which misses the most motivated supporters and says something about whose organization this is
• No plan for hostility, in a community where some people actively oppose the work
• Recognition-only sponsorship, which loses gifts from businesses that would face pressure

What it costs, and the partnership worth building

Protection review time, translation and paying community members properly. All modest, and none of them optional.

Worth putting to a board: employers who hire refugees are the strongest partner this organization has and the most under-developed. They have solved a staffing problem, their employees are stable, and they want more of it — which makes it a commercial conversation. Offer credential recognition help and manager orientation, and they will convert other employers far better than the organization can.

After it closes

• Report in households, class terms, placements and credential evaluations — aggregate throughout
• Pay every community member who contributed, and promote their business to the buyers
• Keep the translated materials, which are reusable and were the expensive part
• Turn employer donors into a standing partnership programme
• Ask volunteers what the campaign got wrong, because they will tell you