How much can a watershed organization raise with an auction?

Short answer: whether the ask was translated into local water people know, and whether cleanup participants were reached.

Working it out town by town

A basin is not an audience — it is several, each of which needs its own local project named.

• Each town in the watershed, counted separately
• Cleanup and event participants, who far outnumber the membership
• Water-dependent businesses: outfitters, marinas, campgrounds, breweries
• The cost of a local unit — a season at one monitoring site, a mile of streambank

Sum the towns rather than estimating the basin. A single watershed-wide figure hides the fact that one town will carry most of it and three others have never heard of you.

What moves it

Naming local water

The creek, the reservoir, the swimming hole. A basin is an abstraction; the stream behind the school is not.

Cleanup and event participants

Far more numerous than the membership and almost never asked for anything else: cleanups and auctions.

Water-dependent businesses

Outfitters, marinas, breweries, campgrounds and bait shops depend on the water directly, and the argument is commercial rather than charitable.

Working town by town

Several local appeals under one campaign reach each town properly. One basin-wide appeal reaches all of them weakly.

Setting the goal

Name a local unit — a season at one monitoring site, a mile of streambank, a rain garden at a named school — publish its cost, and report with a photograph of that specific place. Watershed work photographs well when it is local and badly when it is basin-wide.

Goal and budget mechanics: fundraising goals and budget.