Donation Management & You

 First off, I know this is a volunteer blog, but who do you suppose ends up running

donation management sites? Could it be that for years, FEMA packaged donation management and volunteer management into the same 2 day class?  Could it be that people speak about donations and volunteers in the same breath? Using this search in Google volunteer & donation management I got 18,200,000 results.  Now granted they will go down hill in their focus, but you get the idea.

Not to regurgitate basic donation management practices of which you can see by using the above search method.  I thought instead I would post this well written article  "Who Is Responsible for the “Second Disaster”?"  

The article talks about some of the changes in donations and how to get them there.  Do we really need peoples old clothes, or do we need to be more surgical and use our technology.  Could we follow some examples and use Amazon Wish Lists

Some of the things this technology fixes right away: 

• No cash through the mail

• Don't have to worry about where how to ship it (never saw a Big Brown Truck not deliver)

• Target what you REALLY need

• Getting items to people fast

 This is not an endorsement for Amazon, just an endorsement for thinking outside the box and being strategic in our thinking so the picture to the right isn't the end of our next disaster. (breezyaftersandy.org)

So what can you do? Search out training in donation management and go introduce yourself to you local emergency manager and say "I'm here to help plan for donation management"- I bet they sigh with relief. 

Disaster_dave