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A team of local volunteers meet in the Central donation management center. The city of Central, Louisiana was hit with unprecedented flooding in August 2016.

Although always a welcome site initially, donations in the aftermath of a natural disaster can quickly become an additional burden. Without a donation management and staffing plan, localities often find themselves amidst a “second disaster” as truckloads of materials pile up at unorganized donation sites. Too much of any good thing can become a bad thing, and donations are no exception.

“We expected donations and volunteers, but we were caught off-guard at how quickly and how many responded,” says Director of Economic Development for the City of Central Amanda Moody. Donations poured into the city just the second night after shelters opened for thousands of residents displaced by an historic flood in August 2016.

Moody served as the single point of contact for the American Red Cross (ARC), the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) and all other donation sources. Throughout response and recovery from the flood, Moody worked closely with IBTS staff who have been working to provide municipal services to Central under a nonprofit-public partnership contract since 2011.

“It’s overwhelming and it’s almost immediate,” she adds. “No matter the disaster, you need to have a game plan for donations before something happens.”

Although Central and IBTS staff were quick to do triage, finding donation storage and distribution sites and delegating volunteer roles, Moody and the city of Central came away with several lessons learned that can help your locality plan for the unexpected and avoid the second disaster that donations can become.

Lesson #1: Designate one or a few staff members to coordinate and manage donations.

Donations wait on an 18-wheeler to be unloaded at the Central donation distribution site.

“You’ve got to have someone designated to coordinate donations, recruit volunteers and ready to handle those calls coming in,” says Moody. “We had calls coming in from across the country almost immediately.”

During disaster planning, designate at least one, and if possible two or three, staff members to take on the role of coordinating and managing donations. Localities need someone ready to field calls and donation drop-offs at all hours of the night to avoid missed opportunities and further confusion in an already chaotic situation. Write these roles into your Emergency Operations Plan (EOP), provide training and review plans periodically to ensure staff are on the same page. Have pre-developed volunteer sign-in sheets, donation tracking sheets and signage for different types of donations to streamline the organization process.

“It really turns into a full-time management situation,” Moody says. “You have 18-wheelers from all over the country bringing in supplies; you’ve got to have volunteers there to unload it, somewhere to store it and a way to track what you’ve received.”

Lesson #2: Identify multiple donation storage facilities.

The city of Central also found themselves scrambling to find a location to store the massive amount of donations that began to flow in. And unbeknownst them, after a major natural disaster, most donations are delivered on 18-wheeler trucks that require a forklift to unload.

“You have to have a forklift available and a forklift operator,” Moody says. “We didn’t realize the donations would come in on pallets. We’re a small town, so we don’t just have forklifts laying around to use.”

Moody reached out to a local hardware store that had a forklift available to unload initial donations, but the amount of donations coming in quickly outgrew the space available at the store and they eventually had to seek out two new locations. When identifying a location for donation storage, Moody stresses the importance of choosing facilities that have forklifts or dollies available, or that can accommodate contracted forklifts and equipment. If your locality doesn’t have a forklift, be sure to have a contract with a vendor to ensure a forklift is available for use in the event that donations exceed expectations.

It’s also important to identify multiple locations in case if the sites are impacted by the disaster or if donations overflow a single site. If in a flood prone area, have at least one location on high-ground that will be unlikely to flood.

Lesson #3: Don’t be afraid to say “no.”

Although not all natural disasters are on the scale of Central’s flooding, it’s inevitable that organizations – both local and national – and individuals will send donations. Yet at some point, donations become overwhelming and likewise, there will always come a time when there is just no need for them anymore.

Two volunteers organize donations in Central’s donation distribution site.

Moody recalls that clothes became the greatest headache. “Clothes become the biggest donation that people send and you end up with mountains of shoes and clothes to try and get rid of – we could clothe the entire country with the amount of clothes we had,” she says. “We got to a point fairly early-on where we had to cut-off clothing donations.”

For the most part, Moody says clothing and shoes were just not what Central residents needed. Immediately after a disaster, donation needs are typically food, water and other essential items like toothbrushes and toothpaste. After basic Central resident’s basic needs were met, they just wanted to get back into their homes and begin making repairs.

Localities need to be prepared for the community’s needs to transition. As soon as water receded after the Central flood, residents went to work on their homes and needed cleaning supplies, gloves, masks, towels and fans to dry things out. And soon after, the needs transitioned again to rebuilding supplies like tools, sheetrock, screws and nails. Although needs change, donors may not be aware of this shift and often continue sending supplies after there’s no use for them. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you need, and to turn away what you don’t need.

Saying “no” to donations can be difficult; donors will get angry and may have trouble understanding why a community that just lost everything would turn away assistance. Moody stresses the importance of expressing your gratitude and appreciation for their offer, but to explain that you just don’t have the manpower to handle it, or that you no longer have a need for the donation they’re offering.

Lesson #4: Have a plan for constant communication and coordination.

Communication and coordination with donors, volunteers and the general public are an underestimated yet important part of donation management.

Be aware that many donation trucks will arrive unorganized, and you will need volunteers on-hand to organize the materials as they’re brought off the truck. This created an unexpected additional burden for Central and does so for many communities.

A team of volunteers in Central gather for a photo in the city’s temporary donation distribution center.

“When you’re initially speaking with organizations and donors, you’re just so grateful that you hate to put any kind of additional burden on them,” Moody says. “In hindsight, it will make a world of difference if you remember to ask them to bring the donations in already organized on the truck; explain that you don’t have the manpower to handle unpacking and organizing such a large volume of donations.”

Communication also comes into play when donations – organized or not – need to be unloaded and distributed by a crew of volunteers. In Central, Moody used the city’s online volunteer database, developed in the aftermath of the flood, to find volunteers, and also put out a call for volunteers on the city’s Facebook page. Although this was successful, Moody recommends creating an online signup site before a disaster. She suggests including volunteer contact information, skills, availability and a checklist of tasks that volunteers can select. The database can then be used to find appropriate and available volunteers to meet your needs.

It’s also important to have a volunteer sign-in sheet ready to go before a disaster hits because FEMA requires records of hours spent and tasks completed by volunteers. “Had we known about the FEMA requirement, we would’ve had volunteers sign-in from the very beginning,” Moody says.

A digital sign-in option is ideal, but make sure to have hard copies in case if digital is not available after a disaster.

When it comes to communicating with the public about where, when and what they can pick up, social media and local news media are the two most reliable sources. Whenever a new donation came in or a hot meal was available, Moody posted details on the city’s website and Facebook notification page, and also distributed details to local media outlets.

“Our social media following grew exponentially during that time because people figured out they could come to our notification page and get everything they needed to know,” Moody recalls. “Social media really was the key factor.”