What can a voluntary HOA do when a house burns down

Hello, this is my first post. Our HOA has 436 houses in the $350,000+ price range. This is a voluntary HOA with a shoestring budget and only 5 board members and no HOA management company. Basically all our HOA is meant to be doing is: take care of the common areas, put out a newsletter, put on an occaisional event for the homeowners and encourage homeowners to abide by our covenants and restrictions. We have no ability to force compliance. In a lot of states our HOA would actually be called a Neighborhood Association. Last Saturday a house burned down in our neighborhood. It is a total loss and the family lost a car and their pet dog. Fortunately, the family was not home at the time so they are safe. Since that night we have had several homeowners contact our HOA about us setting up a fund for donations to the people who lost their house. IMO, this is not a good idea because:

1. We don't have the personnel to administer such a fund.
2. We are not a 501K so donations would not be tax free.
3. Setting up such a fund sets a precedent - if we did this for this family, then what about a family who has lost a child to cancer and needs money for funeral expense? The question in my mind is where would this stop? Also, most homeowners here have homeowner's insurance which should pay for the family whose house burned to rebuild and get new contents for their house. So if we did a fund for them, what could they spend it on? A new car? A new flatscreen TV? Would that be OK with homeowners?

At this point, we have stated that if someone else sets up a fund or way to donate household goods to this family, then we would be glad to publicize that through our email to our homeowners. But other than that...I am uncertain of anything else we could do.

So my question is what is the appropriate role for our HOA to take in this type of situation?

Thank you for replying, Roger. That is my feeling as well, that our HOA should not be handling donations or donated items at all. I talked with another homeowner here who asked me what the board was going to do - she has lived here longer than me and she said that actually, there was another house fire years ago and the HOA didn't do anything for that family either, so if we were to setup a fund, that wouldn't look good. She said at first she thought our HOA should do something, but after I mentioned the issues with that, she realized I was right and about all we should do is pass on information - not take donations or set up a fund. I'm going to call their block captain tonight and tell him we are willing to pass on information. If the family is taking donated items, we will be glad to pass on what they need and where homeowners can drop it off with the family. But other than that, I don't think it is appropriate for our HOA to do anything else.