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AidRelay

Live now: Cedar County Flood Relief Fund

Flood relief that arrives in minutes, not weeks.

A family flooded out of its home needs cash for food and a dry bed today. AidRelay’s AI case officer checks each application against the rules the fund’s volunteers wrote, pays the families who qualify through PayPal and shows every dollar on a public ledger.

Give to the fundSee where the money went

Affected by the flood? Apply for help in about five minutes

Want to see how volunteers keep watch over the AI? Look inside the staff console

Raised so far

Live

$7,500

  • Paid$5,450
  • On its way$0
  • Available$2,050

Latest payouts

  • Flood water reached the windows and left mud and debris; household of 7 evacuated and staying with relatives.

    Displaced · approved by a volunteer · paid 5 d ago

    $600

  • Flood water reached the windows, ground floor a total loss, family of 6 displaced and staying with relatives.

    Displaced · approved by a volunteer · paid 5 d ago

    $450

  • Flood-damaged home uninhabitable, family of 5 in a motel; furniture, clothing and documents lost. Mud and debris visible at the house.

    Displaced · approved by a volunteer · paid 5 d ago

    $400
Open the public ledger
$5,450
paid to 17 households
23 min
typical time from applying to cash
65%
of families paid without waiting for a volunteer
0
grants paid twice

The flood and the applications are a fictional demo scenario. The donations, the AI’s decisions and the payouts are real: live PayPal sandbox and Claude calls, counted from the fund’s records. How the figures are counted

How it works

From your donation to a family’s PayPal account.

  1. Step 1

    You give through PayPal

    Your donation is captured by PayPal and shows up on the public ledger within seconds, with its PayPal record attached.

  2. Step 2

    A family applies from a phone

    Three short screens in English or Spanish and a photo of the damage are all it takes, and the family gets a private link to follow along.

  3. Step 3

    The AI case officer reviews it

    It reads the story and the photos against the fund’s rules, names the rule behind every decision and hands anything uncertain to a volunteer.

  4. Step 4

    PayPal delivers the grant

    Approved families are paid through PayPal Payouts, the greatest need first, and the payment appears on the ledger the moment PayPal accepts it.

Safeguards

Fast, but never reckless.

The AI case officer can recommend anything, but code decides whether money moves, so no clever application or prompt can talk its way past these limits. It will never:

  • Turn anyone away

    Only a volunteer can decline an application. The most it can do is ask a person to take a look.

  • Pay large or unclear cases alone

    Anything over $250, or with a single red flag, waits until a volunteer approves it.

  • Pay a household twice

    Each case gets exactly one PayPal payout, and PayPal itself refuses a repeat.

  • Spend money the fund doesn’t have

    Money is set aside before every payout, and families wait in line when the fund runs short.

  • Reveal who someone is

    The ledger shows a zip prefix and a one-line summary, never a name, an address or a phone number.

  • Act without a paper trail

    Every step it takes is logged together with the rule it relied on.

Read the rules it follows

$250 is a full grant for a family whose home flooded.

If someone is already approved and waiting, your donation pays them right away, and you can watch it happen on the ledger.

Donate now