SYDNEY, Australia — For the rural firefighters of Australia, no donation is too small. They have long been known to canvass for dollars and cents in town markets, and their collection tins are fondly displayed in local storefronts.

That hat-in-hand approach can now be put on hold. As bush fires have ravaged Australia, celebrities, business moguls and horrified people around the world have inundated the country’s fire services and other nonprofit organizations with tens of millions of dollars in donations.

This outpouring has presented new challenges for a country more accustomed to handing out largess to needier nations than to being the recipient of it. Suddenly, Australia has found itself trying to efficiently distribute huge sums of money and to decipher donors’ sometimes vague intentions.

“This is a seminal moment in Australia when it comes to philanthropy and giving,” said Krystian Seibert, a fellow at the Center for Social Impact at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. “I haven’t seen something like it before.”