How to Organize a Shoe Drive for Clubs and Teams
When it comes to raising funds, clubs, and teams don’t have a lot of options. They usually host a fundraiser tournament or athletic event. A shoe drive is an excellent option to raise funds and meet your requirements.
Mostly, athletes have a pile of shoes. Due to excessive activity, most of these shoes become useless after some time. However, they keep sitting in your closet with no purpose at all. You can use these useless shoes to generate some cash.
Apart from personal donations, you can engage the community and start a shoe drive. People are more than happy to get rid of unnecessary shoes. Provide them an easy to donate facility and they will not hesitate to support you.
However, you need to organize a shoe drive accurately to ensure its success. You should know how it works and how to engage everyone. In this article, we will discuss how to conduct a shoe fundraiser for clubs and teams.
Shoe Drive Facilitator
A facilitator is an organization or company that will accept your shoes and pay you the money. More importantly, they will assist you during the entire process. Many organizations are offering their services to people who want to organize shoe drives like Angle Bins.
Many organizations provide you with the required tools and marketing material. It helps you reduce your upfront cost. More importantly, they offer you complete guidance throughout the shoe drive. It keeps you motivated and reduces distractions.
The first step to a successful shoe drive is to get a facilitator. Talk to them and move in the right direction.
Find Some Volunteers
A shoe fundraiser requires a lot of people. They need to talk to groups and motivate them to donate used shoes. Moreover, you need to run marketing campaigns. From marketing to collecting shoes, you need people for everything. Hence, you should begin your drive by recruiting volunteers.
Start with your club or team. Talk to every member and convince them to play their part in the campaign. Don’t be shy to bring outside people.
If someone is not a member of your club and they want to help, bring them in. In fact, they will be your best advocates. They can spread your idea and make people donate to the cause.
Make a Schedule
Once you have a team, make a schedule. Decide the start date, ultimate goal, and end date. It will help you stay motivated and organized. To check your progress, split the ultimate goal into smaller goals.
Talk to people and spread tasks. If someone is good at social media marketing, allow them to handle the marketing campaign. If someone is good at communication, ask them to convince people. Similarly, use skilled people smartly to reduce effort while maximizing the output.
When you are planning the shoe fundraiser, keep in mind that several factors can impact your collection rate. It is alright to have some extra days in your schedule.
Get Required Tools and Materials
Shoe drive may sound simple. However, it requires some tools to get the desired results. For instance, you need bins, promotional materials, etc.
Use cardboard boxes as collection bins to reduce the cost. Use large boxes because shoes hold too much space. At collection bins, you can use brochures to explain where the donations will go. Use the name of your facilitator to attract more people. Give flyers to people to spread the word.
If you have placed a bin next to a school, you need to attract kids. Use some decorations or come up with a plan to grab their attention.
Promote Your Shoe Drive Campaign
Promotion is the most important tool in fundraisers. Design an attractive campaign to get more donations. Use social media platforms to get attention and collect shoes.
On social media, you can share the benefits of shoe drive. Share how it impacts the environment. More importantly, tell people how it benefits poor people living in underdeveloped areas.
Don’t stick to social media only. Word of mouth is still one of the most trusted ways of marketing. Visit your neighborhood and ask people to step up for the cause. Ask every team to repeat the process. Once you tell them the benefits, most people will happily get rid of their old shoes.
Collect Shoes and Contact Your Facilitator
Once you mention the bin locations in your marketing campaign, you should place them immediately. Make sure that every bin is in position and has enough space. Furthermore, you need to make it extremely easy to donate.
If someone can’t come to donate to your bin, you should visit them. Give people every reason to donate old shoes. Most importantly, you need to ask your team to bring in spare shoes. Athletes usually have tones of extra pairs.
During the collection process, you need to monitor bins carefully. People often worry about empty bins while ignoring other areas. However, overflowing bins and empty bins both disrupt your campaign. Hence, you must keep a check on every bin and create an action plan accordingly.
Once you have collected shoes, you need to contact your facilitator. They will schedule the pickup. Usually, you get paid within two days after the company receives your collection.
Conclusion
Organizing a shoe drive is an easy task if you do it properly. When you make a plan and stick to the schedule, everything looks easy. More importantly, if you have the right team, you will run the shoe drive without any problem. In fact, you will exceed your expectations.
While running the shoe drive, you need to make sure that you make it an attractive campaign. It shouldn’t be boring for the team. People should find it easy to donate shoes. Give people a reason to donate and they will offer you everything without a second thought.