A shoe drive fundraiser is an ideal event for any organization that has several members. It’s even better if the said organization interacts with its members on the ground. As a community-based organization, you’re best-suited to carry out a shoe drive.
So, how does one collect shoes? In case you have the motive to begin but don’t know how, we’re here to help you out. Here’s a guide to collecting the maximum number of shoes for a shoe drive fundraiser:
Recruit Volunteers for the Shoe Drive
You aren’t going to achieve the full potential of a shoe drive alone. Thus, it would help a lot if you got help from willing individuals. Start by creating the event plan, and then share open positions for volunteers.
Whether it’s a school or club, you won’t miss individuals interested in the event. Volunteers are crucial to a shoe drive, as they help promote the campaign and collect shoes.
Leverage Game Nights and Tournaments
The trick here is to organize a fun event with the main motive of collecting shoes. You can even change the norm by scraping off the entrance fee. Instead, you can state that the gate pass is a pair of donated shoes. You’ll be shocked at how many people will turn up with even more than a pair.
In the same tournaments, promote the shoe drive as much as you can to reach more people.
Promote the Shoe Drive
Whether offline or online, promote the shoe drive to reach more interested people. Many individuals are ready to give more than you can even imagine. Perhaps, the problem is that they don’t have a clue about where to give.
Promoting the shoe drive helps you to reach such individuals. It’s advisable to use both online and offline means. For the offline means, you can consider sharing the campaign with club or school members, or those affiliated with your organization.
Keep updates of the campaign on your social media handles, so that people can see what progress you’re making. Another great way to motivate people to give is by setting up targets. For instance, you can say that your weekly shoe collection target is 10,000 shoes. Update the handles at the end of the week with the number of collected shoes.
Consider Shoe Drive Facilitators
Some organizations help shoe drives achieve their full success. You can take advantage of such organizations to increase your numbers. You will get free marketing and fundraising tools throughout the duration of the shoe drive.
When you’re done with the campaign, you can call the facilitator to collect the shoes you have. That’s how simple and convenient the process can be.
Organize Online Fundraising Campaigns
The power of crowdfunding and peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns is unmatched. Again, social media plays a pivotal role here. Successful shoe drives have noted down the power of using social media to their advantage. So, why not try the same to collect more shoes.
Use Festivals and Fairs
You can either organize a direct or indirect shoe drive festival. By direct, the theme will be all about the shoe drive. And those coming to the festival will know clearly that the shoes are the main agenda.
Alternatively, you can organize an indirect festival. With this, you will use another theme, let’s say music, for advertising. However, the anchor still remains to be the shoe drive. It has worked for tons of organizations, and has led to the collection of thousands of shoes in the end.
You can even set the entry as a fairly reduced ticket with the option to add a pair of shoes. This will definitely encourage people to donate.
Offer Services in Exchange of Shoes
This is another creative option to use for a shoe drive collection. After getting volunteers, you can decide to move around offering services to people in exchange for shoes. A good example is to organize bake sales or car washes, and get people to pay with a pair of shoes or more. You might even find people who’d be willing to give more than a pair in appreciation.
Provide Donors an Easy Way to Donate
Unfortunately, this is where many campaigns go wrong. And it’s the most important part of the campaign. How do people reach you? How will they get their donations to you?
You might have done everything right in the planning phase, but omitting this part is detrimental to the campaign. A good collection mechanism is to have a donation bin in an open location. You can even provide each chapter or group of volunteers with their donation bin to move around with.
Alternatively, you can offer free pick-up services for those who can’t make it to the donation centers. Make it very easy for donors to find you and give whatever they have.
Final Thoughts
Getting the right numbers in a shoe drive isn’t easy, but it’s possible. With the right strategy and formula, you can collect enough shoes to meet, or even surpass, your target.
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