Providing food for your community is a noble act – but running a successful food drive can sometimes be difficult. If you're ready to collect donations of food to support your neighbors, we've got the guide for you! Read on to learn the best way to run a successful food drive.
Forty-one million people struggle with hunger in the United States. Your community is not immune to this problem. The best way to address this food insecurity in your neighborhood is with a food drive.
Individuals can run food drives on their own or in conjunction with local nonprofit organizations. Many human service organizations also create food drives to help solve food insecurity within the community. This blog will help facilitate the creation and success of these initiatives.
This article provides a step-by-step plan to run a successful food drive and ideas to help make it fun and educational.
A food drive is a type of fundraiser where groups and individuals raise funds and collect in-kind food and personal-care items to support local food pantries. After the drive, supplies and income are directly given to the organization.
Some of the more popular food drives include scout groups handing out food item lists in front of grocery stores or schools and collecting canned food donations from students.
Many nonprofit organizations also directly hold a food drive within the community with the help of their volunteers to address the food issue. Here’s an example from one such charitable organization that partners with volunteers and corporations to collect donations for their food drive.
Start a Food Drive Fundraising Campaign
If you’re interested in having a food drive, there are a few steps you can take to ensure it’s a success.
The first step is to choose a local organization or food pantry to support. Since most communities have their own food pantry, it may be easy to select.
Still, instead of simply deciding where to drop off the items, you should connect with food pantries and form a partnership. Partnering with local food pantries allows fundraisers to collect vital community information and helps them know which items are most needed.
It can also allow you to raise funds in addition to in-kind products. Most nonprofits have their own online campaign pages. You can use this highly efficient tool to raise funds during your drive. For example, Donorbox lets you create and customize unlimited fundraising campaigns for free on its platform. Here is an example of a crowdfunding campaign created on Donorbox to raise money for Dunedin Cares Inc. Food Pantry.
The second step is to build a team of fundraisers. Fundraising for your local food pantry may be your idea, but you need support to get it done.
Running a food drive can get complicated and time-consuming, so it’s best to form a group where you can delegate tasks. There are several people with a desire to help. You can reach out to them or build your team from available volunteers.
Connecting with other groups allows you to find new and experienced volunteers and spread the word about your food drive. You can also request them to raise funds for your food drive from their networks of people.
Here’s an example of a fundraiser leveraging Donorbox Peer-to-Peer to raise money for International Aid Charity’s peer-to-peer campaign. The donation form has been customized to include various donation amounts as per how many food boxes people want to donate.
Fundraising campaigns of any sort require a lot of planning. Food drives are a little different from other campaigns since most donations will be in-kind.
After reaching out to the food pantry, you’ll better understand their needs and have an easier time coming up with a plan and fundraising goal. Food pantries need more than food, so don’t forget to develop a plan to collect funds as well.
Choosing a location is one of the trickier decisions you have to make. There are several options, and you can stick with one or combine them all.
Boy Scouts and other kids‘ teams may camp outside your local grocery store and hand out lists of needed items. Shoppers purchase items on the list and hand them to the group on their way out. This is one of the simpler methods of holding a food drive.
Another easy way to collect food gifts is to use existing community groups, schools, and churches to collect items from students and their members. This type of food drive can last a day, week, month, or longer.
You can also take it a step further. Reach out via email and social media to friends, family, and other community members, and let them know when and where to leave their donations. If you have access to a large truck or several vehicles, you can choose one day to drive around and pick up items from their homes.
Another option is to hold a separate event. An event does not have to cost much money. You may have even better luck by piggybacking on another community event. Farmers’ markets are an excellent option. Contact the leaders of your local farmers’ market, ask for a donation, or purchase a tent space, and market your food drive beforehand.
Marketing a food drive is more manageable now, thanks to social media. Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms are free and viewed by many.
Find one or more team members with a large online following and ask them to spread the word about the upcoming event. Since you’re fundraising for a food pantry, you can ask them to market your event on their website and social media pages.
You can create a social media account or two for your food drive, create a video and purchase ads, and live stream to get more online attention.
Don’t limit yourself to online marketing options. Newspaper ads, flyers, and word-of-mouth can still go a long way to get the word out.
When marketing your event, you don’t want only to give a date and time but also a reason for people to give. A big part of marketing your food drive will be educational. You must explain why people in your community need food and personal-care items.
Pro tip: Add social media sharing buttons to your fundraising page. It will make it easier for volunteers as well as visitors and donors to share it online with their networks. This can be the easiest way to spread it around your community. Check this example.
Monitoring your food drive’s success is a crucial step, especially if your drive takes place over days or weeks.
Check how your online ads are performing and how many people have interacted with your ads and clicked on them to go to your donation page. Monitor new donors and donations on your fundraising tool to check the performance of your online food drive campaign. Donorbox makes it easy – you can easily segment donors as per campaign and pull quick reports from the tool.
Make it a point to track the items you’re receiving every day at all your locations. Delegating a volunteer for this task at each location is the best way to go.
As your food drive collects more gifts, you can spread the word online about how well it’s going and what items you still need. Communicating with team members and community groups will ensure your food drive’s success.
At the end of your food drive, you must find a way to drop off what you’ve collected. This step should be part of your earlier planning.
Regardless of your food drive’s location, you’ll need reliable transportation to bring in-kind donations from point a to point b.
This is where team members, volunteers, and community groups can come in handy. Your local food pantry may also have an answer to this problem since they regularly collect large food donations.
Finally, it’s time to thank your donors. Yes, even canned food gifts deserve a thank you.
This may get tricky since most donors won’t leave their names and contact information. It is your responsibility to find a way to change that. You can try to offer benefits for leaving their email address. This can be a small gift or regular updates from the food pantry.
Another option you have to thank donors is to find a way to acknowledge larger groups, schools, and churches. You may do this by visiting these locations and sharing how their gifts made a difference.
For online donations, an effective fundraising platform should offer you automated donation receipts. With Donorbox, you have this option. You can also customize your receipts in advance so that your donors feel more valued for their donations.
Several fundraisers are going on in your community every week, and the last thing you want is for your food drive to get lost in the crowd.
There are a few ways to gain more attention and ensure your drive’s success.
Crowdfunding has become popular with nonprofits and individuals. Whether trying to raise thousands for your organization’s campaign or collecting a few hundred from friends instead of birthday presents, online crowdfunding makes both easier.
Food drives can jump on this trend, preferably for financial gifts. Online donation platforms make financial fundraising with crowdfunding easy. With smaller donations coming from people in your community, you can easily raise thousands of dollars for your food drive. Donorbox Crowdfunding lets you quickly create and customize a crowdfunding page for free. You’ll be able to add updates and send emails to your donors and campaign subscribers from the campaign page itself. There’s also a donor wall that helps acknowledge gifts and add social proof to your campaign. Plus, visitors can easily subscribe for updates, which helps convert them into donors for your campaign.
One way to make your food drive fun is with a creative theme. Some themes can focus on the time of year. The theme is pretty obvious if you’re holding an event during Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Other theme ideas can focus on your mission and needs in your community. A few ideas for themes that highlight the need include “End Hunger in Hebron” or “Can Hunger in our Community.” Get creative and have a little fun when coming up with a theme.
For example, this food drive campaign here has an inspiring name that helps grab attention. They encourage people to become “Full Plate Partners” while helping them feel the impact instantly. A theme of this kind is sure to invite more donations.
Another way to gain attention and collect more donations is with a little competitive spirit. Competition can be an excellent way to encourage participation if you’re holding a food drive in your school.
Create a challenge for different classrooms. Choose a prize for the most items collected and promote the challenge around the school and online.
People love getting attention for doing a good thing, especially younger kids. Food drives can be an excellent way to teach about charity and community involvement and to excite your student base.
Food pantries have access to local statistics that can share how hunger affects people in your town. You may end up surprised by how many and who of your neighbors are in the most danger of going without food.
The primary role of marketing your event is education. Providing a fact sheet with hunger statistics in the US and your community will help donors better understand the problem. This will inspire more people to come forward, volunteer, fundraise for you, and donate.
Hunger remains a serious issue for many families in every community. Running a food drive for your local food pantry can benefit hundreds of such people. Planning a food drive can be time-consuming, but you can run a successful event with the right team and tools.
Donorbox allows nonprofits and individuals to collect funds online. You can hold a food drive event, sell tickets, and accept donations with Donorbox Events. Alternatively, you can set up a recurring donation form and a fundraising page to simply accept donations online. Crowdfunding, Peer-to-Peer, etc. are other effective tools available. Learn about them and other powerful features on the website and get started for free!
Donorbox Premium is a success package that helps you take your fundraising to the next level. Our expert coaches and powerful tools will ensure your success for every campaign at personalized pricing – know more!
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Kristine Ensor is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience working with local and international nonprofits. As a nonprofit professional she has specialized in fundraising, marketing, event planning, volunteer management, and board development.
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Kristine Ensor