Adding additional components to a food drive can really make a difference when it comes to increasing donations and encouraging community involvement.
Here are a few ways you can spice up your food drive this season:
• Make it a Competition
Whether it’s against other classrooms, other clubs, other departments or other businesses, make it a challenge and see who can collect the most! Offer an incentive for the Hunger Heroes that provided the greatest results.
Many organizations have even made it into an art contest! Consider having your teams make a canned food sculpture and encourage the community to vote on the most creative one.
• Reward your Donors
Are you hosting an event alongside your food drive? Every donation could mean a discounted ticket, free parking, or a free ticket into the event. People love discounts! Offer one and see how many donations you’re able to rally in. You could do this for an event related to your group, or host an event related to our cause, like a Hunger Run/Walk/ Pedal.
• Fill a Brown Bag
Besides filling boxes, you can give potential donors brown grocery bags to fill with donations. This gives an opportunity for each donor to bring in a bundle of donations rather than just 1 or 2. Have them fill the bags and bring them back to your donation boxes by your specified date.
• Wash Away Hunger
Scrub-a-dub-dub! Host a car wash. Rather than requesting pay, have your customers pay in food and fund donations. This is a fun way to get involved and meet the community while also raising goods for a cause in a new way!
• Raffle Entry
Raffles are great for bringing in donations. Like we mentioned just a little while ago, people love free, and we have a great example to prove that.
Over the holidays we had a company host an event for us. Although they were LA based, they wanted to host their event in Riverside mainly because they had a particular location in mind and knew they had a large customer base in the area that they wanted to solidify relationships with. This rim and car supply company hosted a car show in an area where there happens to be many car-based businesses and a brewery nearby. The brewery kept our donation boxes by the doorway entrance the week leading up to the event, which encouraged donations from the public, but also alerted the community about the event happening that weekend.
The car company promoted the idea of raffle prizes on some of their top-selling items. To be entered into the raffles, guests had to bring donations. Each donation meant one raffle ticket. Potential customers came roaring in with donations for beyond what the company expected and stayed for appetizers and drinks at the brewery. The well thought out event resulted in a very generous food donation to FARSB and the donors were thrilled by the positive feedback that resulted in bringing their products to the IE. Raffles ties into a well-structured plan proved to be a success.
Food drives are meant to be fun, and providing a unique experience will surely rally in donors for a cause that matters most to you. Take these ideas and let your creativity shine!
Haven’t yet signed up for a food drive? Do so HERE!