Looking to make a positive impact in your community? Consider focusing on addressing food insecurity. With food insecurity affecting every single ZIP code in the United States, chances are you or someone you know has faced hunger in their lifetime. It’s a close to home issue that needs your attention.
No effort is too small to make an impact. At Philabundance, we rely on the generosity of individuals like you to further our mission to relieve hunger throughout our nine-county service area.
One way to make an impact and encourage others to join in is by hosting a food drive. Engaging friends, neighbors, and even your company and colleagues in the effort can be an effective strategy for launching a successful food drive. Here are some tips and key insights to guide you.
Assemble Your Team of Hunger Heroes
The first step is to come up with an action plan. No one is as effective alone as they are with a supportive team. If you’re going to be relying on your connections at work, start with your coworkers.
But don’t stop at that. There are others in your life that can help support your efforts. Consider family, friends, and acquaintances. Are you part of any community or neighborhood organizations that can help? If you have contacts there, leverage them!
You can also reach out to other professionals in your industry to see if they’re willing to get their organizations involved.
Once you’ve decided who you’re going to work with, you can divide up the responsibilities so you can each focus on how to make the biggest impact.
Set a Goal
The success of a food drive can be measured by the amount of money raised or the amount of food donated.
Will you be soliciting money for a charity like Philabundance, or will you be looking for contributions of actual food? If accepting food, will you be looking for frozen, fresh, or dry goods? Shelf stable foods are the best way to start and organizations like Philabundance often have a list of their most needed items. You may want to set a target amount of food to donate or funds to raise.
You might consider a different approach to capping off your food drive by gathering friends or neighbors to volunteer their time at a community kitchen or local food bank to celebrate the conclusion of your food drive. Philabundance offers many opportunities to get involved, and we’re always in need of dedicated volunteers!
Settle on a Time and (If Needed) a Place
After identifying your target donors and determining whether you’ll be gathering money, corporate donations, food, or volunteers, set a time and place for your food drive if you plan to collect donations in person.
You might choose a specific day to collect donations—perhaps with your company sponsoring the event—or extend the collection over a week or even a month, allowing more time to gather food donations for a local food bank.
There are lots of ways to plan for success, but you will still want to set the framework.
Get the Word Out
Spreading the word about your initiative can be one of the most challenging aspects of running a successful food drive.
Be sure to promote your drive well in advance so people can plan accordingly. Whether planning for a one day event or a month long drive, effective promotion is crucial to help you achieve your goals.
It is especially true if you’re looking for volunteers. If people don’t know about it, you’ll be short on help.
If you’re going to run the event through your company, consider sending out emails or distributing flyers. Desk-to-desk or door-to-door advertising can be effective in these situations.
If you’re organizing through your community or need support from friends and neighbors, leverage social media. Use your connections and post on community and neighborhood pages to raise awareness, solicit help, and request donations.
Most importantly, start marketing as soon as you decide to run a food drive. The earlier you begin, the longer you’ll have to build momentum and awareness.
Solicit Corporate Donations or a Company Match
One advantage of partnering with your organization to maximize a food drive is that many companies may offer to match your contributions or provide a substantial corporate gift of their own.
Talk to your supervisor or get in touch with HR to see if there are any internal opportunities for your company to make a corporate gift or a company match of a donation to a charitable organization. If so, you might be able to double your efforts just by being proactive about it!
Make Arrangements to Deliver Your Donations
Lastly, if you’re collecting food, arrange to deliver it to an organization like Philabundance that handles food distribution.
Visit our page on donating food to learn more about how to schedule a dropoff. The size of your donation will determine how to coordinate it with us.
Consider Going Virtual
In addition to traditional food drives, you may also be able to get wider participation by coordinating a virtual food drive. You can learn more about hosting virtual food drives from the previous helpful video (and this one!), or contact us for more information.
Get Started Today
Do you still have questions about hosting a virtual or traditional food drive? Check out our website or connect with our team at fooddrives@philabundance.org.
