Food Drive Toolkit

We’d love for you to drop us an email to let us know the great work you’re doing and for us to organise your drop off of your collection.

 

Here are our tips for a successful food drive.

 

Plan Ahead:

The first job you need to do is work out what sort of collection you will be holding e.g. is it going to be a monetary collection? Or will you look at a food collection? Examples of some of the things you can do for either type of collection can be found below:

• Hold a quiz with entry being a couple of pounds or an item of food
• Hold a food collection at your workplace where you ask everyone to bring in a couple of items.
• Have a collection box in your reception or in your office
• Run an event to get people to bring in one specific food item

There really is lots you can do. More information and ideas can be found here.

 

When to hold your collection and for how long:

We welcome donations at any time of the year however there are particular moments of the year where your collection may be more relevant. It’s important that you check with us in advance, especially during the busiest periods of the year which is normally the lead up to Christmas and just after the New Year.

Ideas can be found below:

• In the summertime: We often find that our food levels are most depleted over the summer. This would be a great time for you to hold your collection to help replenish our stocks. You can also run a collection that has a summer theme e.g. having a BBQ or summer party.
• A one off seasonal collection: We have resources to run special collection events at certain times of the year usually around a specific holiday. For example, an AdLent calendar during the time of Lent or collecting Easter eggs around Easter time.
• A birthday or special occasion: You may wish to ask for donations for your local food bank instead of presents. Or you may wish to mark a special occasion with a donation.

Once you have decided when to hold your donation you need to work out how long you will run it for e.g. one day, or for one to two weeks. Keep in mind that the longer you hold the collection the more advertising and encouragement you will need to put in to get donations.

 

Contact us:

Now that you have decided what event you’ll be undertaking and when you’ll start your collection, you should contact us to discuss your idea and start preparations. If you are doing a food collection then we will be able to let you know the items needed, such as tinned meat or tinned fruit. You should contact us well in advance of your event.

Below is a checklist of things you should discuss with us:

• Your idea! Let us know when you are doing your collection and any issues you may have.
• If you’re planning to host a food collection, ask us what items are needed. Try to make your shopping list as short as possible, we know this helps boost donations of the most needed items.
• If holding a monetary collection, ask for our bank account details.
• We can provide artwork to help advertise and promote the collections, just let us know what you want it to say and send us any images you’d like included (like your logo).
• Discuss the best way to get food donations to us. We would prefer for you to organise the delivery, but we can arrange a collection if this wouldn’t be possible.

 

Promote and run your event:

Now you have spoken to us, it is time to run and promote your event. Some tips on this can be found below:

• Place your collection boxes in heavily trafficked, highly visible areas. If you are doing a cake sale or other in-house fundraising event, think about where people congregate during break times.
• Having volunteers manning the collection increases engagement and leads to more donations.
• Send out e-mails, memos, phone messages, and newsletters to publicise your collection or event. Consider using social media and company calendars as well.
• Send out frequent notifications about your progress towards your goal. We’d love to know how it’s going!
• Passive drivers don’t work – seek to actively engage employees to make your collection/event more successful.
• We can provide you with any stories or statistics to advertise the work we do if you’d like this.
• Have a pre-prepared script of what you want to talk to colleagues about- who is the Trussell Trust and Aberdeen North Foodbank, what do they do, where are the donations going? This will help ease the flow of conversation when asking for donations.
• Make sure you take lots of photos during the event!

 

Share and celebrate your success:

Once the collection is over, you should look to celebrate its success. You should ask us for the total weight of the food donated. Tips for sharing and celebrating your success can be found below:

• It is really important to thank those who participated. This can be done via your social media accounts or through display materials in your office.
• Inform everyone how much you collected. If you have raised money let people know how much you collected and how the food bank plans to spend it or how it’ll help us.
• Evaluate your collection or event and start planning for the next one!

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