How To Plan a Gift Drive

With the holiday season coming to an end, I was musing what I could post that would be helpful to someone else.  I decided upon "How to organize a gift drive", since we just finished with ours a few weeks ago.  This is very high level and will work for any organization, but you may have to adjust your schedule based on the size of your program.
By mid-October:
1.  Set a goal or limit on the number of children or families that you want to assist based upon your organization's size and financial ability to help.  Set criteria for those you are helping; for instance, we focus on those with an address in the city limits.
2.  Contact a local school counselor to assist you with getting names of families in need along with their addresses and phone numbers.  Be sure that you obey all rules regarding confidentiality of information.
3. Determine how you want to deliver the gifts to the families – do you want to take them to their house?  Do you want the children to see them? Do you want to have a dinner or a party and give them out there?  
4. If you are having a dinner or party, plan the menu.  Keep it simple and take in consideration the more prevalent food allergies such as peanuts and chocolate.
By early November:
1. Contact each family (mail, phone, e-mail) and tell them that their child’s school has recommended them for your program and ask them if they would like to participate.  If you choose to mail a letter, allow enough time for the letter to be forwarded to another address and return to you.  You may also want to consider including a self-addressed stamped envelope.
If they say yes, then ask for the following information on each child: Name (be sure to get the correct spelling), Age, and Gender.   If your organization wants to purchase clothes in addition to toys, then request the child’s shirt and pants sizes.    You may also ask for any special requests from the child, but be careful in this area.   If the child requests something that is very expensive, like a gaming system, but your organization cannot financial meet that request, take care not to mislead the parent.
If you are having a dinner or party, confirm how many people from their family will be attending so that you can plan food accordingly.
2. Distribute the children’s information to your organization.  We prefer to post the information on a bulletin board in our foyer.  Have a sign-up sheet so that you can track who is responsible for each gift.  Set a date and location for the gifts to be returned.  I recommend that for a large program (200+ gifts) that you allow 3-4 weeks for shopping.
December – one week prior to delivering gifts:
1. Inventory the gifts that have been returned.  For our program, we dedicate a couple of hours one night to sort all of the gifts by family and place them in 55 gallon garbage bags with the family name taped securely to the outside.  We also use a code system to track the gifts to make sorting easier.
2. If you are delivering the gifts to their homes, contact the families and remind them of which day and a time range that you will be there; for example, Saturday between 4 and 6 pm.
3. If you are having a dinner or party, mail them a reminder with a map to your dinner location 10-14 days prior to the event.  You may want to consider providing transportation if they do not have a vehicle.
Day of delivery:
1. Be sure to have plenty of SUVs or covered pickup trucks in the event of inclimate weather.
2. Provide maps, family names, and phone numbers to the delivery personnel.  Ensure that each vehicle has a working cell phone.
Day of dinner/party:
1. Decorate!   To make our guests feel special, we plan a seating chart and add placecards on their table locations.
2.  If possible, have food collected/delivered 30 minutes to 1 hour before guests arrive and kept in warmers or ovens.
3. Have name tags for everyone.  Because we usually need around 200, we use 2x4 shipping labels and a few gracious individuals with impeccable handwriting.
4. After eating comes the tricky part of getting the gifts to the parents without the children present.  Our teenagers will take all of the children to another part of the building for games or crafts or some sort of entertainment.   We have a discussion with the parents about our church and afterwards help them get the gifts in their vehicles.  It is also a good idea to ask folks who own SUVs to be willing to follow someone home if the gifts will not fit in the vehicle. In this way, the parents have control of when and where the children receive their gifts.
This is just some of the highlights of what to consider when planning a gift drive program.  Many more details must be considered to customize it to your needs if you are a church or a civic organization.  You will also want to plan a de-briefing session to review what worked and what did not so you can make it better next time.  I would be glad to answer any questions or help you set up your own program.

Gifts before sorting

Checking the list and putting name tags on the gifts

 Dinner crowd shot 2010