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A Chapter Is....
the name we give to an ASG Operating Partner. This partner might be a club, a business, or just a group of concerned citizens. They register on our site and are given their own Home Page for their donors, sponsors and drivers to use.
Typical chapters are;
- A community service club; Rotary, Lions, Elks, Kiwanis
- Another non-profit that was formed to fight hunger and wants to add a home food donation program to their portfolio of solutions
- A group of concerned citizens; maybe a combination of people from different backgrounds. All sharing a common interest to end food insecurity in their community.
- A business, such as a real estate firm, title company, retail company, or any business that wants to make a difference. (they get the added benefit of some great branding)
A Chapter can be as big as a large territory (a county, for example) or as small as neighborhood, club, or business.
Within a chapter are two types of events;
- A “Donor/Driver event”; this is for a few or tens of thousands of donors to register. Drivers are then selected to pick up their food donations from their doorsteps using our “Route Optimization“ tools.
- A “Community Event”; this is for a few to perhaps up to a couple hundred people, where the donors bring their bags to a central place or someone goes around a neighborhood and picks up bags.
Chapters fall into two categories;
- Territory; these chapters have a defined area, such as a city, group of zip codes, or a county. ASG will attempt to make sure these types of chapters don’t overlap. These chapters nearly always have the ‘Donor/Driver Events’ just mentioned, and most also have ‘Community Events’.
- Community; these chapters only have ‘Community Events’. They tend to be smaller, formed to work with a specific group. A club, church, business, school, or neighborhood can be a Community Chapter. ASG doesn’t have much concern about how many of these exist in the same area. Its fine for a ‘Community Chapter’ to exist within a ‘Territory Chapters’ area.
Here are some steps to get a chapter up and running;
STEP 1: Click the “CHAPTER APPLICATION” button on the bottom of www.ASGHelps.org’s home page. You’ll be asked a few quick questions to get started. Once the chapter is established we can walk you through completing your profile or you can use the Help Guide, including a video, that explains everything. Click here to watch a video. Click here to look at the help guide.
STEP 2: Set up your first campaign to register donors. A campaign provides you a unique QR code and URL (a link you can put into an email). Using those tools you can then build your marketing materials to attract donors. Passing a QR code around at a club meeting, putting QR codes on posters around town, and sending URL links to groups of people are all examples of campaigns. Click here to see a complete list of campaigns that have been proven to work, we provide all the tools needed to get started.
STEP 3: Set up your first event. It takes about 5 minutes to set up an event. And about 10 minutes to create your first campaign. The campaign is the tool that brings donors into your event. You will find much more information further down this page.
STEP 4: Run the event; our ASG Web App does 95% of the work. What used to take hours now just takes minutes. Even as your chapter grows to 100’s and even several thousands of donors, it will take less than an hour to setup and organize the event.
- Any other questions? Just email us at info@ASGhelps.org and we will get you the information you need.
The Baseline; What every chapter does
Every Chapter is different in terms of the time and energy they can provide. This list is the ‘baseline’. These are the things every chapter needs to do;
- Register the chapter; (www.ASGWebApp.org). (One time - about 1 hour)
- Set up the Event Schedule for the year, normally 6 events a year. This includes selecting the pantries that get the food (one time; 2-4 hours)
- As Event Approaches, select and assign the drivers; (1 hour per event)
- Answer questions that may come up from donors/drivers (1 hour per event)
- Meet the drivers and pass out the reusable bags they will leave behind as they visit each donor for the pickup. (1 hour per event)
- Pick up the empty bags from the pantries, to be used for the next event. (1 hour per event).
The items above only add up to a few hours a year. We've spent a lot of time thinking through the chapter workflows, and have designed the ASG Web App to do most of the work. A small chapter may only need 1 or 2 hours a month, a larger one may take up to 5 hours to operate. It's the next section; "brining in donors" that takes the time.
The Bigger Task; Growing Chapter Size
THE DONOR IS EVERYTHING
We make running events pretty easy, the harder work is building up your chapter size. This is done through donor-drives and work-of-mouth. It's all about having a steady effort to grow the program over time.
Each donor is a big deal; We use a figure of "one donor is equal to $1000" as a general way to explain how big of a deal a single donor is. Imagine being out front a grocery store, registering 6 people in an hour (the average). Is it worth one hour for a volunteer to raise $6000? It sure is!
If there were any one thing to explain to someone about why this program is so effective its the value of one single donor;
If you want the math, the number is close to $1005 per donor. We've collected data over 15 years to show information about the average donor; here it is;
- Years in program; 5 years
- Avg # of events per year; 8
- Avg # of pounds per bag; 14
- Avg # of bags per donation; 1.2
- Avg % of time participating per event; 68%
- Avg value per pound; $2.20
We must also talk about the donor value in terms of quality. We have looked at the data reported by many chapters over many years. The first two pick-ups the data shows a higher percent of expired foods; this indicates a 'pantry clean out'. Which we see in annual food drives.
A Simple Gesture is different; by the 3rd pick-up less than 1% of the food is approaching or past expiration. The reason; people are buying the food they put into the bags. You will see the bags at the markets, people looking at the "needs list" while filling them.
CAMPAIGNS
Adding donors can happen in dozens of ways. The #1 key to success is the ‘active and personal ask’, or to put it another way; passive asks do not work well at all.
Placing an ad in the paper, hanging advertisements on door knobs, or putting posters up in the community have a very small success rate. The most effective ways to build your donor base are to use methods that create action and have a personal connection.
- Standup Campaigns
- Networking Campaigns
- Personal Campaigns
- "Join Your Neighbor" Campaigns
- Community Campaigns
Each of these methods will have its own page further into this website. We provide details, images, sample marketing materials, even case studies. For now here is an overview.
Standup Campaigns;
This is where you organize a small group of volunteers to stand in front of an entrance way to a high traffic location. For example, to be in front of a grocery store.
The first step is to set up a "Standup Campaign" in the ASG Web App. This provides a QR code and URL link that people will use to register. The campaign can then be tracked to see how it works. You could create a campaign for each event, or just have one for all events. The campaign page has graphics and details that potential donors can review for further details, but in most cases a 'standup campaign' has someone talking to the donor to answer questions.
A well designed standup will yield about 5 donors per hour, per volunteer. For example, 4 people working in front of a high volume retail site can expect to register about 20 people an hour. To get to these #'s takes an effort to really do it right, so let's say a more 'relaxed' tabletop where people are taking time; the results will still be about 10 or more.
Registering 20 people is a huge deal, see above. This is the same as raising $20,000. A question we ask groups that do a lot of fund raising; what else can you do that raises that much money? It's very easy to arrange these events, they are quick to setup and takedown. And they are easy to repeat. A chapter that has one a month is going at a nice rate.
Networking Campaigns;
Networking is sending things to people you know, or just people you have access to. You can network via email, phone calls, knocking on doors, social media and other tools. For the most part, we are talking about emails and newsletters.
The first step is to create the campaign. Each campaign has its own unique QR code and URL for tracking. A network campaign may also have an 'incentive fee', which is paid to a 3rd party that is promoting the network campaign.
Each network campaign has its own webpage; with graphics, the campaign story, and other details to help people decide to register.
The campaign is then broadcast across a network. Examples might be;
- A club wants to run a campaign for its members, family and friends; they create a "Rotary inter-club drive" and broadcast the QR and URL codes with posters, an email, and a newsletter.
- A church wants to run a campaign for its members. they create a QR and URL. The QR code is printed on 5x7 cards passed out at the next church event and the URL is included in an email going out to all members. The campaign page for the church has all the information needed.
- A volleyball team wants to sign up donors and raise money for their club. They create an "incentive campaign". The club goes door to door to sign up donors. A sponsor, such as a local bank, provides a $10 donation to the volleyball club for each donor registered.
A Tabletop is where you s
- Spread the word; Use our ’ASG Web App’ to generate a “Registration Link” and share it with friends and family. Ask them to do the same. This is probably the most common “first step” most chapters use to build up a base of a couple hundred donors.
- Set up a booth at community events; Have coffee, cold drinks, and snacks. Make up some t-shirts and a stand-up banner. Our software will generate a QR code to give potential donors a 2-minute process to register.
- Get church’s involved; The data is clear, these are the people most likely to sign up with little hesitation. Many church’s benefit as the pantry, and most will gladly help. Church’s will either bring it up during the service, let you set up a table outside, or send emails to their congregation.
- Engage the business community; Your Chamber of Commerce will be interested. They can email their members, allow you to speak at local events, and make up posters that local business’s can display in their stores along with a QR code to register.
- Talk to social clubs, community action clubs, and professional clubs; nearly all of them have weekly or bi-weekly meetings and they are always looking for speakers. Design your presentation or use one of ours. Bring a handout with a QR code, and have people register as you talk.
The ASG Web App provides a great tool to help you track the success of each donor campaign. Furthermore, when you offer 'incentive campaigns' where you actually pay an organization (usually a 501(c)(3) non profit) to help you register donors you can get precise reporting on that specific campaigns results. This is achieved by adding the campaign to the ASG Web App and then using the unique QR code or URL link (web link) to give to potential donors. As they register you will get reports on donor registration and donation reports. Nothing is better than going back to a grocery store a year later to show the store manager how many pounds of food were donated by their willingness to let you set up a table out front a year before.
To get more detailed information about the many ways to add donors, take a look at the "DONOR CAMPAIGNS" page, which then links to further details.
Give it time! This is more about playing the long game. Start out doing what you can and add on as you get more volunteer support.
Chapter Benefits
The main benefit is, of course, the impact of reducing Food Insecurity in the local community.
There are other significant benefits if that same chapter has other community interests. For example, the volunteers may benefit from certain types of networking. Just about all of them have other philanthropic interests.
A key piece of the puzzle is if the Chapter also has a "Branding Partner" that is involved in the "A Simple Gesture" project. You can read more about this partner on the next page, but in short it's often a big company that wants marketing visibility on the reusable bags. And they are willing to pay $$'s for it!
This list will use a couple assumptions, your situation may vary. The assumptions are there is a Branding Partner, and the Chapter is a community action club, like a Rotary, Lions, or Kiwanis.
- Club Membership; Most clubs seek more members. Brand Partners usually want to have their employee's more active in the community. It's the perfect match; as they work side-by-side in donor drives and pickup events the Brand Partner employee's join the clubs. Both gain.
- Fund Raising for the Club; one of the most effective ways to sign up more donors is a method we call "incentive campaigns". This works when you have the funding, and can be a very quick way to build a large donor base. This funding often goes directly to the club that is running the chapter to use for other services they provide to their community. Or these donations can be directed to whomever the Chapter wishes.
- Club Promotion; The Brand Partner is going to want high-visibility. They know that without the Chapter's efforts there is no programs, this gives the Chapter a great way to get their brand out into the community so everyone can see their significant contribution.
