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.
The Baseline; What every chapter does
3 weeks before the event you should check your inventory of reuseable bags (if you use them). If you’re short you still have time to order more from a supplier. See “Marketing Materials ” section for more details about ordering more bags. k the items below for details)
EACH EVENT: Each event will take about <2 hours of your time once you learn the process. Once you have things working it can be done in under an hour of total time.
The key steps are;
- 3 weeks before the event you should check your inventory of reuseable bags (if you use them). If you’re short you still have time to order more from a supplier. Go to “Supplies” section for more details about ordering more bags.
- A couple weeks before the event review your donor history report and users table to see if there are any donors that need special handling. (Such as a missing address or other details).
- A week before the event you should make sure you have “Thank You” and “Sorry We Missed You” cards for the event, if not there is plenty of time to print more or order them. See “Marketing Materials” section for more details about printing your own or ordering from a supplier.
- A week before the event you’ll be monitoring how your driver selection process is going. On average 1 in 6 donors volunteer to drive so you should have plenty, but this is the most time consuming part of event preperation and should be given your highest priority to prepare. The Admin Help Guide covers this step in detail.
- The morning of the event you’ll want to have a list of drivers and their # of stops. You may want to pre-bundle their bags (if you use them) with “Thank You” cards already stapled to them. Or you may prefer to have the drivers prepare their own bags. The Admin Help Guide covers this in more detail. You’ll meet the drivers and give them their materials.
- As the event unfolds you’ll monitor driver progress and address any issues that may come up. It’s not uncommon for a donor to contact you (as Event Manager) to say their bag was missed or other similar problems.
All of these steps are covered in greater detail in the Admin Help Guide. All the materials you need are also covered in other sections, with templates, examples, vendors to purchase from and other details.
The Bigger Task; Growing Chapter Size
THE DONOR IS EVERYTHING
We make running events pretty easy, the effort to build your chapter’s size is where you will spend most of your time. The nice part is you decided the pace. You can go slow or make a big push.
There are a variety of tools we provide to assist. Some don’t take much time at all, others will need a group of volunteers to pull off.
Each donor is a big deal; Elsewhere in this web site we explain that the average donor will provide nearly $1000 of food over their average donor lifespan. Setting up a registration table at a public place, like a fair or in front of a grocery store, can register 4-5 people per hour. That hour can equal thousands of dollars of food.
If there were any one thing to explain to someone about why this program is so effective its the value of one single donor;
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.
Continue reading below for an overview of different methods to increase your chapter size.
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.
