Fabulous FUNDrive Fundraiser Followup

We are always on the lookout for new and effective ways to raise funds to support Northwest Hospitality’s mission, so this Spring we tried out something new: a Value Village FUNDrive. It’s sort of an all around win-win-win scenario. The community has an extra incentive to clean out their closets of unused or unwanted, gently used clothing, shoes, and household items (anything they may typically bring to a thrift store to donate) in order to donate to us. We stockpile their donations until our set delivery date, turn them in, and Value Village weighs it all. It’s separated by “soft” items and “hard” items, with the soft items earning a bit more per pound. Once everything is weighed, Value Village writes the organization a check for the donations, which they then sell to the community!

I enjoyed facilitating our first try at this fundraiser. It gave me the opportunity to connect with my community through the social site, NextDoor. I was also able to pick up Lost and Found items from different schools between making a few random trips to friends’ houses to gather up donations. Other members and volunteers of Northwest Hospitality contributed bags and reached out to their communities as well. It ended up being pretty social and fun, and a great way to get the word out about Northwest Hospitality. I received a lot of gratitude for physically going to pick up donations, though if we had one convenient spot for drop off, that might have been more efficient for our side of things.

We collected 871 pounds of donations, earning $175.89 in total for our operating costs. This will go towards insurance costs for volunteers, which is necessary mainly for our Environmental Hospitality trash pickup program. Overall, the Value Village FUNDrive was a successful fundraising experiment. Value Village is pretty remarkable for helping out the community in this way. Thank you to all of our donors and to Value Village for helping us raise money to help keep our programs going!