Run A Toy Drive, Virtual Giving Tree, or Gift Drive Together!
Create online wishlists from multiple stores and manage as a team for toy drives, gift drives, giving tree tags, or even disaster recovery efforts. Set up an organization page as a collection for all of your public lists. Share one link with friends and benefactors anywhere. Get stats. Track giving and thank you notes. Receive and direct goodwill at scale.
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How to start and run a gift drive, toy drive, or virtual giving tree online?
Run a local Angel Tree, Toy Drive, or Gift Drive and enable your community to invite others and ship contributions from anywhere, growing the love and helping people at unprecedented scale. DreamList is a free online platform for direct giving virtually or in person.
Gifts from Any Store
Import Lists, Letters to Santa, & Fundraising Links for Gift Drives
Save any item from the web!
Organize Directed Giving to one or hundreds of families in need
Share the Joy of Giving
Organize a Holiday Gift Drive as a Team
Invite Administrators
Share with Your Community
Enable More People To Give
Simple and easy!
No List Is Too Big
Add Lists of Families in Need for Your Community to Support Together
Link Donation pages. Get Stats. Fulfill Items in Bulk.
See The Sparkle Foundation's Holiday Gift Drive
Stay In Touch With Givers
Manage Shopping Lists Together for Your Office, House Projects & Events
Keep Contacts & Reminders
Spread Happiness this Holiday Season!
It's Simple and Free!
Learn more...
Organize your Toy Drive online in 2025 and Grow!
Holiday Gift Drive for Teams and Charities
Manage one or hundreds of wishlists as a team. Add items from multiple stores, as well as donation links, and nonmonetary gift ideas. Showcase all lists and recipients in one organization page with your custom brand and messaging. Set address privacy, organize giver contacts for thank you notes, all in one place. DreamList is private and ads-free. Get immediate support from our team at no cost. This year needs all the Holiday cheer it can get!
Amazing charities, teams, and even disaster recovery teams have grown their gift drives with DreamList every year. When not everyone can afford to adopt a whole family in need for the Holidays, Dream List enables you to show precisely the items needed by each family member, and let anyone in your community reserve and give something within their budget. Add family lists to Christmas tree tags, or share one link with all lists that need care. Make the Holidays sparkle a little brighter for more people in your community.
Send us questions to service@dreamlist.com any time.
How to organize a gift drive that brings your community closer together
Holiday Gift Drive and Virtual Angel Tree Best Practices from Thousands of Toy Drives
What Gift Drive Formats Work?
Since 2017 DreamList has helped gift drive organizers serve their community and expand the number of families that can give to each year. DreamList drives are privated by default, unless the organizer wants to spread them, so we've helped facilitate both private corporate toy drives from Fortune 500 companies and public community drives that spread well beyond just local givers. Friends and family all over the country can buy and ship items for a gift drive directly to the families in need, or to a central wrapping and distribution location. DreamList has helped organizers:
- Make and start toy drives within a day.
- Ensure all gift tag recipients / families in need in the drive receive something.
- Add all of the teams giving pages to one page - from fundraising, to drives, volunteer links, so the organization can spread the drive as far as possible with social media and press.
- Direct and coordinate gift shipping to specific locations or directly to the families
- Preserve and reach out to givers for future drives.
THE ORGANIZER'S ROLE IN A VIRTUAL GIFT DRIVE
Gift drive organizers can start and administer as many wishlists as they need for the drive. Each one of those lists can then added to the drive's group page that shows the gift drive instructions (location, timeline for receiving the gifts, other details), logo, compelling background photo, and each list ordered by organisers, with the full list story and 6 example items from that list (to give givers a compelling reason to give). The organizer can add multiple other administrators to each list - additional team members, the families that need to fill the list, etc. Givers who reserve gifts to give receive instructions on how to ship and give the items as they reserve an item and in their reservation email. They can leave a note with their gift. All contributions are preserved in a private table for the organizers to send thank you notes and donation receipts when needed.
COMMON CHALLENGES TO TOY DRIVES
The most frequent reason organizers receive messages from givers are out of stock items. That is why DreamList enables wish visitors to find the item at more than one store if needed or to reach out to the organizer anonymously with questions, to prevent the spoiling of surprises. We respond and forward all outreach and questions to the organizers.
Due to the pandemic, many in-person drives have gone online and have been able to scale bigger as a result. Privacy of shipping addresses has been important, which is why we have enabled multiple privacy level options for the address of the wishers on each list, as well as the linking of store registries that have the wisher's address saved within. DreamList offers the widest privacy and item variety options possible. To ensure each gift makes its way to the right receiver, organizers can label each item and ask receivers to ship the item with that label when ready (for example, "Family A, Child B").
WHY RUN A GIFT DRIVE?
The only feeling better than receiving a gift is the joy of giving one, especially to kids and people who wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise. During gift drives every member of your community can put themselves in Santa's shoes. Some families join drives to show their Children what it means to give and help others. Organizers who lead an angel tree or toy drive get to connect many in their community who are most willing to help and give to others, and they do it for an effort loved by everyone.
HOW TO INCREASE THE NUMBER OF GIFTS GIVEN AND PEOPLE HELPED DURING A GIFT DRIVE?
The story always matters the most! Any wishlist in a gift drive benefits from having a compelling story about the person or family it belongs to. Givers connect to a story much more than to items on a list.
DreamList has been optimised to show the stories of each list added to a gift drive group page and to enable organisers to shuffle and reorganize lists to make sure all wishers receive equal exposure to the top of the page, ensuring no wishlist is left behind.
TEAM GIFTS AND SECRET SANTA
We're not a store, so we support all retailers and service providers with equally beautiful feature cards in each dream list. Share one DreamList link with your community and connect all of your other wishlists & registries to prevent repeats. Add services, experience gifts, museum memberships, charities, 529 plans, and whatever matters to you.
Direct goodwill to friends or families in need, straight from your lists.
Simply add the list/gift drive link as an item on your list, and make the item type "Exterlal Wishlist". Givers who see the drive from your lists on DreamList will be able to leave you a note whenver they give to the drives or lists you have shared.
See a toy drive by St Dominic's Family Services.
Christmas wish list, gift ideas, and gift guide for families
Every family has people who are easy and people who are really hard to shop for this Christmas. DreamList is on a mission to help everyone get more meaningful gifts that are both memorable and thoughtful, so here are some tips we've surfaced from fellow parents.
A common wisdom suggests: "Something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read." To rock Christmas 2025 season you can confidently also add "something to do", and "something they dream about" to the list:
- Enourage pre-schoolers to write down their ideas on paper or our free printable christmas wish list and share a photo of it with family on DreamList
- Contribute to fund something they are saving for
- Get them a membership to a local zoo or museum they really enjoy.
- An experience they have never had, or even better, that you can do togehter.
Gifts for a Baby
Congratulations for the new baby in your life! Since babies appreciate the wrapping paper more than the contents, the first year in the little one's life is a unique opportunity for a new parent, aunt, uncle, gradnparent or friend to contribute to something that makes a real difference in the life this wonderful bundle of joy. Use their first Christmas or build a Christmas wish list to add things they will appreciate later on. No matter how pretty, clothes are that age are outgrown in a month or two, and the right toy that is not a repeat can be hard to get. Here are 10 ideas that make a perfect gift for a baby:
- Start a 529 College Savings plan and direct families to it to contribute small amounts over time.
- Create a UTMA savings or brokerage account for the little one and put money you would have spent on toys into a high-earning stocks or bonds. Make sure to pick stocks that you believe hold long-term potential, because selling stocks and creating a liquidity event will require tax filings on behalf of your little one for that tax year. We are not financial advisors, so pleace consult one before investing.
- A membership to the local zoo for the family. The parents will need a place to take the little one for a walk
- Coupons for gift of help or adventure you can give to the parents.
- Cloth books - the more crinkly fun the book has, the better. Babies love to hold and play with those up until age 1.
- A box of kleenex they can empty all by themselves, one napkin at a time. Since babies are never allowed to pull napkins out of boxes, they will have fun for hours under the watchful eye of adults who can take napkins out of their mouths if needed!
Christmas gifts for a 1 or 2 year old girl or boy
The sight of a gift wrapped in a gift box will beam smiles on the faces of kids that are more precious than jewlery. Toddlers are much easier to please than babies.
- Add to their 529 plan or savings account.
- Buy toy sets they can build with. From Magnatiles, to Lego Duplos (remember, children under age 3 may swallow small pieces, so keep the lego blocks big), to wooden blocks and toy trains.
- A membership to the local zoo, or children's museum for the family.
- Coupons for an adventure together, a lecture by you that will teach the little boy or girl something they can brag to friends about - from drawing to feeding goats at the local petting zoo, to playing a simple tune on a xylophone.
- Books - from board books to story books, they can enjoy daily.
Christmas gifts for a 3-10 year old
Little ones are excited to write and send a letter to Santa! Enourage young children to write down their ideas on paper on our free printable christmas wish list and share a photo of it with family on DreamList. We will gladly import the list for you and Santa to your dream lists.
Ask the parents to create their DreamList already!
Christmas gifts for a teenage girl or boy
Teens are busy building their identity around friends and the rest of the world, so definitely ask them for their DreamList link.
- Add to their 529 plan or savings account. They'll need it soon.
- Ask if they want help with college applications or prep
- Legos of all types (though ask for characters they are into first)
- Teach them a useful skill. They will cherish the memory and maybe even use it to make extra cash in the future.
- Books.
How does it work?
Achieve dreams faster by
saving with friends!
In addition to regular christmas wish list purchases, you can now save for a car, a house, a trip, or a cause you support. Show friends your Christmas wish list, or direct their goodwill to a friend in need. Create private wish
lists and public christmas idea lists. Your Christmas list gives everyone options, they can send contributions however they please (via cash, Paypal, check, in person, you name it).
It's free and that simple!
Start yours now!
Achieve Dreams Together
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DreamList is the first free, privacy-first, ads-free collaborative online wishlist and registry designed for families by families.Unlike a regular registry, your dream lists can link to any retailer, wish list, registry, experience, activity, or a larger pursuit, so loved ones know what is truly meaningful to you. Then, they can reserve a gift or contribute a partial ammount towards your bigger dreams and bring them closer to reality with every special occasion. Manage dream lists in private or as a team. Create pages previewing multiple wish lists with one link for grandparents, gift drives, or organizations. Share one link with family, that they can refer back to for every special occasion, for life!
Foundations, charitable organizations, schools, and disaster recovery teams also use DreamList to direct goodwill to hundreds of families at scale since Hurricane Harvey, also for free.
We are successful only when you are, and that makes all the difference!
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