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.