Second Harvest’s Food Sourcing/Development Team meets frequently to discuss and measure strategies in building relationships with its donors. A creative, soft approach (friendly; not overbearing) has proven advantageous in their line of success. Being sensitive to donors’ time and schedule are critical for the sustainability…
Community Fruit Tree Harvest (CFTH) The best way of recruiting donors and volunteers for Lettuce Link is word of mouth. CFTH produces quartersheet flyers that people can easily give to neighbors and friends who are interested in participating in the project. In addition, the season kick-off…
How to solicit donations and maintain good relationships with your donors: Donors such as garden supply stores or seed companies are obvious, but others require more creativity to figure out how they fit in. For example, a design-build firm that focuses on architecture projects helped…
Written by Katie Allen, Grow A Row Coordinator VISTA Grow-A-Row collects donations from home growers, community gardens, and vendors at the farmer’s markets. Shoutouts in the newsletter and Facebook posts are how donors see how much they are providing, and some receive thank you cards….
Outreach OCCAC repeated the outreach strategy of the first Harvest VISTA member. This included off-season recruitment tactics focused on agricultural association meetings, trainings, and farmers market presence. Communication by a gleaning spokesperson, in this case, the Harvest VISTA, who is knowledgeable or experienced with farming…
Spokane Edible Tree Project has a tree registry with a network of about 150 residential tree owners. They also work with numerous orchards in Spokane County. Various methods are used to recruit and engage tree owners throughout the year. Outreach. SETP’s backyard fruit tree outreach…
Donor Outreach Farmers’ markets: Walk around markets and mingle; talk to the growers or if someone else is selling for a farmer, find out the farmer’s name and phone number. This is also a good way to see what is grown in the area Farm…
Dealing with Overabundance Yakima County is first in the nation for the number of fruit trees. The region produces more apples, mint, winter pears, and hops than any other county in the US; other major crops include cherries, apricots, peaches, beef, wheat, and wine. In…
Outreach The first step to reestablish the gleaning program for the second harvest season is discovering all the farms that might be potential donors. Here on the Olympic Peninsula, several outreach methods were employed to establish the donor base for Jefferson County Gleaning Program. They…
It is never too early to start working on donor outreach. Unlike the growing of fruits and vegetables, building relationships with farmers, farmer’s market managers, and property owners have no off-season. Make it a routine goal to attend farmer’s markets, talk with local farmers, and…