5 Ways for Companies to Serve Over the Holidays

Posted by Charlie Bedell

The holiday season is a time of joy, gratitude, and giving. It's also an excellent opportunity for companies to come together and make a positive impact in their communities.

SignUpGenius helps you streamline the process of coordinating and managing service projects so that you can spend more time giving back.

Here are five ways for companies to serve over the holidays and how SignUpGenius can help.

1. Organize a food drive

Many families struggle to put food on the table, and the holiday season can be especially challenging. Organizing a food drive is an impactful way for your company to give back during the holiday season.

You can help ensure that you collect a variety of food items using SignUpGenius. List items that the organization will accept so participants can sign up to bring them. You can even specify multiple locations where participants can sign up to drop off items. This makes it convenient for participants to drop off their donations at various company sites.

The holidays get busy for everyone, so it’s important to set up automatic reminders and use our messaging features to update participants on upcoming deadlines.

2. Sponsor a family

Sponsoring a family is a special way to provide gifts for children in need during the holidays. Companies can support a program organized by a local nonprofit and easily use SignUpGenius to facilitate their project.

When creating your sign up, you can use the Location field to enter each family member and add slots for each gift the family has requested. Enter more details for each gift in the slot help comment, including information like clothing size, a child’s age, or gift details. The sign up description can include drop-off information and any other information your participants will need to make the project come to life.

Employees will love how easy it is to sign up for gifts, and you can feel good knowing that each family gets the gifts they need.

Learn how one SignUpGenius user created a successful Angel Tree sign up for a local nursing home.

3. Volunteer for a local nonprofit

The holidays are a great time to take a few hours to serve nonprofits in your local area. But sometimes it’s not possible for the entire company to serve at the same time.

SignUpGenius makes it simple to create volunteer shifts for employees to sign up for. Using SignUpGenius’s automated time slots feature, you can quickly populate multiple time slots in any time increment with just a few clicks.

Want to make sure participants stay updated on their volunteer opportunity? Upgrade to a SignUpGenius premium plan to get access to customizable confirmation and reminder messages. This makes it easy for you to share the information volunteers need so they can be ready to serve.

4. Spread cheer with homemade greeting cards

Brighten someone's day during the holiday season by creating cards for those who might need a bit more cheer. This can include children in hospitals or elderly people in senior centers.

Use SignUpGenius to request volunteers for the project and coordinate cards for different recipients. If you work in an office, offering craft supplies like colored craft paper, markers, or stickers to create cards can provide a fun team-building opportunity. If your team works virtually, you can create a sign up to gather employees for a card-marking session via Zoom.

Make it easy for volunteers to find multiple sign ups for service projects by using the tabbing feature. This allows you to tab sign ups under one sign up link so that it’s simple for participants to find all the sign ups they need.

5. Donate money to a charitable cause

Many charities and nonprofits depend on donations during the holidays to support their work throughout the year. Your company can use SignUpGenius to raise money for charities along with organizing volunteer efforts.

It’s easy to collect money on your sign up using SignUpGenius payments, powered by Stripe. Using the Donate setting when collecting payments, participants can sign up to donate the amount of money they feel comfortable with. Money will be automatically deposited into your organization’s bank account to then donate to the nonprofit.

LumaPay has simple, customizable reporting so that you know exactly how much money participants have donated. Keep this information for sharing donation success or planning for next year.

Maintain confidentiality by using the hide names feature to keep donors private. This ensures participants’ names and donations visible to the sign up creator and account administrators, but hidden to participants signing up.

The holiday season is the perfect time for companies to partner with organizations helping those in need. SignUpGenius offers a versatile and user-friendly platform to coordinate volunteers and maximize the impact of your holiday service initiatives.

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