25 Tips and Ideas for Planning a Successful Food Drive

"Meat" the Need - Depending on the need of your partner organization, you may want to focus on gathering high-protein food items. To take advantage of this theme, create posters and cardboard cutouts with meat-related images. You can even have your drop-off site volunteers dress up as "meatheads" and wear fake sirloin steak hats all day. If fresh meat isn't accepted, remember there are plenty of canned options and protein alternatives.
Fall Bounty - Capitalize on the autumnal themes of harvest and plenty by emphasizing that not everyone has the luxury of a full plate of food. Create a fall-centered theme for your food drive, encouraging donors to "share the bounty."
Make Every Bean Count - Beans and legumes make for nutritious and sustainable food items. For this theme, you can make a beanstalk — à la "Jack and the Beanstalk" — at the drop-off spot, and give away "magic beans" (jelly beans) as a small thank you for donors.
Farm-to-Table - Focus on nourishing food items that are found in a garden or farm (canned tomatoes, green beans, corn). Your food drive can be a fun and easy farm theme, complete with red checkered tablecloths and a cutout tractor. You could also go in a farmer's market direction, and partner with local food growers to gather wholesome and/or organic food items.
Read to Feed - An easy and effective school food drive, this theme is built on a reading competition in which students collect pledges from friends and family members. Students set goals to read a certain number of books over a period of time, and sponsors donate cans of food to support the goal.
Cirque du Solving Hunger - For this theme, use canned food items as admission to a performance or carnival. The main event can be anything from a "Cirque du Soleil"-style acrobatics show featuring local gymnastics talent to a church festival with games and prizes.
Demographic Focused - After determining the needs of your partner organization, you can use those specifics to focus the theme. For example, gather baby boxes filled with formula and baby food, food items for women that are iron-rich and calcium-filled or kid packs with food like mac-n-cheese and applesauce. Your promotional theme can be built around these focuses, with baby bottle images on fliers or a social media photo series of the strong, single moms your food drive will benefit.
Winter Is Coming - When the cold months begin, the need for hot food increases. Ask people to donate warm and hearty items like stew, boxes of pasta or soup. Create a winter-themed promotional campaign around your food drive, and you could also incorporate a coat drive if you have the resources!

Collection Site Options - You can execute a food drive in several different ways, from a single-site drop off on a single day to an extended food drive over a period of time to an event-related drive. Determine which method is most effective for your group and makes the most sense for the type of donors you are targeting.
Build a Network - Ask volunteers to publicize the food drive through word-of-mouth with their coworkers, church small groups and schools. If operating a multi-site food drive, work with your group members to set up at different locations where they have connections to gather donations from a variety of people.
Location, Location, Location - It is helpful to target heavily trafficked areas that the people who have seen publicity materials can easily access, like a school carpool line or outside of a church sanctuary. Make sure you are in an area where your audience will have a higher likelihood of participating — targeting random passersby in a grocery store parking lot will probably not be as successful as setting up in a neighborhood park where you have put up fliers and sent out a blurb in the community newsletter. (Porch pickups are another idea that makes it easy for people to participate.)
Schedule Shifts - Once you have dates, times and locations organized, make sure that each collection site is covered by splitting up volunteers over several shifts. Volunteer shifts don't have to be too intensive — they can keep an eye on the collection boxes, answer any questions from donors, and hand out small thank you tokens. Genius Tip: Learn how the Pasadena Jaycees used SignUpGenius to plan a successful food drive.
Make it Competitive - A little competition always spices up donation-related events. Encourage donors to form teams and compete to see who brings the greatest amount or poundage of food items. Set a goal for your office and have different departments compete to see who meets the goal first.
Engage Local Celebrities - Make the food drive a community event by having local celebrities — an anchor from the TV station, the mayor, sports stars — work a shift or two to boost participation and visibility.
Provide a Fact Sheet - Don't just collect food, but also work to educate your community on the needs around them. Give donors a fact sheet that includes statistics on hunger, along with some background information on both the hosting and receiving organizations.