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Distributing Your Evergreens: A Guide
11.18.2020
Congrats! You’ve finished your fundraiser and now it’s the fun part — getting the evergreens into the hands of your supporters. Read our guide on how to make it go as smoothly as possible.
Take Note of Your Delivery Window
When placing your final order, you were given the option to choose ‘Before Thanksgiving Delivery’ or ‘After Thanksgiving Delivery’. Take note of which option you chose and the corresponding delivery window for the current fundraising year (found under the ‘Ordering Programs’ section of the ‘How It Works’ page).
Please keep in mind that items may arrive in multiple shipments. You will be notified once items have shipped.
Choose a Local Distribution Method
Decide on a distribution method that suits your group size and schedule. Most groups approach distribution in one of the following ways:
ROLLING COLLECTION WINDOW
Give participants a date and time range where they can pick up their items from a central location. For example, “collect your sold items outside the community center from 1 to 3 pm Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of this week.”
DOORSTEP DROP-OFF
Drive by and deliver items directly to the sellers’ doorsteps. Consider recruiting a few volunteers to help with the drop-offs. For smaller fundraisers, you might be able to deliver directly to all individual buyers, rather than having each seller distribute to their customers.
PICKUP EVENT
Schedule a set date and time where participants (and/or individual buyers) can come and collect their evergreens. Make sure to give people plenty of advanced notice so that they can mark their calendars and avoid scheduling conflicts.
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
The best way to avoid an influx of questions/concerns from both sellers and buyers is to clearly communicate your distribution plan as soon as possible. Get out in front of their queries by emailing all participants with information on how and when they will be able to deliver items to their customers. Make use of other communication channels, such as social media and word-of-mouth, to get the word out. The more communication, the better!
Depending on the fundraiser, you may also consider emailing all individual buyers with information on when they can expect to receive their evergreens. You can find buyer emails in the ‘Local Distribution Case Items’ sales report of your online account (Online Sales Dashboard > Manage Orders > Sales Reports > Local Distribution Case Items).
Bundle Items Ahead of Time
Ensure the distribution process goes smoothly by bundling together each participant’s sold items ahead of time. Use our sales reports and helpful templates to help you get organized.
DOWNLOAD SELLER SALES TOTALS
Log into your account and navigate to the following:
Online Sales Dashboard > Manage Orders > Sales Reports > Individual Seller’s Sales Totals
Download the ‘Individual Seller’s Sales Totals’ report in order to view exactly what items and quantities of items each seller sold.
FILL OUT PARTICIPANT ITEM LISTS FOR EACH SELLER
Log into your account and navigate to the following:
Fundraiser Toolkit > Helpful Templates > Participant Item List
Download and print a ‘Participant Item List’ form for each seller. Refer to your sales reports in order to fill in the quantities of items each person sold. Use these Participant Item Lists to efficiently bundle each seller’s items together, and place the list atop each seller’s bundle once it’s complete.
PAY ATTENTION TO PRODUCT COLOR CODES
Before you start digging through boxes of evergreens, take a look at our color-coded product guide designed to make distribution easy. Each product has a corresponding color displayed on its box. Use this color key to guide you as you bundle products in advance of distribution.
Note: for smaller fundraisers, you may decide to distribute items directly to the individual buyers rather than sellers. In this case, you can use the ‘Local Distribution Case Items’ report to help you bundle items by buyer (Online Sales Dashboard > Manage Orders > Sales Reports > Local Distribution Case Items).
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