The first time, the Visiting Angels team held an Alzheimer’s fundraiser by collecting shoes, one of the team members said they felt like Santa Claus. They hoisted bag after bag over their back filled with gently worn, used and worn shoes. Each pair was fundraising currency in their shoe drive, and they loved it so much that they signed up for another.
Still, the detail of Santa Claus is a great image of what a shoe drive fundraiser can accomplish with committed people. There’s laughter, carrying of bags, and each shoe bag is a tangible representation of fundraising revenue, and a hand-up to others. Visiting Angels of Lewisburg didn’t just meet their goal. They blew past it. Read on to see how…
Who Is Visiting Angels and Why a Shoe Drive Fundraiser?
Visiting Angels is one of the most recognized names in senior care nationwide. They’re a franchised operation that provides critical in-home care services for older adults. In addition, they provide essential companionship, personal care, and dementia support. Visiting Angels Lewisburg is also about civic engagement, which is why the Alzheimer’s fundraiser resonated.
Susan Kahlau, co-owner of Visiting Angels Lewisburg, first heard about shoe drive fundraisers at a franchise owners’ meeting. What Susan, and later her team, including Shawn Manogue and Cecelia Petty, was that a peer owner in the state was doing a shoe drive fundraiser and pairing it with an Alzheimer’s walk. That caught Susan’s attention.
After doing a bit of research, the team in Lewisburg realized that a shoe drive fundraiser went beyond collecting shoes. It was a win/win/win impact opportunity. They realized this kind of fundraiser wouldn’t just be about raising money for Alzheimer’s. It was also a chance to give a hand-up to people in developing nations and to redirect worn shoes out of landfills.
Aside from the triple-impact structure of the fundraiser, which is very compelling in the care and health space, it allows almost anyone to contribute. Visiting Angels Lewisburg knew they had a community that was already motivated to give and support the mission. A shoe drive fundraiser removed a participation barrier because people didn’t have to donate money.
How the Alzheimer’s Fundraiser Actually Ran
For Visiting Angels Lewisburg, they wanted, as usual, to be innovative and creative in their approach to ensuring the shoe drive fundraiser was a success. So they focused on a couple of key strategies:
1.    Targeting the Right Drop-Off Locations
Instead of partnering with local shoe retailers, they decided to go straight to their existing referral network. For them, it meant reaching out to assisted living, independent living, and long-term care communities, as well as home health companies. These were partners who knew and trusted them, which was a great advantage.
Shawn managed the collection aspect of the shoe drive fundraiser. In short, he personally approached about 34 facilities and organizations to serve as drop-off locations for shoes. But he didn’t show up once. Each week, he visited them, took pictures of the collections, and provided marketing images. He also created a leaderboard, which turned it into a competition!
2.    The Competition That Drove It All
Shawn explained about the competition for the shoe drive fundraiser, “I figured out what could be the hardest hitting driving impact to collect the shoes. So, I basically talked to about 34 of my facilities and friends out in the community and communities and asked if it would be all right to put a box out there.”
He continued explaining, “This is what we’re doing, and this is how we’re gonna try to do a fundraiser for the Alzheimer’s. We only did it for eight weeks, but we made it a strong competition and we made it I made it fun every single time I went out there.” The competition created buzz because people are naturally competitive and want to win (in this case, pizza!).
3.    The Shoe Drive Fundraiser Numbers
The Alzheimer’s fundraiser ran for eight weeks, and they did something amazing. They exceeded their fundraising goal and decided to run another fundraiser. Yes, we’re proud to have them join our elite club of repeat partners. During their first fundraiser, Visiting Angels Lewisburg collected over 2,000 pounds of shoes!
One of their partners, collecting on their behalf, collected approximately 700 – 800 pairs of shoes. What pushed them over was the pairing of their shoe drive fundraiser with the Walk to End Alzheimer’s. Like many of our partners, by pairing a shoe drive fundraiser with another event (especially a walk or run), you easily get double the impact.
The Unexpected Bonus: Community Visibility and Team Building
Susan described the success of their shoe drive fundraiser this way, “I think that whether you’re doing it for your company or for your organization, that it just helps build like a kind of a team spirit. And it’s like a team bonding because…you know how much we need to raise, how many shoes we need to collect.”
Inside the organization, the effect was just as significant as it was outside, with their partners and community. There was bagging shoes, loading trucks, making plaques, posting leaderboard updates, and, through it all, everyone found a role. It was most certainly a team bonding experience, which is vital in caregiving, a field that demands a lot of people.
The first shoe drive fundraiser taught the Visiting Angels Lewisburg how to improve, and these are some of the pointers they shared:
- Scale a shoe drive fundraiser deliberately.
- If possible, hire or recruit marketing interns to amplify the fundraiser.
- Partner with others, such as college campuses.
- Ensure you have storage space if you get an overflow of shoes, as they did.
- For subsequent fundraisers, track year-over-year data for each partner so you know when you have to push a little harder.
- Create leaderboards and trophies.
- Promote early and often.
How Your Organization Can Run a Shoe Drive Fundraiser for Alzheimer’s — or Any Cause
The story of Visiting Angels Lewisburg isn’t unique to home care agencies or Alzheimer’s. The mechanics of what this amazing team shared is what works for any organization. The fact is, people want to give, and support a good cause. And if you don’t ask them for money or to sell merch, but instead simply empty their closets, they’ll do it.
As this amazing organization did for their Alzheimer’s fundraiser, reach out to your network first (e.g., institutional partners, universities, schools, etc.). Create good-spirited competition. Friendly competition is never a bad thing, and it will help you drive up the collection numbers. The prize can be as simple as a pizza party.
And don’t forget that a shoe drive fundraiser is a triple win. 1) You can raise funds for your cause, whatever it is. 2) You redirect shoes from landfills, which are terrible for the environment. 3) You give a hand-up to people in developing nations who sell the shoes you collect to earn a living in places where jobs are hard to come by. Get started today.
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