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WELCOME!
Fill A Bag and set it on your porch and you've joined the fight against Food Insecurity. It is truly that simple.
This is an informational website (i.e. "boring and dry"). It's here for those that want to know more. If we've missed something email us at info@Porch2Pantry.org
What is “Porch2Pantry”?
Porch 2 Pantry is an 501(c)(3) non-profit that is dedicated to making it as easy as possible to donate food. We provide technology and methodology to Home Food Donation programs nationwide so they can focus on getting more food for those that need it.
Here is how easy it is; You, the donor, fills a bag with shelf-stable foods right from your pantry. You set it on your doorstep on the day of the event. Our volunteers pick it up and take it to a pantry in your community.
Although it's simple, it's also very successful. Last year these programs collected more than 4.5 million pounds of food, with more than 45,000 donors participating in more than 100 chapters across the USA.
These chapters are only covering 1% of the territory of the USA. By working hard to make things easy, our goal is to get this program nationwide. If we can do that, we can be receiving more than 450 million pounds of food a year. That's moving the needle at a time when things are getting a lot tougher for people in need.
NOW IS THE TIME TO GET INVOLVED. Every year the gap between those in need and the those that are helping is getting wider. We believe our Porch2Plate system can turn that around. We are in a hurry because the need is here right now.
The current chapters are doing a great job, but it takes too much time and effort to build and sustain a program. Thankfully, we have found a solution. Our Operating System, which we call "ASG Event Manager" has reduced the time it takes to plan and operate an event down by more than 90%. A large event with thousands of donors, hundreds of drivers and dozens of pantries can be run in lest then 3-4 hours. Something that used to take 50+ hours.
The other thing we are doing is developing methods to sign up donors. Once a donor signs up they continue to participate 80% of the time for more than 7 years. So the key is to get the donor started, once that happens the rest works great.
Our Operating System was designed to promote about a dozen donor-driver methods that have proven to work. We will provide chapters step by step guides to implement each method. This help also includes sample marketing materials that can be copied and edited for each chapters needs.
Our ultimate goal is not just simplicity, but also 'zero cost'. We want to avoid the high costs of storage, transportation and management oversight that are needed by Food Banks. Our hope is to see food collected between 9 and 11am, delivered to a pantry and sorted by 1pm, and in the hands of those that need it by 3-5pm that night. Minimize driving/transportation time not only saves money it's good for the environment too!
Join us!! We Need You.
The 3 Current National Programs
Around 2010 three different national groups decided to start up these “home food donation programs”. All three continue to operate today. And all three are doing a very good job to help start new programs across the country.
Porch2Pantry doesn’t care which group you decide to work with. Our Operating System works with all three. Your site page will have whatever branding you choose. We like to think of ourselves as “brand agnostic”, we just want more people donating food to help those that need it.
Having said that, we also manage the use of one of those three programs; A Simple Gesture. We love the name because it says it all and can be a great way to extend a Chapters Brand Name.
- You can attach it to a territory; “Jackson Counties Simple Gesture”.
- You can attach it to a Club or other organization; “Rotary Club’s Simple Gesture”.
- And you can use it with a Branding Partner; “Smith Grocery Simple Gesture”.
Or, if you'd like, you can call it anything you want. We don't care about brands and names; we just want to get as much food into the system as we can.
Feel free to contact us at info@Porch2Pantry.org to discuss your ideas further.
The main thing is to start your program and join the fight. We will help you step-by-step. The estimated 40 million people in our country affected by Food Insecurity and the 9-10 Million that experience hunger need you .
Our Focus; Relieve Food Insecurity & Hunger
Food Insecurity is an overwhelming and complex topic. Numbers for those suffering range as high as 14% of the USA population with as many as 3.5% experiencing hunger on a regular basis.
Of particular concerns are families, especially single parent families. One in three single moms are raising their families with insufficient nutritious food. Our founder was one of those, so this is more than just our focus, it's personal.
We all know that some people in those long pantry lines could get by on their own. Often times free food distribution is just a way to help people manage their budget. But we also know that for tens of millions of people the problem is very real and for some very serious.
Not having enough quality food as a child is unacceptable yet it's happening in America. How is this possible when we throw away more food than any other country in the world? We must do more to prevent it. Poorly or under-nourished children don’t just do they lack the fundamental building blocks of a healthy lifestyle, their self-esteem is crushed. We all deserve a shot at the "American Dream", let's not take that away from a child before they had their chance to find it.
HOW OUR SYSTEM WORKS
The systems purpose is in the name; “Porch to Pantry”. The donor registers for the program and is informed about an upcoming event (usually every 2 months). They confirm their participation and review the “Needs List” for the pantry in their area. The donor fills a bag and leaves it on their doorstep. We then arrange for a volunteer to come by and take it the bag to a pantry in the same area. In an ideal scenario, that pantry is distributing that food the same afternoon.
The donor is the “gold” of the system, they provide food. Data from more than 100 of these programs shows they will average 15 pounds per donation and participate about 70-80% of the time. They will stick with it too, although the data is rough it shows a typical donor remains in the program more than 5 years.
This 360 pounds donated by a single donor in a 5 year period has a value of just over $1000.
The next key piece is that person in the middle; the one that picks up that food and gets it to the pantry. The Porch2Plate Event Manager uses two different methods to get that piece done;
It’s a simple idea. Leave a bag of food on a doorstep and someone picks it up and takes it to a Community Food Pantry.
- A DRIVER: When a program starts up the donors are going to be spread out over a large area. Our Operating System will organize up to thousands of donors into logical and efficient routes. Our Route Optimization program then gives each driver the most efficient route with turn by turn directions, ending at a pantry in the same community. We can optimize thousands of donors, hundreds of drives and dozens of pantry’s to take part in any single event.
- A NEIGHBORHOOD COORDINATORS Over time a program will begin to achieve ‘density’. By this we mean that a large number of donors are near each other. As this happens our Operating System will ask the donors and drivers in that cluster to form a neighborhood, and a Neighborhood Coordinator will be appointed. They then take care of that cluster by arranging for the food pickup, answering questions, and forming community among these generous people.
The key to success and longevity of the program is to get every donor connected to a Neighborhood Coordinator. And the sooner the better. Once connected to a “NC”, the community aspect begins to take shape. The NC’s role is to get more and more of those households in that territory to participate. As participation increases so does the community spirit on that special pick-up day.
You can learn much more about our operating system, P2P Event manager, by CLICKING HERE.
Blue pins have a bag out front, red ones need us to skip. The green show drivers start point.
WHY IT WORKS
As of last update, there are 115 chapters doing this nationwide. The 46,000 donors are providing about 4.5 million pounds of food a year.
Here are some of the best examples;
- In Ashland, OR about one out of three households will have a bag out front. Imagine that as you drive up a street. Everyone knows it’s “green bag day”.
- In Greensboro, NC there are more than 4000 donors participating. The “Green Bag People” are everywhere that day, with hundreds of drivers picking up food and delivering it to as many as 40 different pantries.
- In Reston, VA the food being picked up will fill the shelves of four different pantries. This system is often the only source they need for food to later distribute to those in need.
One reason it works is because people feel different when they donate food rather than just providing their credit card information. We know from experience that by the 3rd donation, nearly all the food being donated was purchased to be donated. That means the donor is thinking about someone in need while shopping and again while filling the bag. They can think; “this can of tuna going to help someone today” as they drop it in the bag.
Another reason the program works is it’s extremely cost efficient. If a donor provides you $1 your program will convert that to anywhere from $45 to $200 dollars of food. That ratio is nearly unmatched in the non-profit world. Most Food Banks will say they can take $1 and turn it into $3 or $4, this program can be up to 50 times more efficient.
And a third reason it works is it’s simple; putting a bag on a doorstep is quick and easy. It only takes a few moments to explain the program, people nod nearly immediately and often will say “I can do that!”.
Some Details about our Operating System
The system is designed to do many things; here are the main ones.
- Register donors; We use a “Campaign Tool” so each chapter can create dozens of donor-drives using a variety of tools. For example, a booth at a fair or an email canvassing campaign. Each one has its own unique URL and QR code so that we know exactly where a donor came from. We provide reporting for years to come to show you which campaigns worked with precise reporting.
- Organize Donors into manageable groups; As thousands of donors sign up it becomes overwhelming to manage them. We’ve solved that two ways. One is something we call a Neighborhood Coordinator. This person then organizes those near-by neighbors that are donating at each event. The second way is using our system to create groups on-the-fly by using technology and each donors geo-coordinates. Either way, this grouping allows our Operating System to make it easy to organize very large events. (And small ones too!).
- Run Pick-Up Events; this is really the heart of the System. It starts by assigning donors to events based on their latitude/longitude mapping. Next, the donors and drivers are asked to verify their participation and make changes as needed (all through automation and technology). The system then groups donors and drivers into optimized pods or defers to an assigned Neighborhood Coordinator . The system provides ”outcome tracking” to capture the amount each donor has provided. Finally, there is both real-time dashboard metrics and post event reporting to see exactly what happened.
- Communication; A messaging app allows the Event Managers to communicate with the donors and drivers into all sorts of ways.
- Special Events; There are a variety of donor-driven events that require special technology. An example is the “Brown Bag” event, where grids map out sections of homes for a person to deliver a brown bag (or door hanger), they receive their grid as an email and can show results as they drop each one off. Those potential donors then register showing pins on a map for those same volunteers to go back and pick up the food. As these donors register they are then included in the next Pick-Up Event.
- Reporting; A key to manage large programs is knowing how to make good decisions. For example, some donors are more likely to forget to put a bag out than others. The reporting identifies these and sends them a different type of notification to increase the likelihood they are truly confirmed. These details may not seem like much, but when dealing with hundreds of volunteers they will appreciate that the system values their time.
What It Can Look Like
There is no perfect model, and there is no 'required' model. The existing chapters come in all shapes and sizes. Some are formed by highly motivated individuals others by clubs.
If we could define a model that we are after, it might look like this;
- It starts with a Club, Organization or Team; where there is built in shared purpose. They are already connected to do something. This type of model can build sustainability. When the leader is no longer able to continue, another is ready to take over. Clubs, for example, may ordain this as a primary service; electing or assigning a lead and reporting its progress at each meeting.
- We'd like to see a pantry or a network of pantries disperse the food the same day it arrives. This allows for foods such as breads and eggs. And it eliminates the high cost of storage and logistics. We'd like our drivers to do a great deal of the prep and sorting work for that pantry to distribute the food later that same day.
- We hope to see a Brand Partner in each model, someone that can provide enough funding to enable chapters to scale up fast. Growing by word-of-mouth and 'step by step' growth is great and should be encouraged, but our goal is to reach millions of donors. To do that we are seeking programs that will grow fast, and Brand Partners can fund that in exchange for some great brand promotion.
- SCALE: the real goal, and the one we hope to achieve is scale. We think people should have a way to put a bag of food on their doorstep all over America. And, our hope is that 8-12% of
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