What role do volunteers play in flower sale success?

Plant Fundraiser Volunteer Leaders

When you begin organizing a plant fundraiser, first focus on key aspects, such as the greenhouse you’re sourcing from, the plant selection, and, most importantly, the lead volunteers. Team leaders play a vital role in plant fundraisers, supporting the organization and ensuring the fundraiser is successful. Meet with your lead volunteers initially to share with them the initial plan, get feedback, and encourage strong volunteer engagement. Bring in volunteers who will work hard and champion the fundraiser, making the entire operation run smoothly. Find these volunteers at meetings held by the organization, such as monthly update meetings and PTA meetings. You can coordinate with the staff of the organization to spread the word to whatever nonprofit or school you’re fundraising for. Oftentimes, they have email news lists, alumni mailing lists, planned announcements, or can hold school assemblies to easily spread the word to people in the community.

Having volunteer coordinators makes every phase of the fundraiser easier to organize. By assigning specific roles to your volunteer leaders, they can direct other volunteers during the flower sale, show them what needs to be handled, and answer questions the public may have about the plant sales. Designate one or two volunteers to answer questions and provide helpful information so details stay consistent across your entire volunteer team. Volunteers play a significant role in every fundraiser, and without their hard work, plant sales may suffer.

The Importance of Volunteers for Flower Sales

There are a lot of helpful roles that need to be fulfilled by volunteers during a plant sale. From coordinating with customers, finding particular plants, running a cash register, or cleaning up after any events, volunteers make fundraisers successful. Any events need volunteer coordinators who help plan, promote, and oversee. These coordinators can help with flyers, signage, and coordinating with administrators, while keeping track of others helping with the events.

Plant pickup days are a crucial phase of a plant fundraiser and should be well-staffed with people willing to help for the day. These volunteers assist customers during pickup day, ensuring customers receive their plants quickly, keeping the line moving. If you’re lacking volunteers on pickup days, your pickup station can become bottlenecked with customers. Because they have already paid, the pick-up process should be quick and without interruptions of any kind. Be sure to communicate clearly and regularly with every volunteer throughout the flower sale. If left uninformed, volunteers may reduce their involvement, leaving you with less help when you need it.

Volunteers for Plant Sale Pickups

Pickup days are likely the most lively days of the entire plant sale, and having volunteers for these events is a must! Having volunteers breaks up the workload so people can stay focused on their tasks and allow pickups to go smoothly. Plant pickup days can be quick and easy if they’re organized properly. Pickups will happen out of order, and volunteers should be informed on how to track customer orders. When setting up the plants, maintaining organization streamlines the pickup process for the volunteers and the customers. You can either have pickup lanes and allow customers to drive up with volunteers waiting to hand out orders straight into the vehicles, or have an indoor plant holding area where customers can park their cars and walk inside. There will be some setup and breakdowns of the pickup spot necessary on that day, so ensure you have volunteers who can come early to set up plants and help with cleanup at the end.

JOCO Growers makes pickup day as seamless as possible for our clients. Our team drops off the plants directly to your pickup location. You won’t have to do any transportation of the plants. Simply meet us at the customer pickup location, and you’re all set! Contact JOCO Growers to learn more about how we help our clients with their fundraisers and do everything we can to boost them to success.

Prepare for Your Flower Sale This Upcoming Season

When approaching a fundraiser, we encourage our clients to come up with a strong gameplan. Have a clear path to success, including how you’re going to get community members to volunteer, community outreach, involving you and the organization you’re raising funds for, events you plan on having, and how to organize the entire project. We help by providing strategy ideas, graphics, printable flyers, and social media posts. Plant sales work wonderfully because many people plan to shop for plants in the spring and fall, regardless of whether they’re supporting a fundraiser. By hosting plant sales for your organization, you’re giving them a chance to support a non-profit or school rather than have their money go to a big box plant store.

How JOCO Growers Prepares for Fundraisers

JOCO Growers began with a mission to help local organizations with their fundraisers. We harnessed our passion for plants and flowers to build a massive indoor garden to grow year-round.  The JOCO Growers greenhouse lets us grow plants for both spring and fall fundraisers, making it perfect for schools. We have helped countless schools, non-profits, and other organizations across Central Ohio, parts of Illinois, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. 100% of JOCO Growers plants are sold to fundraisers, and zero plants are ever sent to big box gardens. It’s important to us that we maintain our original mission by growing plants exclusively for fundraising and helping give back to our greater community and beyond.

Work with JOCO Growers for Your Upcoming Fundraiser

If you’re interested in running a fundraiser with GOCO Growers’ plants, contact us via phone or our website. Let us know about yourself, your organization, and some more details about your upcoming fundraiser. We would love to help you raise money for your local community.

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