Book Drive Tool Kit for Literacy

Step 1: Plan Your Book Drive
Step 2: Choose a Benefactor of the Books
Step 3: Set up your Volunteers
Step 4: Firm up Where and When to Hold the Book Drive
Step 5: Promoting the Book Drive
Step 6: Set up your Collection Sites
Step 7: Completion of the Book Drive

1. Plan Your Book Drive
a. Pick an organization to support. Call your local library, your school library, homeless shelters, daycare centers, organize professional offices such as dentists and doctors to provide them with reading material, hospitals, youth groups such as the YMCA, etc. Once you pick your benefactor, you can cater your book drive with a theme and gather information related to your benefactor to include in your promotional materials.
b. Identify the types of donors you want to ask for books. Consider asking: schools, local businesses, libraries, neighbors, sports programs, religious groups, youth groups, service organizations such as women’s and men’s clubs or Elks, scouting groups, etc.
c. Create a web page for your book drive. Create sections for when, where, for who, why, and progress. Be sure to add pictures of who will benefit so people can put a face on your cause.
d. Form your team for the drive. Are you going to do this yourself or get a group to help. You’ll get many more books with help. Think about assigning someone for one group of donors. For instance, you can have one organizer per school, per youth group, per church, or by geographical location. Make sure everyone on your team understands what types of books you are trying to collect. As an example, if you are supplying day care centers with books, make sure your flyers tell everyone to donate only board or picture books for ages 2 – 6. Remember you’ll need several types of volunteers – kids to run the drives at the locations and parents to help drive the kids around.
e. Develop a fundraising plan. Depending on your number of locations, you will need to supply bins to collect the books, signage on these bins, boxes to move the books to a sorting location and then the ultimate destination, and flyers to post in public places and schools. You will then come up with a list of supplies needed: markers, paper, storage bins, boxes, construction paper. Estimate the costs of these supplies and then put together a plan to fundraise for these costs, or get donations from individuals and local businesses. There are many ways to quickly make the money to run a large book drive. You could have a car wash, send out emails asking for donations to your friends and neighbors, announce it at clubs and get donations, or run some other fundraising drive such as a bake sale. You’ll need this starter money to advertise with flyers and posters to bring in the books.
f. Develop a timetable for your book drive. It will take at least 6 weeks from the planning stage to the end. I recommend at least two weeks at each location for book collection so you can announce the drive several times to remind people to bring in the books before you remove the collection bins.

2. Choose a Benefactor of the Books
a. Make sure you have a key contact person.
b. Get help and volunteers from their organization if possible. This can include volunteers, copy services, or just a place to store the books until the end of the book drive.
c. Gather information about the needs of the organization. It is good to include quotes about why books are needed and some numbers to support the cause.
d. See if your benefactor has an email list of supporters or anyone else that you can email for monetary support or just to donate books. The supporters already know the cause and will be willing to help out.

3. Set up your Volunteers
a. Talk to your school friends, family, neighbors, librarians, school administrators, and club leaders to ask for their support. There are needs for drivers, photographers, copiers, and organizers, book sorters, and book packers. Any age can help.
b. Email them to follow up on their commitment and assign them a clearly defined area to run.
c. Keep them informed through the process.

4. Firm up Where and When to Hold the Book Drive
a. Obtain proper permission from the authority on site.
b. Check if schools require community service hours. If this is the case, the school may be more supportive of your book drive.
c. Get clear instructions as to where the collection bins should be placed and how often they should be picked up.
d. Get contact names and numbers so you can send a thank you card at the end of the drive.
e. Find out their communication system. Schools have morning announcements and newsletters. Are these electronic or do you need to make copies of flyers for each child. If so, you’ll need to get headcounts and when the publication deadlines are. At businesses and clubs, they may have a newsletter or calendar. As if you can send out an email blast to their membership. Ask if you can post posters. Is there an approval process for this? If so, make sure you follow it to the letter.
f. Fit your event in with the calendar of the collection site. For instance, you don’t want to run a book drive over a school holiday or around another event that will overshadow your rive, such as Halloween. You can coordinate it with reading events such as Teen Read Week in October, Read Across America Day in March, Children’s Book Week in May, or with
the school book fair. At book fairs, you can post a wish list of books you would love to have and then you may get a good variety of new and used books in the donation bins.
g. Book drives usually run anywhere from two to six weeks long. The key is to communicate regularly with the audience to keep the attention on the book drive.

5. Promoting the Book Drive
a. Write a press release. I know this sounds scary but it really isn’t. Press releases just tell everyone the who, what, when, where, how and why of what you’re doing. A press release should be short (less than 400 words).
b. Research local papers covering events in the area of your book drive. These would not be national papers but city-wide
papers or community papers. Get the contact name and email of the community editor. Check out the paper website and see how they like their events to be submitted. Each will have their own rules: word or character count, pictures or no pictures, method of sending the information to them – their own website or via email, information required (contact name, phone, email address, etc.). Check their deadlines. This is very important because some newspapers require a 4 week advance notice before an event.
c. Make follow-up phone calls to make sure your press releases were received at least one week before your event. See if they can send out a reporter with a photographer to cover your story.
d. Take photos throughout all stages of your project and send them to the papers. If a child is pictures, a photo release will be required authorizing the picture in print.
e. Put your book drive on any event calendar website that covers your area. This can be zvents, Facebook, eventful, craig’s list, or many others. It is free to post and you can generate a lot of excitement for your event.
f. Design flyers. Flyers should be simple and grab the reader’s attention. Just glancing at the flyer a few feet away should tell everyone what you want them to remember – Book Drive, when and where. Pictures should be used to draw attention but you want them to leave with facts. You must make sure pictures you pull off the web are tagged as "Free to use and share." Some sample photos for flyers are shown at the right of this site.
g. Write announcements for school newsletters and announcements. With prewritten verbiage, school administrators are much more likely to include your event.
h. Consider incentives – Create a competition or a raffle prize for people that participate. Recognize donors with certificates or small rewards like an “I love to read” bracelet or button. Develop a method to track the top donors if prizes are awarded. This does make the site coordinators job a little more difficult, but it will generate excitement.
i. Personal speeches work best – If you can speak before a classroom or at an assembly, you will get great interest in your
cause.
j. Keep track of progress at each location and include this in your reminders throughout the book drive term.

6. Set up Your Collection Sites
a. Pick a location for your box or bin where it will be most visible when coming through the door. The containers should be strong enough to handle many books. They can be heavy plastic or heavy cardboard. Make sure you include signage for the bins so everyone knows what it is for. You don’t want your books ruined by someone throwing trash in your book collection bin.
b. In addition to the signs on the bin, there should be similar signs place around the site telling people to go to the location where the bins are to donate their books.
c. Place posters that are hand-made or printed around the site if possible. If not, place the flyers around as much as possible.
d. Assign at least one person to collect the books in the bin at regular intervals and bring them to a central collection facility. This can be a storage room at a library, someone’s garage, or any available space that will be open at certain times to receive the books. Have the site organizer have boxes with handles to deliver the books. These are easier to handle as the books can get pretty heavy. On the top of each box, have the organizer count the number of books delivered. When they are brought to the central collection site, these counts are kept to show how successful the drive was.

7. Completion of the Book Drive
a. Make sure all signs and flyers are removed for the collection sites.
b. Once the books are in a central location, they must be sorted by reading age. Typically this is: board and picture books, preschool books (3-6 yrs), 6-9 years, 10 – 14 years, teen required reading books, adult books. Make sure to pull out any encyclopedia or reference books that are over 10 years old. Also, if a book has mildew or is damaged, you should not include it. Count the books by category and get a grand total. You might want to have a pizza party or ice cream social while this is happening to make it fun.
c. Publicize your grand total in local media and at all the collection sites to let them know they were part of something great and their efforts were appreciated.
d. Remember to thank key people in writing for supporting your cause.
e. Count all the books received by the end and make sure the correct areas receive them. If possible, take pictures of the delivery of the books and have a follow-up press release to the papers of the book drive’s success.

Good luck on your book drive. Let’s ban together to increase literacy around the world! Together we can make a difference!

School Newsletter and Announcement Insert:

ANNOUNCING THE “(Book Drive Name)” BOOK DRIVE.

Attention (school name) families: we need your gently used or new children’s books! We are running a school-wide book drive on campus during (dates of book drive).

The books we collected will be used in the (describe here where the books will be used or if they will be given to a specific group.) Here is a sample:

• Toddler and Me” and “Baby and Me” which promote early literacy by working directly with parents and their children. Since the program began less than a year ago, 200 little ones and their parents have benefited from the program;
  • The Teen Center which provides tutoring, entertainment and resources for teens after school, and
  • Community Outreach which gives books to children in impoverished neighborhoods in the community. Through fair participation, we promote literacy by attracting children to games which offer free books and educational toys as prizes.

  (Add numbers here that support the reasons for the book drive. Here is an example.) With nearly 60% of Redwood City third graders still not proficient at reading, your donation of books is critically needed to change the course of these children’s futures. We are trying to make these students the leaders of tomorrow by helping them develop the reading skills that will keep them in school, out of gangs, and realizing their full potential. Studies show that the single biggest predictor of academic success is the presence of books in the home. Yet, tragically, many children in the Redwood City area do not own a single book.

  Together, we can help ALL our kids succeed in school and in life – simply by giving them books! Let’s each take some time to clear our cluttered shelves of books you have outgrown, so that we may give those books a second life with a child who needs them. We need books for all ages, especially board books and picture books for the youngest readers. Look for the book collection bins in the school front office during (dates of the book drive)!

  
  

Email to Friends and Family:

Subject: ANNOUNCING THE “(Book Drive Name)!” BOOK DRIVE.

Dear Friends, Neighbors, and Family,

The (Group supporting the event) is running a community-wide book drive during (date of book drive). We need your gently used or new children’s books!

The books we collect will be used to (describe here where the books will be given or used for).

• “Toddler and Me” and “Baby and Me” which promote early literacy by working directly with parents and their children. Since the program began less than a year ago, 200 little ones and their parents have benefited from the program;
• The Teen Center which provides tutoring, entertainment and resources for teens after school, and
• Community Outreach which gives books to children in impoverished neighborhoods in the community. Through fair participation, we promote literacy by attracting children to games which offer free books and educational toys as prizes.

(Add numbers here that support the reason for the book drive. Here is an example.) With nearly 60% of Redwood City third graders still not proficient at reading, your donation of books is critically needed to change the course of these children’s futures. We are trying to make these students the leaders of tomorrow by helping them develop the reading skills that will keep them in school, out of gangs, and realizing their full potential. Studies show that the single biggest predictor of academic success is the presence of books in the home. Yet, tragically, many children in the Redwood City area do not own a single book.

Together, we can help ALL our kids succeed in school and in life – simply by giving them books! Let’s each take some time to clear our cluttered shelves of books your family has outgrown, so that we may give those books a second life with a child who needs them. We need books for all ages, especially board books and picture books for the youngest readers. On (dates of drive here) I will collect books from the front of our neighborhood. Just respond to me by email or call xxx-xxx-xxxx and I will know to look for the books. Please help us fulfill the needs of our community!

Thank you,

(name)

For Immediate Release

Contact:
Name
Sponsoring Organization
Contact Phone Number

Book Drive to benefit Redwood City Youth

October, 2013 Redwood City, CA – During the first two weeks of October, the Redwood City Youth Literacy Council will be conducting a city-wide book drive. Studies show that the single biggest predictor of academic success is the presence of books in the home. Yet, tragically, many children in the Redwood City area do not own a single book.

“We feel that education is one of the key ways children can become successful in life. We need to make a positive impact by helping children break the cycle of poverty through literacy and education,” said the (key person in the community.).

During the first two weeks of October, students and residents of the Redwood City area are asked to bring a new or gently used to participating schools or Redwood City fire stations. These books will be used for literacy programs offered through the Redwood City Public Library and also gifts to children in the community. For more information, see (website set up for book drive url) or call xxx-xxx-xxxx.