My Stuff Bags Foundation

Founded in 1998, the My Stuff Bags Foundation provides duffels of new belongings to children nationwide who must be rescued from abuse, neglect, abandonment, homelessness, and child trafficking. Traumatized by the events leading to their rescue, these children often arrive at crisis shelters and foster care with nothing of their own. Rescuing agencies rarely have the resources to provide something as essential as a toothbrush or as comforting as a teddy bear. We fill that gap with My Stuff Bags, individual duffels lovingly packed by volunteers with donated, new childhood essentials. My Stuff Bags address the immediate physical and emotional needs of these disadvantaged children, helping support the agencies caring for them.<br><br>Each My Stuff Bag sends the message to a hurting child that their community and country surrounds them with love and support. To date, more than 630,000 children across the United States have received a My Stuff Bag.<br>

Since the My Stuff Bags Foundation has already provided more than 650,000 rescued children with the

Goal One: The Foundation will continue to fundraise through online solicitations, grant proposals, direct mail, social media and email campaigns, benefit events, fundraisers, and speaking presentations.

Goal Two: The Foundation petitions and receives large donations of new children’s items. We will increase solicitations for in-kind donations to manufacturers, corporations, and community organizations.

Goal Three: The Foundation will continue volunteer recruitment through increased participation at volunteer fairs, and keep expanding our outreach to local community organizations, corporations, and schools.

Program and Development Associates participate in weekly sessions led by the CEO to discuss and plan the implementation of development efforts. Program and Development Associates are coached on relationship development with the Foundation’s Partner Agencies to meet our distribution goals across the United States. Program and Development Associates are provided with communication tools and resources throughout the year to ensure donor retention and to secure large donations of in-kind items from prospective manufacturers. Program and Development Associates are coached on relationship development throughout the year with individual, community, and corporate volunteers, and provided with communication tools and resources to recruit new volunteers.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented several major challenges to our organization, which compelled us to quickly adapt our volunteer program, donor retention efforts, and Bag distribution model. First, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we could not allow volunteers (our major labor force, 2000 Volunteers per year) into our Volunteer Center to help us prepare and fill the My Stuff Bags. During the lockdown, our loyal volunteers were happy to participate in remote projects, such as assembling toiletry pouches and name tags, and making blankets, which helped speed up production and distribution of My Stuff Bags. Our Volunteer Center eagerly reopened to vaccinated volunteers in the spring of 2021, and safely allowed Stuff-a-Thons and other volunteer activities to resume. Second, schools, community and corporate groups were not allowed to enter our building with collections of new items for the kids. In response, we provided a contactless donation drop-off bin which was soon overflowing with new items each day. We called upon major in-kind donors to provide large quantities of blankets, stuffed animals, clothing, books and more to fill the Bags. Despite the economic struggle, many of our monetary donors generously continued making contributions, some even increased their giving! Lastly, many of our Partner Agencies had to adjust to remote work situations and were temporarily unable to reach children in need of services. Our small staff safely kept production going, in anticipation of the increase in domestic violence cases, and the rising numbers of children entering crisis care. In 2021, we partnered with a new shipper to deliver Bags at a lower rate to rescuing agencies across the country, and encouraged local agencies to safely pick up the My Stuff Bags from our distribution center. Despite these challenges and adaptations, nearly 34,000 children in need received a My Stuff Bag through 144 Partner Agencies in 19 states in the 2020-2021 fiscal years.