Donate Furniture, Change Lives
A Grant Funded Capacity Building Campaign
Through a multi-year grant-funded marketing and capacity-building campaign, I helped double Flourish’s annual furniture donation intake—from 300 to 600 tons per year—by mobilizing new donors and amplifying our message.
Background & Goals
In 2022, one of Flourish’s biggest barriers to furnishing more homes was limited furniture donations and volunteer capacity. As a young nonprofit with low public visibility, Flourish was often mistaken for a thrift store. My goal was to reposition the organization—highlighting the direct impact of donations on local families, the environmental benefits of reuse, and the volunteer-powered repair process that restored every item for a new life.
Process
I wrote and managed two consecutive grants from the Mid-America Regional Council Solid Waste Management District, which supported a wide-reaching campaign and expanded our infrastructure. These grants:
Created two new full-time staff roles, increasing long-term organizational capacity
Funded a multi-channel marketing campaign that I designed and implemented
Supported major operational improvements, including a full-site organizing initiative and $5,000 in new repair equipment
The campaign featured truck wraps, direct mail, social media ads, radio spots, and a billboard—each one crafted to emphasize Flourish’s dual impact: keeping usable furniture out of landfills and helping families build a fresh start.
Impact
Furniture donations doubled from 300 to 600 tons annually
Volunteer base grew from 300 to 1,000
200 new furniture donors engaged
421 additional homes furnished over two years
2 new permanent staff positions funded
Over two years, the campaign contributed to a 75% increase in homes furnished, reaching 2,371 households—and proving that strategic, values-driven marketing can drive environmental and human transformation at once.
Truck Wraps
Flourish offers a volunteer-run furniture pickup program. Volunteers drive a small fleet of box trucks to make regular trips to homes and businesses. The pickups range from single pieces in family’s garages to cleaning out multiple floors of a hotel. However, without branded vehicles, we were missing out on thousands of miles of visibility in the community. By designing and funding truck wraps for our entire fleet, I helped make every pickup count not only for the furniture we collected but for awareness raised. To date, the truck wraps have garnered millions of impressions across the Kansas City metro, taking advantage of the trucks as mobile billboards to raise awareness about our mission.
Using brand colors, impactful imagery, and direct messaging, I created a visual design that communicated our mission and how the public could get involved.
Radio Ad
We partnered with HotJamz 103, a radio station hosted a few blocks away from us in Grandview. As the oldest black-owned-and-run radio stations in the country, they were a perfect platform to reach our community. We created a 30-second ad focused on volunteer recruitment and furniture donations that ran for several weeks.
Billboard
I created a bus billboard focused on volunteer recruitment and furniture donations. I chose to work with the KCATA’s mobile bus billboard program to reach people all across the city, rather than one fixed area. Part of the proceeds from the wraps also helped support our city’s bus system.
Instead of using stock photos, I wanted to showcase actual Flourish volunteers. I chose five volunteer roles to highlight: woodworking, dish-packing, vacuuming, sewing, and showroom hosting. The left to right layout represents the series of hands that furniture goes through at Flourish: from being cleaned and repaired to going home with a Flourish guest. Every home takes an average of 25 volunteer hours to furnish and there are more than 30 unique volunteer jobs. Combined with simple, direct messaging the bus billboards communicated the wide range of opportunities at Flourish and the direct impact they have for families.
Direct Mail Campaign
Flourish was founded as a church ministry in Leawood, a suburb in Kansas City, Kansas. When the organization became an independent nonprofit, it relocated to Grandview, Missouri, a township across the metro region. In order to increase furniture donations, I conducted a direct mail campaign to surrounding zip codes in our neighborhood.
Warehouse Organizing & Repair Equipment
As part of the waste diversion campaign, grant funds supported a full-scale transformation of our warehouse and repair spaces—maximizing efficiency, safety, and long-term sustainability.
We partnered with Efficiently Neat, a professional organizing firm, to lead a six-month collaborative project that involved Flourish staff and volunteers. Every area of our warehouse was evaluated and reorganized—from incoming donations and repair stations to inventory storage and volunteer workspaces. The result was a dramatically more functional and user-friendly environment that has increased productivity and made it easier for volunteers to contribute meaningfully.
In addition, we invested in new equipment to support our woodworking and upholstery departments. This included:
A belt sander for furniture refinishing
A table saw for custom furniture repairs
A Juki industrial serger sewing machine for high-quality upholstery work
Staff Impact
In addition to donation intake, the project helped build long-term capacity at Flourish. Through grant funding, we created two new full-time staff positions:
A Driver to ensure consistent home and corporate pickups
A Director of Volunteers to oversee volunteer recruitment, management, and training
These positions have become a vital part of the Flourish team, sustaining and expanding the environmental and social impact of the campaign.