There are many different funding options for charities – earned revenue, government funding, and donations being the primary examples. Even though the work furniture banks do can often lead to government grants, it shouldn’t be your sole source of revenue. In Canada, only 20.9% of revenue is generated by government funding. In the US, it’s significantly more, as a whopping 94% of revenues for tax-exempt organizations came from some sort of government funding (contracts, fees, grants, and gifts).
Government funding can be a great source of revenue when you first start out. However, you don’t want to rely on it. What if priorities or governments change and you no longer have the revenue to run your furniture bank?
Donations are great and show support from your community. However, once again, they make up only a small amount of what you need to run your furniture bank. The amount of revenue generated from donations is around 12%.
Other funding methods consist of foundation grants, corporate donations, and special fundraising events. To help increase your chance of becoming a recipient of any grants, make sure you track the data of the community members you serve. Collect the basic demographic information (individuals and families) and their situation (formerly homeless, newcomers or refugees, at-risk youth, women and children, etc.). Knowing this information will help you target grants that work to help solve these challenges.
Operating a social enterprise is how many furniture banks around North America provide themselves with a majority of their revenue. Operating a furniture removal service or a thrift store is built into the work we do – collecting and giving furniture.
The Technological Bonus – Software
While the most important things to get a furniture bank off the ground are discussed above. Before you officially get going, you’ll probably want to figure out your software needs. There are many options. And, for the first bit, you might not need a ton of different software, especially if your run a small operation. However, once you start to grow, you’ll want to make things as easy as possible. These are just some of the areas you’ll want to consider having dedicated software options:
- Inventory and in-kind delivery tracking
- Community member management
- Communications and marketing
- Fundraising
Trucking and logistics
Using technology helps your track both operations and your impact. Software can give you an understanding of where you need to improve, where you excel, and enables you to give hard data to potential funders. Focus on the things above, but don’t forget about software once you get going.
It’s Only the Beginning
This post isn’t a full intensive guide to running a furniture bank. However, it should give you some stepping stones to see if starting a furniture bank is right for your area. Additionally, it should give you an idea of operational considerations to make sure you succeed in getting furniture and helping your community members out of furniture poverty.
All furniture banks have the combined goal to end furniture poverty across North America. And the best way to do that is to give them the items they need to turn their house into a home. Above are just some of the steps to start doing just that.