Many of your questions can be quickly answered by visiting the Hold a Coat Drive menu and the Online Guide. Some of the most common questions/requests are answered below. If your question/request is not answered in the FAQ section, please visit the Contact Us page.
Coat Drive Ambassador Frequently Asked Questions
All Coat Drive Ambassadors are able to choose during the registration process if they would like their coat drive to be listed on the public Donate Coats map. When registering, Ambassadors are able to add up to 5 collection sites to the map. If you have more than 5 locations, please email us before registering.
New this year, each Ambassador will have a goal bar for their coat totals on their coat drive page!
In the top bar of your personal coat drive page, click on the button that says “Coat Totals”. From the Coat Totals page, you can enter the number of coats collected throughout your drive. Every time you report, the total will appear on the goal bar and an update will pop-up on your coat drive home page to update everyone following your coat drive.
One Warm Coat drives accept most types of outerwear: coats, sweaters, jackets, sweatshirts, scarves, hats and gloves.
If you receive coats that are not clean and wearable, meaning they have holes and/or stains, please do not donate them to a nonprofit partner, rather please recycle them! Google “textile recycling near me” or contact a Goodwill in your area (many Goodwill locations will accept unwearable items for recycling). Our goal is to keep the coats out of landfills.
Time for Step 6 – Deliver Your Coats! You will decide where you will deliver the coats you collected. Please use the Nonprofit Locator Map to find a nonprofit partner near you. (One Warm Coat does not pick up coats).
The Nonprofit Locator Map not a complete list of organizations that support those in need — it is just the beginning. If you cannot find a nonprofit partner close by, search Google for homeless assistance, food pantries, churches in your area that serve those in need. Or call 211 for a listing of organizations.
One Warm Coat has one rule for coat donations, coats must be GIVEN away for free, and without discrimination.
Please contact your selected nonprofit partner before you deliver your coats to ensure they will be able to accept the coats.
Finally, all coats should be clean and ready to be worn!
During the coat drive registration process, you are able to create an account using Facebook. By linking your Facebook account to your personal coat drive page during registration, it allows you to comment on your personal coat drive page using your Facebook name. You may also share your coat drive page on Facebook, copy the URL and post it as your status on Facebook. Your followers will be able to then click on that link and go right to your personal coat drive page.
Facebook Fundraisers do not integrate directly with your coat drive page, and donations will not display on the Coat Drive page in real time. One Warm Coat receives disbursements of Facebook donations on a monthly basis.
At this time, you cannot link a Facebook Business or Managed Page with your personal coat drive page, you are only able to connect with a personal account.
Thank you for your donation! You can download a tax receipt, here. Please fill out the receipt with the number of coats or dollars donated and provide the receipt and value of coats donated (when applicable) to your tax professional.
One Warm Coat does not provide collection boxes. We encourage you to be creative and reduce/reuse/recycle old boxes, clean garbage cans – a container of any kind will work! Putting a collection bin together is super easy – we’ve provided step-by-step instructions for our registered Ambassadors.
No, we no longer mail printed Coat Drive Kits to our Ambassadors.
To ensure that we are using funds in the best way possible and providing as many coats to our neighbors as we can, we’ve gone digital! Registered Ambassadors receive a digital Welcome Packet once their registration is complete and are able to order several items from our new online store. Additionally, registered Ambassadors have access to many free tools and resources on our website.
No, One Warm Coat is not a grant-making organization. Any funds raised for One Warm Coat as part of a coat drive through One Warm Coat’s website or a third party fundraising platform, stay with One Warm Coat and support the Coat Drive Program.