PLEASE READ!
WE ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED UNTIL JULY 2024 FOR NEW CHAPTERS. WE ALSO REQUIRE ANYONE INTERESTED TO FIND A CO-LEADER TO JOIN THEM PRIOR TO SUBMITTING OUR FORM
SO YOU WANT TO START A CHAPTER?
LET’S GET TO IT!
We’re looking for inspiring individuals who want to bake a difference in the world by starting a chapter of For Goodness Cakes in their community. First, check if we’re already in your city! Also, check if there is a Cake4Kids, a similar organization to us, in your city! Then, if neither of us are in your city, read on to discover more about how you can begin this program:
WHAT YOU’LL BRING
Drive - you take initiative in your tasks, whether it’s communicating with agencies, making sure all the cake requests are fulfilled each month, or looking for opportunities to raise money to support your chapter
Empathy - you practice this in your communications toward volunteers, agencies, and donors, and approach interpersonal relations humbly and happily. You set the example!
Appetite - you have this to learn and use our software, which is the backbone of running your chapter and is critical to success
Time - you have about 40 hours per month (with some breaks throughout the year, of course!) to dedicate toward running your chapter. Once in a while you may have to bake and deliver an emergency cake, too!
WHAT YOU’LL GET
Comprehensive Training - Raising money for your initial implementation fee won’t be done without significant help. At set fundraising milestones you’ll get in-depth training how we work, about our culture, fundraising, agency and volunteer management, and use of the software we employ to keep us humming along.
A Support System - Your support doesn’t start and end with training - it begins the moment you raise your interest in starting a chapter. We’re with you 100% of the way! We have a Big/Little Sprinkler program (mentorship of current/new Chapter Leaders) and utilize an amazing on-the-go communications app called Slack, so you’ll have real-time conversations with other chapter leaders around the US to help one another as you make an impact in your communities - together.
FUNDRAISING
First question we always get - fundraising! What’s it all about? How much do we need to raise?
We won’t sugar coat it – In order to run a For Goodness Cakes Chapter, you’ll have to raise an initial commitment to start the Chapter, and then $5,000 every year to keep the Chapter running (we recommend raising $1250 every quarter). This helps pay for our software subscription, insurance, our volunteer recognition goodies, and helps fund contract positions to help us keep growing and getting stronger!
Hear what our Chapter Leaders have to say about fundraising in the videos below.
Brittany Puckett
Former Albuquerque Chapter Leader
Volunteer since 2018
“The initial fundraising amount felt pretty insurmountable. I thought about my love of birthdays, giving baked goods to others, and the need for positivity and encouragement to our most vulnerable youth in the community. Why not just jump in, and see where things go? If I didn’t raise the money, I’ve raised awareness for a good cause. I’ve asked plenty of people and been told no - they’ll tell you no. You just have to keep looking for people who want to hear about what we’re doing and are interested to help out. Recognizing that community buy in is invaluable. These are the tiny “way to go” moments that keep you on course when it seems insurmountable.”
All in all, our Chapter Leaders have had a lot of success fundraising in various ways that we have a ton of material all ready to go for you like signage, posters, and things that have worked! We’re always looking out for other ways to fundraise, so we’re open to all kinds of ideas. Some Chapters find a local business that ends up sponsoring their whole year’s annual commitment. Lucky ducks! But sometimes it takes a few years to get to that point of recognition in a City, and if that’s the case, you have even more support – our Fundraising Manager will help guide you when applying for Grants and all the nitty gritty details during your monthly 1-on-1’s!
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A CHAPTER LEADER
What do you think so far? Here’s more about what being a Chapter Leader is all about and the day-to-day:
MONDAY
Check the Task Calendar! You make sure the requests we’re receiving are standard and notice that a new and very excited Volunteer has taken quite a few cakes (more than three!) despite the maximum per month. You send them a kind but firm email thanking them for spreading love, joy, and frosting, but ask that they give up all but two for their fellow Sprinkle Squad members.
TUESDAY
One of your Volunteers has called in sick. So you express a big super-sprinkler-thank-you to the Volunteer in maintaining safe practices and unassign the request from them. Unassigning makes the cake request go back on the Task Calendar.
If the date is super close (1-3 days), then you make the decision: emergency baker time, your chance to bake, or posting a last minute request on our Facebook group.
WEDNESDAY
Time to check the Task Calendar again, and send a note to one of your Agencies asking how they’re doing. It’s good to keep up!
Curiosity gets the best of your motivation today and you connect with your region’s Partnership Coordinator to ask about getting a few new Agencies.
THURSDAY
You wonder how you’re doing with fundraising and decide to check your funds. You notice a couple more donations - let’s send them a personal thank you email for supporting your chapter!
Make sure to mark the donation as “Thank You Sent?” Yes in Argenta!
FRIDAY
You’re looking forward to the weekend and want to direct your positivity by commenting cupcake-y things to our volunteer’s cake pictures on our Facebook group. They feel so supported by your words! Oh, and check the Task Calendar too :) You also send an email to a volunteer prior to baking their “first” bake to see if they have any questions/concerns about the cake/cupcakes/timing/contact, etc.
SATURDAY
Take a break - you deserve it! You get an email but notice it’s not pressing - it can wait until Monday, so you send a quick note letting them know you’ve seen the email and that you’ll get back to them within the next few days.
SUNDAY
A new week, a whole new set of amazing possibilities. You have lunch with a friend who tells you they took this super fun baking class through Zoom - what a great idea for your volunteers! They’re going to put you in touch with the person who ran the class, and you’re already brainstorming your next Instagram post.
Have you thought about a Chapter Co-Leader?
Maybe a friend, coworker, or someone you know in your community who loves to bake and help run things? What a Co-Leader can offer is “strength in numbers,” to help your chapter as you both grow it - because it’s going to get big!
Still interested? Keep going!
REGIONAL DIRECTORS
The Regional Director’s job is to help you run your chapter. Have questions about day-to-day operations?
Maybe you need help with a particular volunteer, or an agency? They’re here to support you through this!
(NOTE: All of our RDs are former Chapter Leaders, so they have definitely been in your shoes!)
Kim Roberts
Regional West Director
Former OC Chapter Leader
Peek a boo, is this you??
Regional Central Director
Former Chapter Leader
Amanda Fierro
Regional East Director
Former North Jersey Chapter Leader
PARTNERSHIP COORDINATORS
We know running a chapter can get a bit much, especially with Agency Management. The Partnership Coordinators are here to support by doing all that research for you! All you have to do is hop on the call with a new agency and sign them up, easy peasy.
Paige Pillon
Partnership Coordinator
West
We’re on the lookout!
Partnership Coordinator
Central
Caren Carrero
Partnership Coordinator
East
VOLUNTEER RECOGNITION & FUNDRAISING
Jeanne Ackerman
Director of Volunteer Recognition
We’re here to help you get the most comfortable with fundraising, and to ensure you’re on track throughout the year. We’ve developing an easier onboarding guideline to make it easier for you to develop your own fundraising strategy based on your community. Got questions? Just ask in Slack!
You’re going to have some great volunteers, and immediately you’ll wonder “How can I properly thank and appreciate them?” Jeanne is your Director of Volunteer Recognition, and she can help you figure out how to best do that. That includes using the funds you’ve raised to do a little appreciation event!
CAKE TECH
We put an emphasis on technology and software to help automate some of the touchpoints and make your job - the Chapter Leader - easier!
Fun Fact: Our very own CTO Christine created Argenta! 🥳🥳🥳
What is it? It’s a CRM platform that hosts basically every single thing we do at For Goodness Cakes - yahoo! Efficiency! Think Salesforce, but for nonprofits :)
We use this sweet piece of technology to run the backbone of our entire organization from volunteer management to fundraising to our Cake Calendar. It may be intimidating at first, but don’t worry, you’ll be trained on it!
We also use a few other platforms like Zoom and Slack to communicate and host weekly Zoom Brunches to connect with each other in case you have any questions as they pop up! Sometimes it’s just easier to connect face-to-face than type out a long message :)
EXPECTATIONS
Setting Expectations #1 - On Our Side
We’re growing and we’re reorganizing a few things - it’s taking some time! While we absolutely love the thought of having a bajillion For Goodness Cakes Chapters, we need to be 100% realistic in order to be successful :). Our staff is currently 100% volunteer, including all the Chapter Leaders, Executive Staff, your Regional Directors, and Partnership Coordinators, and we’ve done so much great work to make things as efficient as we can, but as we are growing - we’re always working on streamlining our Chapter Leader Training and Chapter Opening processes and other communication efforts for the org as a whole and we want you to know that upfront :)
Setting Expectations #2 - On Your Side
We’d like you to ask yourself that in your premiere dreamy normal life schedule, would you have time for running a For Goodness Cakes Chapter, including the day-to-day operations, fundraising events, and social media efforts? How well would you collaborate and communicate with your co-leader to be able to plan and strategize effectively? When you’re up against an obstacle, how likely are you to reach out to your leadership for help? How adept are you at learning new technology? As a remote organization, it’s important that we bring on individuals who can work with others and be honest/communicate when they’re having issues. Your leadership is here for you - we’ve all been where you are, but we can’t help if you don’t let us know.
Once you’re in the swing of things, we ideally think it takes about 10-15 hours/week to run a Chapter smoothly. In the initial building a totally-new-Chapter stage, it may take a little bit more time than that since everything is so ~ squeaky ~ new.
We like to think of For Goodness Cakes as a Top 5 Priority™ in our staff’s life, something like this:
1. Family/friends
2. Work or school
3. Self-care
4. Hobbies & fun
5. For Goodness Cakes (Volunteer Service)
It doesn’t mean you can’t open a Chapter if it’s not a Top 5 Priority™, but you’ll quickly find out that a successful Chapter is one that’s high on that list. If For Goodness Cakes is at the bottom of your Top 20 Priority™ List, please consider holding off on opening a Chapter until you have more time in your schedule - we know we know, too much cool stuff in the world to explore!
Don’t worry though, you’ll definitely still have a life if you’re running a Chapter! We’ve had Chapter Leaders go on honeymoons, take long vacays, have new babies (so cute!), start businesses, switch jobs, and more while running a Chapter - it just all comes down to each individual. Your co-leader and you can take turns if one of you needs a little time off, and your Regional Directors are always a message or phone call away.
WHADDYA THINK??
ARE YOU READY TO START A CHAPTER? :D :D :D
NOTE: Chapter Submissions will be considered for opening end of 2024 🥳💖🎂
Wooooohooo!!! Please fill out this form and we’ll get back to you in a couple days :)