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.

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.”

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.

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

Paige Pillon
Partnership Coordinator
West

We’re on the lookout!
Partnership Coordinator
Central

Caren Carrero
Partnership Coordinator
East

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 :)

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.