Post-Event Donation Wrap-Up Checklist

The event ends and the volunteers go home, and that is exactly when a group loses the value of everything it asked for. Unused items drift into someone's car, a prize nobody collected sits in a box, the records of who gave what stay in three different people's inboxes, and next year's committee starts from a blank page.

This checklist is the hour or two of wrap-up that prevents all of it. Work through it in the days after the event, with the donation request tracker open, and send the after-event notes from the donor thank-you kit. The rest of the library is at free fundraising resources.

On the night, before anyone leaves

• Collect every leftover item into one place. Unclaimed baskets, unopened donations, anything that did not make it onto a table.
• Put one named person in charge of it. Whoever takes the box home is responsible for it until the wrap-up is done.
• Keep the winner records together. Whatever you used to record who won what goes with the leftover items, not into a volunteer's pocket.
• Photograph what is left. A quick picture of the leftover pile settles a lot of later questions about what was there.
• Keep any gift cards separate and secured. They are small, easy to lose, and worth tracking card by card.

Reconcile what arrived against what was used

Go through the tracker row by row. Every donation should end the week with exactly one of these outcomes recorded.

A row with no outcome is the one that turns into an awkward question from a donor months later. Close them all.

Prizes nobody collected

1. Apply the rule you announced. If you told the room winners had to collect by a certain time or date, follow it, and write down what you did.
2. If you announced no rule, contact the winner. Use the details you took on the night, give a clear date to collect by, and record each attempt.
3. Decide in committee, not alone. What happens to a prize that is never claimed is a group decision, recorded in writing, so no single volunteer carries it.
4. Never quietly keep it. An unclaimed prize belongs to the event's purpose, not to whoever happens to have it.

Items that were not used

• List them in the tracker with where they are and who holds them.
• Check whether they will keep. Perishable items, dated passes and seasonal goods may not last until another event.
• Ask the donor if in doubt. A short note saying the item was not used, and asking whether they would like it used at a later event or another way, is honest and rarely unwelcome.
• Do not repurpose silently. Using a donated item for something other than what was described in the request is a decision the donor should hear about from you.

Close every donor's record

For each company that gave, confirm the tracker shows:

• the item as it actually arrived
• the date it was received
• whether the written thank-you has gone
• whether the after-event note has gone
• the name of the person who approved it, and how to reach them next time

The last line is the one that matters for next year. A contact name turns a cold request into a warm one.

The after-event note

Send it within a week or two. It says what happened, in plain words, and what the event paid for. Use the after-event section of the donor thank-you kit for the wording, and only say what is true - if the result is not final yet, say so and write again when it is.

Notes for next year's committee

Write these down while the event is fresh. Half a page is enough.

Keep this sheet with the tracker, in a shared place the next committee can find. Before the next round, look each company up in the donor directory - we track 4,000+ companies, and each page describes what that program has historically offered and where to check its current status.