Coat Drive Volunteer Sign Up Sheet (free, online)

How to set it up

A coat drive is three jobs in a row: collect, sort, give away. The sheet has rows for each, so the person who can host a collection box at their office signs up for that, the person who can sort on a Saturday signs up for that, and the person with a van signs up to move the boxes between them.

Sorting is the bottleneck. Four people a shift, by size and by child or adult, with a row for washing and small repairs. Distribution day needs greeters and a sizing table more than it needs sorters; staff it separately.

Questions people ask

Can people donate coats through the page?

Use the last row: anyone who signs up for it is telling you a bag is coming, and you can reply with the drop-off address. Money donations go on your giving page; link it in the description.

How do we track how many coats came in?

Add a number question on the drop-off row ('How many coats?'). The answers add up on the People page and export to a spreadsheet.

We run this every November. Can we reuse it?

Copy the page next year with one click; the sites and shifts come with it, the names don't.

Why not a paper sheet or a Google Form?

A paper sheet lives in one place and fills up with the first people who walk past it. A Google Form takes forty signups for a row that needed two, and you find out in the spreadsheet. An online sign-up sheet closes each row when it's covered, sends a reminder the day before, and gives every person a link to cancel so the spot reopens. See the side-by-side with Google Forms.