The PTAA Food Drive has evolved over 10+ years from collecting a couple thousand cans of food at a single meeting to providing over 150,000 meals last year through strategic partnerships, creative events, and social media engagement. Key partnerships include the Greensboro Grasshoppers and Winston-Salem Dash baseball teams for "Fill the Stands with Cans" nights which generate food donations and community exposure through promotions and live news remotes. These partnerships and creative events like "Matt's Run to Fight Hunger" have helped grow the Food Drive and further the goals of member engagement, positive publicity, and community relationships.

1. Partnerships + Creativity +
Social Tools =
150,000 Meals
JON LOWDER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
PIEDMONT TRIAD APARTMENT ASSOCIATION
@JLOWDER

2. What is PTAA?
Local trade association for the apartment industry (think Chamber of
Commerce for the apartment industry)
Represent 350 apartment communities, about 54,000 apartment units, in Triad
+ 150 vendor companies that sell products and services to them
$600,000 gross revenue; 3 employees

3. About the PTAA Food Drive
Ongoing "signature" community service project to benefit Second Harvest Food
Bank of NWNC
Goal is to raise as much food and cash for Second Harvest as we can in a year,
particularly the summer months (because school is out the need is up, but
donations are lower than normal)
Started over 10 years ago.
◦ 1st year we collected a couple of thousand cans of food (about 1,750 meals)
◦ Last year we collected enough food cash to provide 156,000 meals
Will talk about how it has evolved over the years and how we've leveraged our
volunteers and partnerships to grow the program

4. Why We Do It
Member engagement
◦ Our community service events get more involvement from a wider variety of
members than any other events we do
Good PR
◦ 9 times out of 10 when apartments are mentioned on the news it's in a
negative light - fire, crime, blighted housing, bad landlord stories, etc.
Developing relationships with local organizations and elected leaders
Because we feel good doing it

5. How the
Food Drive
Evolved
Over Time
2005 Collect
Food at One
Meeting
2007
Initiate
Owners Cup
Challenge
2010
Launch Fill
the Stands
with Cans

6. In the Beginning
In the beginning we just had members bring food to a
dinner meeting that we had.
Then we started a competition. Member companies could
compete to see which could collect the most food over a
set amount of time. Winner gets to keep the Owners Cup
in their office for the next year.

7. Next Level
Five years ago a new chairperson of our committee
took over and wanted to ramp up the program.
Dale Holder, Food Drive Chair Extraordinaire
Set goals to get more exposure, involve the general
public and generate more excitement and
involvement within our membership.

8. Partnerships
Greensboro Grasshoppers and
Winston-Salem Dash
Fill the Stands With Cans

9. Partnerships
WXII
Donated 15 and 30 second ads
Got the mayors of each town to
volunteer to do the ads. Highlighted
friendly competition between cities.
Live remotes on gamedays

10. Developing the Partnerships
It took time to develop trust with our partners
First couple of years we had Mon/Tue games at each park. Now we get Thu/Fri
games
Ads were running at 3 a.m. or on the MeTV slot primarily. Started getting much
more primetime play the last couple of years

11. Building Around Fill the Stands
Started using the games as great networking events for our members.
The games became a jumping off point for our overall food drive campaign and
spawned related events run by some of our members:
◦ Matt's Run to Fight Hunger
◦ Got You Floored customer loyalty program
◦ Blue Ridge Companies annual campaigns

12. Organizing
Thank you Google docs!
Tracking donations
Tracking box drop offs/ pick ups

13. Marketing/Publicizing
Social Media
◦ Before
◦ During
◦ After
Internal vs external audiences

14. Internal Audience
Our members are very active on
Facebook
Set up events pages for each game
◦ 250 engagements for Dash
◦ 1,000 engagements for Hoppers
Photo Albums After the Games
“Where’s Waldo” Pics of Dale and
Jon during box pickups at
communities

15. Internal Audience
WE USE OUR BLOG AS A WRITE ONCE, PUBLISH
MANY TIMES TOOL (TWITTER, FB, ETC)
POSTS ALSO END UP AS AN ARTICLE IN OUR
EMAIL NEWSLETTER

16. External Audience
Partnership with WXII
exponentially increased our
exposure to the general public
Ads promoting Fill the Stands With
Cans ran for weeks leading up to
the event

17. External Audience

18. External Audience
WXII live remotes gave the Fill
the Stands With Cans events a
tremendous amount of local
exposure and led to a lot of
participation from the general
public

19. External Audience
Each year we have the
opportunity to meet with the
mayors of Greensboro and
Winston-Salem while filming the
commercials.
Very valuable for relationship
building and pays off in our other
work
Moves us away from the “evil
landlord” perception

20. After the Fact
Acknowledge and thank your partners!
Letters
Plaques
Photo opps
Share the glory
Press Releases
Awards/Recognition

21. Lessons Learned
Building partnerships takes time and effort
◦ Each partner needs to get a “win” out of it
◦ WXII – Greensboro market, extension of their own program with Second Harvest, public service
◦ Grasshoppers and Dash – promotion for a game each, public service, lots of air time
◦ Second Harvest – Food/cash donations, lots of ad/PR mileage, strengthened partnerships in
community
Don’t expect it to be perfect from the start.
Best ideas will be generated by your volunteers – create an environment that
allows them to be inspired and inspiring. Just say yes!
You always have to evolve to keep people engaged

22. Lessons Learned
Remember that your volunteers have day jobs
Don’t expect it to be perfect from the start
Never underestimate the ability of one person to completely hose your
operational plan – or – why everyone should have to initial their changes to
the Google Doc
Having fun is a critical component…

24. Remember Why We Do It
Member engagement
◦ Our community service events get more involvement from a wider variety of
members than any other events we do
Good PR
◦ 9 times out of 10 when apartments are mentioned on the news it's in a
negative light - fire, crime, blighted housing, bad landlord stories, etc.
Developing relationships with local organizations and elected leaders
Because we feel good doing it

25. Added Bonus for Me
Getting out of the office to meet the members

26. I WANT YOU!
Help Second Harvest by making me suffer!
Jon’s Pentathlon of Pain
9/11/2015 – World Trade Center Memorial Stair Climb
9/26/2015 – Salem Lake 30K
Coming Soon – Dance Video Challenge from Blue Ridge
10/24/2015 – Ardmore RAH! 5K+10K
Date TBD – Rowing Challenge
Info at www.jonlowder.com
GoFundMe Site:
https://www.gofundme.com/jonsPOP

27. Contact Info
Day Job
Jon Lowder
Executive Director
Piedmont Triad Apartment Association
Email: jon@piedmonttaa.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/piedmonttaa
Twitter: @piedmonttaa
Blog: piedmonttaa.wordpress.com
Website: www.piedmonttaa.org
When I’m Pretending to Work
Blog: www.jonlowder.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/jonsfont
Twitter: @jlowder
Podcast: beerdadspodcast.wordpress.com