How to Design Nonprofit Merchandise for Volunteers

Did you know that about one-third of the nonprofit workforce comprises unpaid volunteers? These supporters assist with everything from administrative tasks to fundraising events to essential everyday chores, freeing up time for your staff.

To keep these valuable supporters, you must deepen their engagement with your cause and foster a strong sense of community. One way to do this is with custom merchandise complete with your nonprofit’s branding. Something as simple as giving your volunteers matching t-shirts can make them feel like part of your team, and inspire them to continue pushing forward your mission.

Let’s explore the benefits of custom volunteer merchandise and a few key tips to remember when designing your nonprofit’s merchandise.

What are the benefits of custom volunteer merchandise?

Offering merchandise is a great way to recognize volunteers’ contributions, welcome them onto your team, and strengthen their connections with each other and your staff members. Some of the other key benefits include: 

• Increased visibility and brand awareness. For public-facing volunteer opportunities, like a walk-a-thon fundraiser or beach clean-up day, matching apparel is an effortless way to spread awareness of your nonprofit and makes it clear that volunteers are working with your organization. The merchandise may even be a conversation starter that gets passersby interested in your cause.
• Cultivates relationships among volunteers. Merchandise reinforces the idea that volunteers are on the same team, boosting the chances that they’ll form friendships. This will make their time volunteering more enjoyable, emphasize teamwork, and foster a sense of unity that encourages them to come back for future volunteer opportunities.
• Provides a souvenir. Volunteers gain a tangible reminder of the time they spent supporting your cause. Each time they look at or wear the merchandise, they’ll remember their fulfillment and satisfaction after volunteering. 

Volunteer merchandise can also enhance your organization’s credibility. Think of volunteer merchandise as a uniform—it clearly marks volunteers as a coordinated group and makes your nonprofit appear organized and professional. This will increase trust in your organization, earning you more support.

How can your nonprofit create merchandise for volunteers?

One of the few drawbacks of custom merchandise is the price point and logistical management. Let’s explore how to choose a vendor that considers nonprofit needs to mitigate these hurdles.

Select a custom merchandise design service.

Choosing the right service is the most important step in designing high-quality volunteer merchandise. Strongly consider a service that is tailored to nonprofits. Not only will these vendors better understand your needs, but they may also have policies that reduce expenses for your organization.

Bonfire’s guide to fundraising websites recommends choosing a reliable platform with traits like:

• Easy setup
• Free or low platform costs
• Quick fund disbursement
• Stringent security
• Friendly customer service

Other common pain points with nonprofit merchandise include holding inventory and handling orders. To save time and avoid wasting resources on backstock that never gets purchased, opt for a service that will make items to order and manage shipping for you.

Identify the purpose of the items.

Align with your team on what the purpose of this merchandise will be. For example, is your goal to:

• Recruit more volunteers?
• Recognize the hard work and sacrifice of your volunteers?
• Boost team cohesion to make your efforts more effective?
• Promote a specific event, program, fundraiser, or other initiative?
• Incentivize supporters to participate in volunteer activities?
• Facilitate long-term engagement?

Key merchandise in mind for other areas of your operations, too. Merchandise sales can supplement initiatives like peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns by offering a tangible item donors receive in exchange for participating. You can also incorporate merchandise into fundraising events for an easy way to boost your revenue and ROI.

Choose merchandise types.

Next, select the types of merchandise you’ll offer to volunteers. While the most common and versatile option is t-shirts, there are plenty of other options like:

• Hats
• Mugs
• Pants and shorts
• Activewear 
• Bags 
• Notebooks and other stationery 

Select items with the purpose of the merchandise in mind. For example, if you’ll sell items to your supporters as part of a fundraiser, you might offer fun options like water bottles. Or, if you’ll require volunteers to wear the item during each shift, choose a practical, high-quality shirt that can hold up to frequent wears and washes.

Align on a design.

With all of the prep work complete, it’s time to create your merchandise design! This process can be cyclical and may involve multiple rounds of reviewing and revising your design to find the one all your stakeholders resonate with. Here are the basic steps:

1. Gather brand assets. As Kwala explains, your nonprofit’s branding includes your organization’s color palette, typography, logo, and tagline. Feature each of these elements on your merchandise to enhance recognition, brand awareness, and design consistency.
2. Brainstorm design ideas. Sketch out a few concepts and determine where design elements will go on your merchandise. Additionally, decide what text, imagery, and graphics you’ll include.
3. Start creating your design. Use your merchandise vendor’s design tool to build the design. Most services offer templates that are premade by graphic designers. Consider starting with a template and tweaking small elements to make it your own.
4. Share a mockup. Finalize your design and share mockups of what the merchandise will look like with your team and key stakeholders. Be open and receptive to feedback, and implement changes to make the design more effective or compelling. 
5. Create the merchandise! Once your design is approved, it’s time to start sharing it with your volunteers!

As you experiment with your design, keep core design principles in mind, such as the rule of thirds, balance, and the scale of various design elements. Use large font sizes to ensure all text is readable and provide sufficient contrast between the background color of the item and the text. 

Promote the merchandise to your volunteers.

Once the item is ready for volunteers to order and wear, all that’s left to do is market it to them. Select your marketing strategies based on how you will use the volunteer merch:

• Mandatory “uniform” for volunteers: If you will require volunteers to wear the merchandise, it’s best to provide them with the item at no cost—although you can communicate that they are welcome to make a voluntary donation! Position the merchandise as an added bonus or incentive supporters receive when volunteering.
• An optional purchase for volunteers: In this case, spread the word about the merchandise on digital marketing channels like email, social media, and your website. Share the design, emphasize the item's quality, and communicate how the purchase will benefit your nonprofit.

To reach volunteers directly, promote the merchandise via your volunteer management software. Share links, post images of the design, or offer special discounts to incentivize purchases. 

Teamwork is a core principle of every successful volunteer program—and it’s built on trust and a sense of community. Custom merchandise will foster these feelings of belonging, tying volunteers to a group of like-minded individuals and a nonprofit whose work they are proud of. Design your merchandise with care—a simple branded t-shirt could be the beginning of years of support from a volunteer.