Optoro is a reverse logistics technology company helping brands and retailers reduce supply chain waste. Every year we host a free community event called Swap Shop. Swap Shop brings our community together to trade used clothing, shoes and accessories so that these items don’t end up in landfills.
Every year, millions of quality items are sent to landfills, resulting in billions of pounds in waste. The clothing industry is the second largest polluter in the world, surpassed only by petroleum.
For every item that attendees brought to the event, they received a ticket which could be used to trade in for other items at the Swap Shop. Most attendees came with 20+ articles of clothing, and walked away with a new wardrobe! Over 4,000 items were brought to the event to be reused.
Clothing leftover at the end of the day – almost 600 lbs worth – were donated to charity to help with job creation.
In addition to Swap Shop, we’re doing a “Q4 volunteer challenge”– the employee who spends the most time Giving Back — whether through our formal VTO policy or on their own time– will receive $500 to donate to their charity of choice!
To help other companies have an impact, here are five tips to increasing participation in community engagement:
- Track and share your progress- We have a poster in our kitchen that shows our company progress towards1%. Updated weekly, the poster is broken down by team to show which teams are leading and which teams have more hours to go. This is a great way to celebrate leaders and remind others what needs to be done to hit our goal.
- Organize an annual company-wide volunteer outing- Each year our company takes a day off to spend time together. In the morning we volunteer in our community at various sites and then the afternoon is spent hanging out together listening to music and playing games.
- Create friendly competitions- We’re currently doing a “Q4 Volunteer Challenge”- the employee who logs the most volunteer hours will get $500 to donate to a charity of their choice. This has been a good motivator for a lot of employees who are passionate about specific causes.
- Monthly events- We have two organizations that we volunteer with every month. The day/time is the same each month. This consistency is helpful for long term planning and allows for whole teams to sign up for events together.
- Create a resource for managers- We created a list of local orgs that host volunteer opportunities and shared it with managers. The goal was to make it as easy as possible for busy managers to find opportunities that interest their teams.
