Partner with SimpleGesture.org!
We built this page for a potential Brand Partner to get more information about SimpleGesture.org.
SimpleGesture.org Overview
The home page and other parts of this website go into far more detail. But for a quick overview;
- We provide households a reusable high visibility bag to fill with nutritious food. They set on their porch on the ‘Event Day’, and we deliver it to a local food pantry
- There are over 125 similar programs operating nationwide. Last year over 4.5 million pounds of food came in.
- SimpleGesture.org is a local start-up to provide operational support, software, training, and methodology for pickup events to happen at high scale.
- The objective is 8-12% of households in each community participating.
- The food stays local, going to nearby a Food Bank or Pantry.
- We make it simple for donors to get involved. Most people want to help, they just need an easy way.
- The SimpleGesture Web App is a ‘do it all’ program. Reducing what would otherwise take 40+ hours to less than one hour to do all the planning and execution for each event.
- The Web App automates 98% of donor and driver communication.
- The drivers are volunteers. About 15% of all donors agree to be on the eligible driver list.
- The Web App runs optimization algorithms to optimize ’least mile’ routes, delivered to the drivers smart phones.
- Real-time tools provide a dashboard with immediate donation results and route progress, highlighting trouble spots for quick action.
A few examples of how big these programs can get;
- Greensboro NC has 4000 donors, 250 drivers, and ~80,000 pounds a month
- Ashland and Bend OR both have thousands of donors providing more than 40,000 pounds a month
- About 20 programs are well above 5000 pounds a month
The problem: It takes way too much time to plan/organize. The average time for a larger program is 40-50 hours per event (per month). This is the #1 deterrent for this program to spread. We need to remove this ‘barrier of entry’.
We started SimpleGesture.org in October of 2025 to solve the problem. Over 90% of the time can be eliminated through automation. We live in Sonoma County, so we picked our local communities to be the starting point.
Our SimpleGesture.org Web App has reduced this time to about one hour!
- We have opened 18 chapters across 5 counties, heavy concentration in Sonoma County
- We have completed over 100 events
- We have more than 1400 registered donors
- We will surpass 100,000 pounds of collected food by the end of July, '26
- and we are just getting started….
What a Brand Partner Provides to SimpleGesture.org
The Brand Partners provides several things to aid SimpleGesture.org in its mission to reduce food insecurity and hunger in our communities.
Of course, one of the most important roles is to provide financial support. SimpleGesture.org is a 'near zero cost' way to greatly improve food insecurity and hunger relief in local communities. So the great news is, we don't need a lot of money. We can do 20-30 times more with your financial support than nearly any other hunger relief program. More about our financial needs can be found further down the page.
In addition, a Brand Partner may prefer direct involvement in the program. By getting involved it only helps us do more, and it's a great way for the Brand Partner to get some benefits in return. For example;
- participation in donor drive events can be great team building
- volunteering to drive, another great team building activity
- encouraging its employees, vendors and customers to participate, providing more food donations and positive brand exposure by showing their commitment to the local community
What SimpleGesture.org Provides to a Brand Partner
There are three primary benefits a Brand Partner can expect;
- High brand exposure to the donors and drivers. This is especially true if the brand partner is exclusive or there are no more than two. For example, their logo on the bag, and even choosing a bag color that matches to the brand. A bag is typically handled 3 times per event, which can be up to 36 exposures per month. We can get to 8-12% of households (many ahead of us are doing much better already), that's both market saturation and high repeat exposure!
- Community Wide Exposure; several recurring home food donation programs have already achieved more than 15% household participation. In Ashland OR nearly 1/3 of the households have a high visibility green bag on their doorstep. They call it "Green Bag Day", and everyone knows who's behind it.
- Media Exposure; The Chapter and SimpleGesture.org will be promoting the program through newspaper and magazine articles, social media and other media. They will include the Brand Sponsors name to enhance the programs credibility and increase Brand Sponsor awareness.
The Brand Sponsor can also participate in creating their own community awareness campaign. They can use our name logo in their media activities. They can also get some positive team benefits by bringing their employees, vendors and even their customers into the program.
3 Partners Make One Great Program
There are 3 key participants to make a SimpleGesture.org chapter succeed. All 3 are essential to achieve the 8-12% of households objective we have for Sonoma County and beyond.
- The Brand Partner; the primary financial resource funding a near zero cost program. In many cases, this Brand Partner is the exclusive sponsor gaining excellent brand exposure supporting a major problem in every community. The Brand Sponsor can be very involved in donor development, strategy, and other key components of a chapter.
- Operating Partner; they run the program. This includes leading donor drivers, managing the drivers, and overseeing the pickup events. A typical OP would be a Rotary Club, a group of concerned citizens, or a Food Bank or Pantry.
- SimpleGesture.org; we provide the SimpleGesture Web App and other methodology to make it easy to operate large scale recurring food drive events.
Just how effective is SimpleGesture.org?
We already knew communities love the idea of leaving a bag of food on their doorstep for pick up. We started by conducting extensive interviews with more than 40 other programs. Using their data along with what we have collected we know the following;
- one in eight households, when asked, agree to be a donor
- a donor will average 14.2 pounds per bag
- the average value of one pound is $2.20
- over 80% of the food we collect matches to the "Needs List" we put on the front of the bag. This is VERY IMPORTANT, and will be explained in the next section.
- Most Sonoma County Chapters run an event every month, 12 per year.
- The average pickup rate is 60% of the donor base at that time.
- The average donor stays in the program a long time. We only have 15 years of data, but the average is already 5+ years. We expect this to be higher as we get more years under a belt since many donors have been doing it for all 15 years.
The average donor provides over $1100 of food over their entire participation cycle! This is the incredible value of 'recurring food drive' vs. one time ask for food or money.
WE ARE BUILDING A FOOD MACHINE:
Most of the aid going into hunger relief is to buy food. Food Banks can convert a $1 donation to about $2.80 of purchased food. This purchased food is the best food they provide since its high nutrition.
SimpleGesture.org can convert $1 into more than $40 of food! This is why we say we are a "near zero cost" solution. It costs us about $27 to on-board a new donor and keep them supplied with information, bags and all transactional costs over their participation cycle. When you divide $1100 by $27 you can see how we achieve this remarkable Return on Investment.
We like to think of it as building a food machine, vs. buying food. Once that purchased food is consumed it's gone, awaiting more money to buy more food. We spend the money to get donors and to support their participation. They provide the food and the drivers provide the logistics.
How does SimpleGesture.org use money?
We have three main ways to answer this important question;
First, we have our SimpleGesture.org Web App, which is the main cost we currently face. The good news is we are 80% to completion, we need help getting to the finish line. This app is the "Do Everything". Designed by an efficiency expert with more than 40 years studying and optimizing work-flows and programmed by a professional programming team in Alabama. The Web App's cost will be nearly $150,000 when finished, but it's well worth the cost.
- Over 98% of the communications between the Chapter and the Donors/Drivers is automated, yet personal. "Hello Bob, SimpleGesture.org would like to know if you will have a food donation out front on July 11th at 9am? Reply YES or NO".
- The app provides 3 programs to engage donors; 1) Donor/Driver (donors and drivers are brought together through an optimization program, 2) Neighborhood Coordinators (donors are part of a tight knit community, all working together to grow the program among their neighborhood), and 3) Community Circles (the program is groups that share a central meeting point; schools, churches, businesses, clubs, HOA's bring their food to a central point rather than it being picked up)
- The app gives each Chapter a local web-page so donors and drivers can see its their community that is doing all this. Chapters can use their own logos and banners, upload their own story board, and use their own photos and other images.
- The Chapters create Campaigns, each with their own webpage. These provide donors a customized and localized landing page to review before agreeing to register.
- And much more.....
Second, we have our on-going operating costs. These are tied to a "cost per donor".
- 3 reusable bags (which make a great billboard for brand images
- Email and texting services
- SQL database and web hosting
- Utilizing Google Fleet Manager through API real-time connectivity to get optimized routing for huge volumes of donors/drivers
- Information cards
Third, and perhaps most important; Donor Development.
SimpleGesture.org has developed methodology to make donor development very effective. The 'zero cost' solution is for Chapters to do the work. They can be at booths, spread by word-of-mouth, do social media and many other methods detailed on our "how to run a chapter" pages.
In addition, we have a methodology where we pay people to register donors. These people work at Farmers Markets, Fairs, Music Festivals, and other community events. These have proven to be very effective, and the cost of this is about $13-$15 per donor. That may seem like a lot, but consider that same donor will provide $1100 on average, its nearly a 80 times return on cost.
All of these costs are built into our model explained above that can convert $1 into more than $40 of food.
