Digital Marketing Tools
Your sneaker drive deserves great marketing. Use the tools below to promote your campaign, engage your audience, and drive more sneaker collections.
Social Media Graphics
Ready-to-post images sized for Instagram, Facebook, and more.
Shareable Insights
Copy and paste these into emails, social captions, flyers, newsletters, or anywhere else you’re promoting your drive.
- Recycling a pair of shoes is good, but keeping them in circulation is even better.
- Recycling asks what to do with something once we’re done with it, while a circular economy asks how to keep it in use so nothing new has to be made.
- We’ve partnered with GotSneakers, who inspect, clean and keep footwear in circulation, and our drive raises money along the way.
- One pair kept in use avoids about 30 pounds of CO2e, roughly what it takes to manufacture a new pair.
- One pair kept in use saves about 2,257 gallons of water, the water it takes to make a new pair from scratch.
- Every pair you send in adds to that, so check your closet and the back of the garage.
- Americans throw away an estimated 300 million pairs of shoes every year.
- Footwear doesn’t break down, so a pair in a landfill can sit there for decades.
- Most of those pairs still had life left in them, and that’s the part we can fix.
- GotSneakers partners have kept 5,350,000 pairs of footwear out of landfills.
- Partner drives have avoided 192,600,000 pounds of CO2e.
- Drives like ours have raised $3,760,000 for individuals, businesses and nonprofits.
- People buying secondhand instead of new have saved $28,435,000.
- Every one of those numbers started with somebody cleaning out a closet.
Email Templates
A five-email sequence for your footwear drive. Fill in the [brackets], send them in order, and space them across the length of your drive.
Suggested timing for a four-week drive
| When | Purpose | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Launch day | Announce it |
| 2 | 2–3 days later | Make the specific ask |
| 3 | Halfway | Share progress |
| 4 | 4–5 days before close | Final push |
| 5 | After it wraps | Thank everyone and share results |
Subject: We’re collecting shoes for [your cause]
Hi [First Name],
We’re kicking off a footwear drive to raise money for [your cause], and it runs from [start date] through [end date].
Could you look through your closet for shoes you don’t wear anymore? We’re especially hoping for pairs that you or your kids have outgrown, or that got replaced and never left the closet again.
We’re working with GotSneakers, who pay us for the footwear we collect. They inspect and clean every pair by hand, sell the wearable ones into secondhand markets where someone else gets to wear them, and recycle the rest, so nothing we collect ends up in a landfill.
That means every pair you bring in raises money for [your cause] and keeps a good pair of shoes in use, and the more we collect, the more it adds up.
You can drop shoes off at [location] during [hours], or [reach out to (name) at (email) to arrange a pickup].
Thank you,
[Your Name]
Subject: Can you find 5 pairs?
Hi [First Name],
Our footwear drive for [your cause] is underway, and we’re asking everyone to aim for 5 pairs.
That sounds like a lot until you start looking, because between your own closet and the shoes your kids have outgrown, most people get there faster than they expect. Name-brand athletic shoes raise the most for the drive, so those are a great place to start.
When a wearable pair gets worn again instead of thrown out, it stays in use and out of the landfill. Each pair kept in use avoids roughly 30 pounds of CO2e and 2,257 gallons of water, so your 5 pairs would add up to about 150 pounds of CO2e and over 11,000 gallons of water.
If 5 feels like too many, please bring whatever you have, because every pair counts toward our goal.
[Drop-off details]
Thank you,
[Your Name]
Subject: We’re [X]% of the way there
Hi [First Name],
Quick update on our footwear drive for [your cause]: we’ve collected [number] bags so far, which puts us at [X]% of our goal with [number] weeks left to close the gap.
If you haven’t had a chance to go through your closet yet, this week is a great time to do it. And if you’ve already dropped shoes off, thank you so much! The biggest help from here is passing the word along to a neighbor or friend.
[Drop-off details]
Thank you,
[Your Name]
Subject: Our footwear drive ends [day]
Hi [First Name],
We’re wrapping up our footwear drive for [your cause] on [end date], and so far we’ve collected [number] bags, which puts us at [X]% of our goal.
If you’ve been meaning to go through your closet, this is the week to do it. There’s no minimum, and even a single pair gets us closer.
As a reminder, we can take athletic shoes, cleats, boots and other footwear in wearable condition. We can’t accept single shoes, dress shoes, heels, wedges or water shoes.
Everything we raise goes toward [insert goal].
[Drop-off details]
Thank you for everything,
[Your Name]
Subject: Here’s what our footwear drive raised
Hi [First Name],
Our footwear drive is officially wrapped, and thanks to you, we collected [number] pairs and raised [amount] for [your cause].
Every one of those pairs will be worn again or recycled instead of going to a landfill. By keeping those pairs in use, our drive avoided roughly [number × 30] pounds of CO2e and saved [number × 2,257] gallons of water.
The money goes straight to [your cause / the specific thing it’s paying for], and none of it would have happened without everyone who took the time to dig through a closet, so thank you!
If you find more shoes after this, hang on to them, because we’ll be doing this again.
[Your Name]
Share the Word
Two ready-made ways to spread the word about your drive — a press release for local media, and a one-page overview to hand out or attach.
Fill in the [brackets] and send this to your local newspaper, community news site, school or church newsletter, chamber of commerce, and neighborhood groups. Local outlets run these more often than people expect, especially when a school, team or nonprofit is involved.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
[Your Organization] Launches Footwear Drive to Raise Money for [Your Cause]
Collected shoes will be cleaned and worn again instead of ending up in a landfill
[City, State] — [Month Day, Year] — [Your Organization] is holding a footwear drive from [start date] to [end date] to raise money for [your cause], and is asking the community to bring in gently worn athletic shoes, cleats and boots they no longer use.
The drive is run in partnership with GotSneakers, a Miami-based social enterprise that pays organizations for the footwear they collect. [Your Organization] will earn money based on the brand and condition of each pair, and all proceeds go to [your cause].
Collected footwear is inspected and cleaned by hand, then sold into secondhand markets where someone else wears it. Pairs too worn to be reused are broken down by material and recycled into new products, so nothing collected goes to a landfill.
“Most of us have a pair or two in the closet that still has plenty of life in it but just doesn’t get worn anymore,” said [Spokesperson Name], [Title] at [Your Organization]. “Getting those shoes onto someone else’s feet raises money for [your cause] and keeps good shoes out of the landfill.”
Reuse does more for the environment than recycling alone, because it keeps footwear in use instead of breaking it down. Each pair kept in use avoids roughly 30 pounds of CO2e and 2,257 gallons of water, about what it takes to make a new pair.
To date, GotSneakers partners have kept more than 5.3 million pairs of footwear out of landfills and raised over $3.7 million for individuals, businesses and nonprofits.
Community members can contribute by [dropping off footwear at (location) during (hours) / contacting (name) at (email or phone) to arrange a pickup]. Paired, name-brand athletic footwear raises the most for the drive. Single shoes, dress shoes, heels, wedges and water shoes can’t be accepted.
To learn more about [Your Organization]’s drive, visit [your URL] or contact [name] at [email].
About [Your Organization]
[A few sentences on who you are and who you serve, plus how long you’ve been doing it. Keep it factual, because this is the paragraph reporters pull from.]
About GotSneakers
GotSneakers is a footwear reuse and recycling company founded in Miami in 2016 that partners with schools, teams, nonprofits, businesses and individuals to keep wearable shoes in circulation. Every pair collected is either reused or recycled. The program provides free collection bags and free shipping, and pays partners for the eligible footwear they send in. Learn more at gotsneakers.com.
Media Contact
[Name], [Title]
[Organization Name]
[Phone] | [Email]
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A one-page overview of the program to hand out at events or attach to an email — the mission, how it works, and the five steps to get started.
