Storage with a Purpose: Using Self-Storage for Charitable Organizations

Storage units are a useful and convenient solution when you have some extra belongings that need a place to reside outside of your main living space. Often when storage units come to mind, people think of storing personal items. However, storage units have limitless potential beyond simply serving as a temporary home for that extra couch or a student’s belongings during the summer. Those are great uses for storage, of course, but let’s explore some charitable uses as well. There are a variety of ways in which a charitable organization can make use of storage space to facilitate their mission.

Storage for Donation Drives

One of the more basic ways a non-profit could use a storage unit is by simply using it to hold items for donation-based drives. Sometimes when a business or organization is hosting a drive to provide on-the-ground support for a community or group of individuals, they can run into storage-related issues. Being proactive and planning ahead helps ensure your drive runs as seamlessly as possible.

By choosing to rent a storage unit to hold all the items, there’s one less thing on your list to worry about. There are a lot of behind-the-scenes moving parts going on during any sort of donation-based drive that the public does not see. Figuring out how and where to store and sort the donations—such as canned food, clothing, or toys—is one of the most stressful considerations organizations must determine at the start of the drive. Renting a storage unit is a great answer. Having a single place to store and possibly even sort items makes everything more convenient and accessible throughout the entire process.

Storage for Non-Profit Support

Another purposeful option for using a storage unit is to rent a space for a non-profit organization to store event and fundraising supplies, marketing materials, and more. In doing so, a great deal of potential stress is alleviated by knowing there is one easy, safe, accessible location to store important items.

Non-profit organizations work tirelessly to improve their local communities and beyond but often do so with minimal funds. Because the cost of renting office space can often be exorbitant, non-profits often rent storage space to contain anything from paperwork to backstock to equipment or seasonal items at a more affordable price. Renting storage space to contain items that aren’t needed on a daily basis can help keep clutter out of the way when office space is at a premium, thereby streamlining the important work the non-profit is doing.

Host a Fill-a-Unit Drive

Lastly, if you are looking for a way to collect donations that’s a bit unconventional (but fun!), we recommend hosting a fill-a-unit drive. It is quite literally exactly what it sounds like: you host a food, clothing, or toy drive, and see how quickly you can fill up an entire storage unit space.

Something nice about using storage spaces to host a drive in this manner is that it is different than usual donation-based drives. Often during these events, there is not a tangible “end goal” in mind regarding items donated. Even if there is a target number provided, let’s say “2,000 items,” it can be tough for people to be able to actually visualize what that looks like. But when you rent a storage unit for a donation drive, the public feels even more involved and interested in the entire process. People will get excited in the process of watching the storage unit gradually become fuller and will be even more motivated to do their part in donating. This sort of approach offers even more of a unifying feeling within the community participating by being able to provide a visual goal.

If you are interested in hosting a donation-based drive, a great starting point to get more details is the South Plains Food Bank’s Virtual Food Drive page. Your business or organization can even organize its own independent donation drive and announce how you are choosing to incorporate a storage unit in Lubbock to make it a seamless event.

Affordable Storage is proud to support local charities. As the official storage of Lubbock Batman, when you rent with us and add a monthly donation to one of our selected charities, you’ll even get a Batman keychain! Affordable Storage truly embodies “storage with a purpose,” and we hope you will, too.

If you don’t even know where to begin when it comes to renting a storage unit, try Affordable Storage’s unique Space Estimator tool. You can also reach out to us and one of our representatives or managers would be thrilled to team up and help you make the best and most informed decision for your next drive or donation-based event.