When a donation is made to your organization, your job is just beginning – and it doesn’t end until the right gift is in the hands of every child on your list. Finding a truly effective solution to this challenge is the biggest hurdle for each of our clients.
Each year, you likely have children that don’t experience the joy of receiving a gift from your organization. This could be due to funding, outreach and logistics issues, or simply because you lack the capacity to serve more kids with your current infrastructure. That’s where we come in: Our mission is to help you increase your capacity for helping kids while reflecting your mission and your message in every gift that we ship on your behalf.
Personalization, customization, affordability, and efficiency – these are the hallmarks of fulfillment by Dragonfly Depot. Many of our clients wish to have items placed in each shipment and we are happy to accommodate them. Catalogs, promotional flyers, and even customized messages tailored for the individual recipient of the toy are simply no problem.It is this level of personalization we offer to all our clients and partners.
Our top priority is, of course, putting the right toy in the hands of a child that needs it. We work with top specialty vendors from across the United States to stock the right toys for your program. Each child is assigned a demographic profile, and our systems automatically assign the right toy to that child based upon your specifications. Then, each package is customized with any private message or custom material you provide, and finally it is sealed and shipped. The shipping label says it’s from you! Also, any external markings are applied to the package. Often, this is an explanation of what the package is or special instructions for the childs caregiver. Once shipped, each package is expedited to our downstream shipping hubs (we use multiple shippers to optimize our deliveries). Our volumes allow us to typically take 1 to 2 days off the ground shipping time, so we can ship deeper into the holiday season and still get toys to kids on time.
Some Dragonfly Depot clients have very specific requirements for us to match the demographics of a child with the toy we provide. Some have personalized messages for each child, often from an absent parent. Some ask us to put customized catalogs in the package or ‘bounce back’ coupons for their web sites.What we can put in the packages is only limited by your requirements.
So, you’re intrigued – and right now you are probably asking,“What about follow-up campaigns or additional contact opportunities?” We’ve got you covered. Dragonfly Depot is also a bulk mailing house, and our clients ship tens of thousands of mail pieces, often in follow-up to a holiday shipping campaign or other promotion. Since we ship from the Midwest, we eliminate extremes of shipping distance and reach your recipients efficiently.
There is often an inherent conflict between getting tens of thousands of packages shipped and personalizing each one. At Dragonfly Depot, we’ve solved this problem and we are happy to help you and your organization fulfill your mission of getting toys to kids.
In short, our mission is your mission. At Dragonfly Depot, we know and appreciate how important children are, and how something as simple as a gift at the right time can lift a child’s self esteem and self-image. Be it the holiday season, a birthday, or any other occasion, the chance to bring delight to a child is part of our of core mission.
We embrace and respect the unique vision of each of our clients – whether religious or secular – and work hard to ensure that the message of your organization is exemplified in each package we ship. Part of being a ‘white label’ operation means that we are a silent partner, and when the package arrives at the home of the child, the entire branding experience represents you and your organization. The return label on the box is from you. Any additional stickers or markings on the box (common for some of our clients) represent your organization. All of the supplementary material inside the box is also branded as you wish. Nothing we ship will ever draw attention to Dragonfly Depot: we are your silent partner and colleague.
We also understand that simply shipping gifts to children isn’t enough. The toys and games utilized for our gifts are hand-selected to ensure that they provide redeeming educational and social messages. Our toy selections are items of exceptional craftsmanship tailored to suit the age and gender of the recipient while still remaining affordable. We select ‘specialty’ toys for special kids. The sample included as a part of this package is an example of exactly the type of toys that we ship. In fact, the item in your hands was shipped to nearly 4,000 children during the 2009 holiday season. Many of the gifts that we ship for our clients go to underprivileged children. These are often the only gifts that these kids receive, and we believe that they should be good ones!
All ships rise with the tide, and at Dragonfly Depot we firmly embrace this ethic. By leveraging our economies of scale, each client added to the Dragonfly Depot portfolio benefits from better shipping rates, potential discounts on product, and other advantages. We encourage a spirit of cooperation between our partners and clients, and work actively to leverage any opportuni- ties for savings across multiple organizations.
Our pricing structure is simple.We charge a modest handling fee for each order. We then invoice you for the cost of the product in the shipment and for the shipping charges per order.
Based upon the volume of orders your organization has, there are also opportunities to discount the cost of product shipped – up to 20% with early commitments (allowing us time to work with our manufacturers to secure product early enough for them to optimize their supply chains).
At Dragonfly Depot, you’ll find us to be very reasonably priced, responsive, and able to go that extra mile to help make sure your fulfillment needs are met.
Here’s the shortest possible executive version: We can integrate with your systems, you can integrate with our systems!
Here’s the longer answer: (You might want to hand this part to a nearby nerd, or at least someone in glasses – but just in case you haven’t nodded off yet…)
At Dragonfly Depot, all of our systems are web-based and utilize standards- based, open technologies. This means that integrating your systems and our systems is straightforward. We use standard REST interfaces, utilizing XML or JSON, for our data interchange. We can also send and receive CSV feeds for your orders, your fulfillment status, and invoicing.
Reports on fulfillment status of your orders can be pulled easily, automatically emailed to you daily, or on demand.
It’s your data, they’re your orders, and you shouldn’t feel that you are throwing them in to a black hole only to see them again when we send you an invoice. We believe in transparency in our operations, and that starts with real-time access to your order status via our I.T. systems.
Every toy we ship is brand-new in its original packaging, and has been evaluated based on all applicable safety standards including EN-71 and the recent Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA). At Dragonfly Depot, we work with the staple brands of the specialty toy industry – recogniz- able brands such as“Melissa & Doug”from Connecticut (makers of the sample piece included in this package), “Out of the Box Games” from Wisconsin, and “Manhattan Toy” from Minnesota (It’s okay, we thought they’d be from New York at first, too).
One of our founders has served on the Board of Directors of the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association (ASTRA), and helped to establish the safety standards for how these toys should be manufactured, sold, and delivered. All of the products we ship are vigorously tested and certified, and we will never ship a toy that we do not personally believe meets or exceeds each and every established standard of safety and quality.
Not only are the toys we ship safe; they’re also built to last. We focus on products that are simple, solid and reliable – and because of this they have a markedly higher play value. These are games that get the family playing and talking together, and toys that kids want to play with again and again. The long-term gift we provide goes beyond the product in the box – it is designed to provide enrichment and fulfillment for every child.
With the help of Dragonfly Depot, our Angel Tree program served approximately 50,000 children that might have otherwise gone unserved because they were not able to be assigned to participating churches. There are many characteristics we appreciated about working with Dragonfly Depot, including (but not limited to):
Communication: Dragonfly Depot kept us advised of progress, process, and issues (and amazingly enough for a start-up project, there were very few issues).
Flexibility: This undertaking and working with a service provider like Dragonfly Depot was new to us. As a result, we found ourselves learning as we progressed (with your help) and changing direction on more than one occasion. Their organization was incredibly responsive.
Accessibility: When my organization had questions, they responded quickly to emails and were willing to jump on a call as needed to keep things moving.
Patience: We never felt like we frustrated [the team at Dragonfly Depot] when pressing on issues we didn’t understand. I could argue that we were the client and thus should expect this… but I have worked with many organizations that seemed not to grasp this concept.
While all of these items (and more) contributed to how we positively view our overall experience with Dragonfly Depot, one thing that really showed their true organizational character was the way their team embraced our mission.
Clearly this was a business transaction involving a sizeable amount of money… but Dragonfly Depot always seemed more focused on the children being served and helping Angel Tree honor our responsibility to this ministry program.
On both a personal and professional level, I look forward to working with you as opportunities arise in the future. Until then, I pray you, your family, and your business enjoy health and prosperity now and always.
Sincerely,
Mark Jacobs
National Director, Angel Tree Programs
Prison Fellowship Ministries
Lansdowne, Virginia