Hoodies for Charities: lead time
By The Velocity Wear Team
Production takes 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, with transit on top. For a charity the binding constraint is usually approval rather than production, because designs go past a committee or a trustee who is a volunteer with a day job. Count back from your campaign date and give the approval step at least as much room as the run itself.
What does the production window include?
Screen preparation or embroidery digitising, the decoration run, curing, checks and packing. Those are physical steps with real durations, which is why the window is stated as working days rather than a target. Three calendar weeks is a fair expectation for the upper end of the range once weekends are counted.
Transit is separate and depends on where the hoodies go. We deliver to the UK, USA and Europe, and we invoice in seven currencies, which matters if your charity holds funds in more than one. The charities and fundraising page sets out what we need to start, and the specifications are on the wholesale hoodies page.
How do you plan around a campaign date?
Work backwards in named steps with named owners. Design agreed, artwork files supplied, sample decided, proof approved, production, transit, distribution to volunteers. Put a date and a person against each one. Charity projects drift because every step belongs to everybody, and the fix is ownership rather than urgency.
Allow six weeks for a straightforward order and eight if a trustee board has to see it. If the campaign has a hard date, such as a run, a walk or an awareness week, treat that date the way an event organiser would: nothing moves it, so the buffer is the plan.
What causes the delays?
- 1A logo supplied as a screenshot rather than the original file, which stops artwork before it starts.
- 2A committee that meets monthly and misses one cycle, costing four weeks in a single step.
- 3An unresolved question about whether the charity number goes on the garment.
- 4A size collection from volunteers that never closes, leaving the order waiting on a handful of replies.
- 5A decision to add a second colour after the proof, which restarts the approval round.
None of these are production problems, and none are solved by asking for a faster run. They are solved by fixing deadlines earlier. Apparel production lead times explained sets out where time genuinely goes in a garment order.
What if the campaign date is close?
Simplify rather than rush. One colour, one fit, one print placement and a logo file that is already clean will take days out of the front of the project without touching production. Approving the proof the same day it arrives saves more time than any other single decision available to you.
If that still does not reach the date, distribute in two stages: volunteers first, supporters afterwards. A charity hoodie has a long life beyond the campaign that prompted it, so arriving a fortnight later is rarely fatal to its purpose.
