Hoodies for Charities: size splits

Collect sizes from volunteers by name and estimate sizes for sale stock from your supporter base. Sizes mix freely inside the 50-piece minimum, so the split costs nothing to get right and quite a lot to get wrong. Dead stock in a charity order is money that was raised and then converted into a box in a cupboard.

How do you size volunteers you have not met?

Ask them, in the same message that tells them the hoodie exists. Volunteers respond to a direct request with a deadline far more reliably than to a general form, and a named list means a late replacement can be swapped without touching the rest of the split. Where someone does not reply, assign them the most common size rather than leaving a gap.

Charity volunteers also skew towards wearing the hoodie over other layers, often outdoors at a collection or an event. That pushes the practical split a size upwards compared with a garment worn indoors. The charities and fundraising page covers the other kit that usually travels with a volunteer hoodie.

What split suits a mixed supporter base?

A heavy middle and thin tails. Supporter demographics are broad, which tempts charities into an even spread across every size, and an even spread is exactly what produces leftovers at both ends. Concentrate the quantity where most people sit and hold only a few pieces at the extremes.

A pre-order removes the guesswork entirely, and for a charity it has a second benefit: it tells you the quantity to order, which decides the volume band and therefore the margin. Collect commitments, count the sizes, then place a run that matches. Apparel sizing and fit covers how to build the run itself.

Unisex or fitted?

• A unisex classic fit covers the widest audience from a single design and a single fifty.
• An oversized fit sells better to younger supporters but shifts the whole size curve downwards.
• Two fits means two designs and two lots of fifty, which is rarely worth it for a first campaign.
• Whichever you choose, say so clearly wherever people select a size, because the two do not fit alike.

For most charities one unisex fit in a heavier fleece is the right call. It reads as a proper garment rather than a giveaway, it works on the widest range of bodies, and it keeps the whole campaign inside one design and one minimum order.

How do you avoid dead stock?

Order the quantity you can evidence and no more. A run sized to confirmed pre-orders plus a small margin is the only version of this that reliably ends with an empty crate. Rounding up to reach the next discount band is only sensible if the extra pieces have a named home, such as next year's volunteers.

Record what was left over at the end, by size, and use it as the starting point next time. That single note is worth more to the following campaign than any general sizing advice, because it describes your supporters rather than an average. The current garment options are on the wholesale hoodies page.