3 Impactful Ways To Craft For a Good Cause

Making money from crafting is great. Giving away your handmade goods to friends and family is pretty satisfying too. But applying your crafting efforts to a charitable purpose can be one of the best motivators for doing what we do. So how do we find new ways to craft for a good cause — and how do we choose the most impactful ones?

How Helpful is Donating Handmade Items, Really?

One of the most popular charitable actions crafters take is donating their handmade items to organizations. Hospitals, organizations fighting for the homeless and many other groups will collect things like hats and quilts.

If you’re interested, there are a bunch of organizations to give to. Consider knitting or crocheting baby hats for The Preemie Project — or hats for all ages to send to Head Huggers. Play a part in keeping the homeless warm with Hats 4 The Homeless or participate in Warm Up America! to offer up granny squares. These are all fantastic organizations and anything you can give will be made with heart and bring smiles to the recipients’ faces.

There is a counterpoint to this method of charitable crafting, however: beware that handcrafted goods might just stack up rather than really making an impact. Especially in the case of disaster relief, those in need (and those running nonprofits) probably need money and/or volunteer time the most.

Instead of mailing over your crafted items, try contacting the organization you’d like to help to hear what they really need to keep operating. Spend some time serving the breakfast shift at the local homeless shelter or see what you can afford to send to a good cause.

Sometimes, we have to know our limitations and decide what will be the most beneficial. I’ve listed some alternate ways to craft for charity below — instead of directly sending our goods to organizations, why not use them to raise some charitable funds?

1. Participating in Fundraisers

If you’re in tune with any local organizations or causes, you’re probably aware of various fairs and fundraisers being held throughout the year. If you know you can whip out something specially made, why not volunteer those goods up as raffle prizes? Churches, nonprofits, and individuals or families with medical needs often need to procure great prizes for their charity drives.

This was one way I was really able to use my hat-knitting skills for good in the past year. One of my best friends worked for a local support system for survivors of sexual assault. She was planning a raffle on our campus and asked me if I would donate a personalized hat as a prize. I jumped at the awesome opportunity to help out a great cause — and I got to play around with a fun new design.

The same friend later wanted to sell some branded goodies to raise funds for our school’s literary magazine, so I made a few custom hats at a heavily discounted rate for them to resell. I had spent so much time building up my Etsy shop that the chance to craft for a good cause felt like a really nice change of pace.

Plus, let’s be money-minded for a second. Participating in our communities and crafting for good is also a great way to get our name out there — I got a bunch of Etsy orders after these events from passersby who were interested in the custom hats I’d donated. I know we shouldn’t view charity this way, but it’s a win-win, right?

3. Donating a Portion of Your Profits

If you’re a crafter with a business edge, consider creating a drive or promotion that offers a percentage of your profit to charity. This is a great way to use your crafting skills to support any organization close to your heart, even if directly donating goods isn’t practical (we all want to save the whales, but they probably don’t need knit hats).

Whether you’re selling on Etsy or another platform, this is a great opportunity to make a specialty item and really push it for the cause. Buyers would love to know 10 percent of their purchase is doing some good — so design a custom item and market it up! For instance, you could crochet a series of pink hats, scarves and booties for breast cancer awareness for the month of October or create a necklace in honor of your favorite wildlife conservatory.

I know, I know, again with the marketing and self-promotion. But it’s just another way to weaponize what you already love to do and use it to create a little more good in the world.

4. Volunteer Your Time

This is highly dependent on the needs of your community, but you may be able to craft for a good cause simply by spending time crafting with other people. Check out this hospice organization that’s looking for scrapbookers to help create a “Chart of Life” for Alzheimer’s patients. Other senior communities may look for volunteers to spend some quality time with patients — you can see if anyone there wants to spend a little time on crafts.

We know all too well how therapeutic crafting can be. Volunteer your time and expertise with other people if you can. This is a great way to craft for a good cause and make a genuine human connection while you’re at it.

Perform a quick Google search for volunteer needs in your area or ask around to see if your friends have any information. You might even take the initiative and reach out to communities that might like to host some crafting meetings, but haven’t found enough interest or opportunity to set them up.

Craft For a Good Cause  — However You Can

I’d like to emphasize that I’m definitely not knocking the chance to donate your knit or crocheted items. I’ve participated in these before myself, and I think the organizations I linked are truly amazing and lovely for everything they do. But not all charitable groups can benefit from this type of donation, so it’s important to consider how we can use crafting to truly make an impact.

Whether you’re an Etsy seller running a promotion or a crafter spending quality time with communities who need it most, there’s no bad way to craft for a good cause. Play to your own strengths and prioritize the causes that mean the most to you and your community.

What are some ways you’ve contributed to charity through the power of crafting? I’d love to hear your thoughts!