Community Partners
Operation Warm provides new children's winter coats through strategic partnerships with leadership organizations directly serving children and families in need.

Return on Investment
90% of every dollar given to Operation Warm goes directly to a new winter coat for
a child in poverty.

Integrity
Operation Warm is committed to combating the social isolation inherent in poverty.

Measurement
What does a new winter coat mean to a child and his family?

Operation Warm provides new children's winter coats through strategic partnerships with leadership organizations serving children and families in need.

Poverty is a situation, comprised of layers and layers of issues that a family living at or below the poverty level cannot combat alone. Nor is it an issue that Operation Warm can solve merely by providing a new winter coat to a child. Our mission is simple: to keep children warm. But we know that keeping kids warm is a small part of the much larger picture of their success. That is why Operation Warm identifies leaders in the non-profit community who are attacking the consequences of poverty and are working to enhance the lives of America's poor through quality education, access to healthcare, after-school support, family sustainability, and more.

Operation Warm does extensive research before it determines its strategic community partners. Each Operation Warm partner must meet established criteria to ensure a successful return on the collaborative partnership investment. Coats are then distributed to the strategic partner with a minimum coat distribution of half a container or 2,500 coats.

Operation Warm collaborates with like-minded, direct-service organizations to eliminate the causes of poverty, and how it impacts its youngest population. We are currently developing a model that requires that the agencies with whom we choose to partner to provide value for the coats received. In other words, they must integrate the receipt of a coat with some program that addresses a critical issue, such as education, literacy, school attendance, or self-esteem.

Harlem Children's Zone

BELL

JumpStart

Two of our strategic field partners, JumpStart and BELL National, have recently been recognized as 2008 Social Capitalist Award winners by Fast Company magazine.  Please click here to read the full article.

90% of every dollar given to Operation Warm goes directly to a new winter coat for a child in poverty. By working directly with manufacturers in the apparel industry, Operation Warm is able to achieve economies of scale that allow us to purchase new, high-quality winter coats at lower-than-wholesale prices.

Operation Warm is committed to combating the social isolation inherent with poverty. 100% of the coats that Operation Warm distributes are new. Our coats are ordered in several styles and multiple colors, with details like embroidery for girls' coats and piping for boys, so that the children wearing our coats are not identified as having received a hand-out. Operation Warm coats contain a unique, inconspicuous label but are not identifiable as a donated item. Operation Warm coats are manufactured in sizes 12 months - children's 14/16.

What does a new winter coat mean to a child? Operation Warm's metrics go beyond counting the number of children impacted -- 375,000 since our inception, or the value of the donated new winter coats -- in excess of $14,000,000.

We assess our effectiveness collaboratively with our community partners by measuring what a new winter coat means to a child and her family. Measurement areas include the impact of a new winter coat on a child's self esteem, school attendance, tardiness, and overall physical health.