Sheltersuit Stichting

The Sheltersuit Foundation is founded by Bas Timmer, after a friend lost his homeless father due to hypothermia. At the time Bas started his own clothing line, after finishing the fashion acadamy in Enschede. He didn’t feel comfortable selling fashionable clothing at a high price, when there are thousands living on the street who can’t afford warm clothing. To avoid more homeless facing the horrible fate of freezing to death, Bas made it his goal to make a change. That’s why he designed the Sheltersuit.

The Sheltersuit was born

The Sheltersuit is a wind- and waterproof coat that can be transformed into a warm sleepingbag. This product is designed for people that have to survive the harsh conditions that come with living on the streets. They are free of charge for those in need and funded by the Rabobank Foundation, Start Foundation, Stichting DOEN and 15.000 other donations. Since the start in 2014, we have been able to keep more than 10.000 people living on the streets or in refugee camps warm.

We make Sheltersuits in our social sewing atelier in Enschede. We have a team of 14 employees and 27 volunteers working every day to contribute to a better world by fabricating Sheltersuits. Many of our employees and volunteers, immigrants in particular, are distanced to the labour market. We want to help them to build a future in the Netherlands by helping them becoming more financially and socially independent.

Upcycling material is an important part of the process of making Sheltersuits and other products. TenCate Outdoor Fabrics donates high quality tent fabric, which is the outer layer of all our products. Every Sheltersuit is lined with donated and collected sleeping bags. By repurposing these fabrics, we contribute to the reduction of waste streams.

To make all this possible, we work hard in order to attract new donors and involve current contributors in the organisation. The Lerak Foundation helps us to professionalize our Customer Relationship Management system. With their help we can keep track of contact moments, events and the precise motives of the donors. Included in this CRM system is an inbound marketing system. This helps us to create a steadier cash flow and more income in general, which means we can help more people all over the world. For instance: after someone made a donation, the automated marketing system will send a ‘thank you mail’. After a couple of months, the system will send another e-mail with a request for a second donation or to become a regular donor.

Secondly, The Lerak Foundation provides help to our marketing department. Our organisation has grown bigger and bigger since we started in 2014 and we feel like we lack time and structure to set up sufficient telemarketing. In the current situation, we simply don’t have enough time on our hands to reach out to our current contributors. These donors; people, businesses and organisations have a positive opinion of Sheltersuit and can now be persuaded to donate more than once, or even become a regular donor.

Besides helping us in the telemarketing department, The Lerak Foundation is also going to assist our content marketing. In order to obtain donations, we are in need of more people whose main focus is making and posting content.

In combination with the CRM system stated above, TLF enables us to connect and bind our followers and persuade them into regular donations. The content marketer will work with our employees in the Sheltersuit office.  Sheltersuit is currently working on a new line of commercial products. These products will be sold online, to fund the fabrication and distribution of Sheltersuits. In order to facilitate this goal, our website is upgraded. The website is built in connection with the new CRM database and the content marketer is able to create personalized posts and blogs on the website, according to the need of the visitor.