I'm sure that my office is a familiar sight to many of the people on this forum...chock-a-block full of Christmas donations and toys. We're a very small charity - there's four of us that work here, three full-time and our office is an essentially a storage cupboard in the back, most forgotten part of the hospital. Every Christmas we are inundated with local companies donating toys and gifts for children around the hospital to have at Christmas time. 

This is obviously wonderful - people spend serious money on these toys and gifts, some of which we can use on the ward and give to the Play Team. Mostly we use the gifts at our annual Children's Christmas Party where we have a Santa's Grotto where each child gets a gift. The only problem with this is, our party is always in the beginning of December, which due to restrains on space and cost, the date cannot be changed. Only a small number of these companies donate their gifts in time for the party, so our office becomes a toy depository for the rest of the year. It doesn't seem to matter how often we stress that we need them for a specific date, they still come a few days before Xmas, when we are at our busiest. 

Additionally, we have had several companies who have given to us every year for four or five years, but we can't seem to turn them from Christmas Gift donors to corporate donors or COTY possibilities. Does anyone have any ideas of how to cultivate these relationships outside of the festive period? We've asked to go into their offices and present to their teams, actively asked about possibilities of COTY, inviting them to partake in our events, but so far, not much has come out of it, other than piles and piles of presents. 

Don't get me wrong, we are very grateful for the toys - we do eventually use them up, children's birthdays, results day in the school room, play therapy, and giving them to the Play Team but the three hundred pounds or so a company has spent on gifts could be spent to buy individual children things they really want, or used to further our programme of support. 

Does anyone else have something like this? Any ideas on how to convert or differently engage these donors?