You have been hearing the buzz about “free feminine hygiene products on campus.” You have watched Nancy Kramer’s TED Talk, which launched the national #FreeTheTampons moment. YOU are ready to take action and help YOUR campus join the menstrual movement. Regardless if you are a student, faculty member, parent, or random raging feminist….
The best place to start is with your Student Government. Student Government may consider purchasing products to run a pilot program in certain areas of the school for a certain period of time. While the pilot is in the works, you will want to draft a proposal to the school in an effort to add menstrual products to the school budget. (Contact Aunt Flow for a sample proposal) .
ALWAYS use data. Thankfully, we have some data for you. While we agree that offering menstrual products is the right thing to do, it is important to demonstrate to the school the “return on investment” of offering free menstrual products.
To stock an entire school, it is about $5-$7 per female student, per year. There is also the initial cost of installing either a box or a dispenser in each bathroom. Aunt Flow offers our signature wall mounted boxes for $20/bathroom and our free-vend dispensers. To run an effective pilot program, plan to spend between $1000-$5000 depending on your school size. Check out our FULL PILOT PROGRAM HERE.
The ultimate goal is to get the university to fund the program with either their facilities budget or student life budget. To fund a pilot program, funding may come from:
If a student organization is running the pilot program, the organization will be responsible for restocking. Once the school is funding the project, the school’s maintenance department will be responsible for restocking. The general rule is that tampons follow the toilet paper. If toilet paper is being restocked by a maintenance company once a week, the tampons will be restocked once a week by the maintenance department. When implementing a program, it is important to include maintenance and facilities in the conversations.
When executing a pilot program, it is important to offer menstrual products in academic buildings, not dorms. Offering menstrual products in academic buildings ensures that a student would not need to miss class by running home to get supplies. It is important to encourage students to use the free products for emergency situations and not rely on them as their sole supply.
Brown University was one of the first campuses to stock ALL bathrooms. At Aunt Flow, we believe that everyone should have access to menstrual products. It is important to remember that not all people that menstruate identify as women. If your campus does decide to stock male bathrooms, ensure that there are proper disposal receptacles in the bathrooms.
Universities have used both dispensers and boxes and we have seen success using both. We suggest using Aunt Flow’s wall-mounted free vend menstrual product dispenser. This ensures that product is not overused and that there is dedicated space for the program.
There will be a large influx of usage during the first 3 months of offering free product. This is typical with any new “freebie” — When a company starts offering free soda, people will hoard the soda with a scarcity mentality. After 3 months, people understand that the products are always available and the usage will decrease. Only 16% of menstruators report relying solely on their workplace supply of menstrual products as their only supply.
Aunt Flow is a female-founded enterprise that stocks businesses and universities with their 100% organic cotton menstrual products. Learn more about WHY others are working with us.
Aunt Flow has worked with numerous universities and student governments to launch programs to provide free menstrual products to students, staff, and guests on campus. After our work with Stanford, Ohio University, Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus School for Girls, and many other educational institutions, we decided to compile some of the common questions to help YOU launch a program.
