Yeah, Salvation Army is a militant Christian evangelical organization (like, actually modeled on military hierarchy; their CEO’s title is “General”) that was founded as a Temperance “Army” recruiting “sinners” (ie. drinkers) to their conversion campaign. Really bizarre.
They do, however do a lot of humanitarian and charity work compared to Goodwill. Of course, the intent is conversion, so it’s basically a 21st Century mission.
So now that we’ve identified how weird and crummy major donation organizations are, let’s highlight some awesome alternatives:
Housing Works was founded during the AIDS crisis in NYC to help with housing, healthcare, HIV prevention and treatment:
ReStore is an arm of Habitat for Humanity which uses their proceeds to “help build strength, stability, self-reliance and shelter in local communities and around the world.”
St Vincent DePaul is a Catholic charitable organization whose mission is “following Christ’s call to serve the poor, the suffering, and the deprived.” I’ve never heard anything negative about them and can’t find any red-flags immediately.
What other organizations are out there doing the good work with our cast-off items?
I personally like MSF (Doctors without Borders). That org consistently has excellent ratings for efficiency for years.
And personally just because of my own pet issues, I also like to donate to Foundation Beyond Belief, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Do they run resale operations? Either way, I fully concur; these are excellent organizations. The risks MSF takes to bring aid to the suffering is just astonishing. These are people who could be pulling massive salaries in private practice and instead they’re out there risking their own lives for the good of all.
I donate stuff that’s nice to Out of the Closet.
A comment about Habitat for Humanity: We had a used but in very good condition formal dining set that was given to us. (Solid wood table with eight chairs and two leaves plus a solid wood china hutch.) We didn’t have the room for it, so we wanted to donate it to an organization who would give it to a family in need. They were very discouraging at first. They did take it, but they told us that they prefer mint condition stuff. It was Orange County (CA) and it was bizarre. I’m thinking that the families who they work with want more trendy stuff?
I still think they do great work, but their donation criteria may be rigid.
It might be that they don’t sell as well in that area, and furniture is expensive to move to better locations. My local ReStores (Eastern Virginia) have mostly “normal wear” condition furniture. I bought a dining room table, with leaf, scratched, ring stains, for $25. It was a great buy.
I’ve had the same experience multiple times. I’ve consolidated 4-5 households over the past few years and spent many hours and lots of sweat trying to make sure the excess stuff didn’t end up in a landfill. It’s extremely difficult in most cases.
Habitat has strict guidelines on what they’ll take and things that are perfectly serviceable and even brand new are rejected outright if they feel they can’t sell it. I had dozens of plantation shutters that I carefully removed and preserved (originally worth several thousand dollars) that they wouldn’t take. Ended up having to take it to the dump (and pay a hefty fee to dispose).
Can’t tell you how picky Goodwill, ARC, Salvation Army, etc are with what they’ll take. It’s supremely frustrating running all over town trying to do the right thing but then having no other choice but dumping it.
Goodwill doesn’t pay a living wage, so, eh… Maybe you could donate that garbage to Walmart if it’s closer.
Over the past couple years I’ve had friends talk about various Buy Nothing groups on places like Facebook. I’ve had decent luck with them so far. Inventorying, cleaning up, and organizing the handoff is quite a chore I don’t see most people bothering with it.
Excellent suggestion! I’ve never heard of them, but they seem like a fantastic organization. According to their website, 96¢ on every dollar goes “directly to helping people living with HIV, AIDS, and or homelessness.” That actually seems like an impossibly high rate, but they also seem to traffic in higher quality donations at a higher resale cost, so maybe that absorbs their admin and employment costs. Awesome!
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