The dirty side of Goodwill

[ripcord]

The dirty side of Goodwill? So it has a clean side? Who knew!

Once upon a time I worked on an IT project for Goodwill and was a little surprised to learn it was a for profit corporation. As an aside, they poached one of our devs who made good friends with a couple of their in-house IT guys. I think he was tempted by the fact that they got first pick of donated computers and other technology items that came in, lol. Anyway, I remembered feeling a little in awe of the hutzpah of their business model. Get people to give you free merch, you sell it back to them, pay under minimum wage to some of your workers due to loopholes (or exceptions if you prefer) in employment law and pass yourself off as a charity. Genius.

I try to make it a point to donate to places that fund actual non profits like St. Vincent de Paul and similar.

 

[The_Jeff]

The guys goodwill pay under minimum wage get something good for the experience: a boost in self esteem, a little independence, and a little socialization. And it's a little less help society has to provide via taxes.

I basically have a choice when I get rid of stuff between goodwill and the dump and I go with goodwill, warts and all. I believe they have a program with missions to give those down-on-their-luck suits for job interviews. Who knew they're a shade of grey!

And at least resold stuff means less new stuff is bought from overseas, that would have been made from petroleum, added to our trade deficit, yadda yadda...

Salvation Army will throw away Harry Potter books for reasons of their own morality. Kids rip through those books, it's better than staring at a screen.

 

[ripcord]

The guys goodwill pay under minimum wage get something good for the experience: a boost in self esteem, a little independence, and a little socialization. And it's a little less help society has to provide via taxes.

I basically have a choice when I get rid of stuff between goodwill and the dump and I go with goodwill, warts and all. I believe they have a program with missions to give those down-on-their-luck suits for job interviews. Who knew they're a shade of grey!

And at least resold stuff means less new stuff is bought from overseas, that would have been made from petroleum, added to our trade deficit, yadda yadda...

Salvation Army will throw away Harry Potter books for reasons of their own morality. Kids rip through those books, it's better than staring at a screen.

Well... it seems pretty unremarkable that a religious organization (Methodist) would not approve of things related to the occult. Just saying. In the Salvation Army's defense, they do a tremendous amount of good for the homeless and the substance dependent. Beyond just food and shelter, they help find lost and disconnected family members, they run drug treatment centers, hospitals and clinics and programs to help people escape prostitution, etc.

They are the primary provider of food and shelter in the town near where I grew up which has always had a fairly sizable skid row population.

 

[PandaBear]

I used to use them as a dumpster instead of "I want to help people" feel good thing. That is until they started being picky and refuse to accept toys. Now I just go to Facebook market place and put Free for things I want gone and I know they go directly to people who wants them instead of just sit in a store charging money then trash.

This is not just Good Will, it is every store front charity these days. If you want to help people post it on Facebook Market Place or Craigslist for free. It almost always works.

I don't tax deduct much but they never check how much I donate is worth how much anyways, so you know what to do.

 

[oil pan 4]

ASPCA is probably the worst.
At any given time they have tens of millions of dollars in off shore accounts. In they're advertisements they tell you animals are going to die immediately as if they're out of money. How could someone say they care so much about animals and keep millions of dollars in off shore accounts, just sitting there? Most likely answer seems to be they don't actually care about animals and use them as a means to an end.
Look an orgs financials before you donate.
Well I guess there's one that's worse.
Rimes with bureau of land management.

 

[PandaBear]

Goodwill remains in business and viable . They are doing the important things right for a non-profit .

I have nothing against Goodwill, to me it is a fun place where my daughter and friends hang out treasure hunting. However I am fully aware that Non-profit is just a tax status and they are still responsible for balancing their budget, and they can pay their owners salaries just not profit sharing. That's about it. Everything else is still a business.

 

[PandaBear]

Their annoying bell ringing was tolerable...

That's the worst thing about Salvation Army. I am ok with them otherwise. They try to guilt trip people and they try to guilt trip support into guilt tripping other people. It sets a bad example to the society that begging is ok if you can market it right. What makes it ok for Salvation Army to beg but not ok for an alcoholic to?

 

[ripcord]

That's the worst thing about Salvation Army. I am ok with them otherwise. They try to guilt trip people and they try to guilt trip support into guilt tripping other people. It sets a bad example to the society that begging is ok if you can market it right. What makes it ok for Salvation Army to beg but not ok for an alcoholic to?

They don't spend it on whiskey and blow?

 

[andrew_j]

GoodWill is a hard no for us. We used to donate stuff all the time. Now we use local women's shelters, Salvation Army, etc. Probably 15 years ago, roughly, the CEO of GoodWill was building an 8 million dollar house for himself and his family. Charity my Aunt Gertrude....

Upset about a a free service to get rid of stuff you don’t want and worthless to you.

 

[andrew_j]

Another charity that I've donated to after a disaster is 'Samaritan's Purse'. While I think a lot of so called 'religious' people are frauds (Joel Osteen comes to mind) I do think Franklin Graham is sincere. I say this because during the pandemic 'Samaritan's Purse' set up a huge tent hospital in Central Park, NYC which was very helpful. I donated after the flooding in western NC.

Two 'charities' that I won't donate to are 'Unicef' and the IFCJ. I read that the bigwigs in Unicef drive Rolls Royce's or some other luxury cars and Yael Eckstein, the CEO of the IFCJ, is paid $750K a year (and that was about 5 years ago...I'm sure it's more now).

.84 of every dollar makes it to programs with Unifec. Be glad they have a decent CEO at helm not some underpaid pauper who runs it out of good of heart.

 

[supton]

These days I tend to use items up and then they are only worthy to be tossed. Although some stuff is only "mostly used up" and it winds up sitting in a corner "just in case". No donations. Nothing against it, if anything, I could stand to go shopping for some new work shirts... new to me that is. Occasionally I have something to give away and the transfer station has a seconds pile in the good weather months for people to drop stuff at (which I often shop at).

My son seems to love shopping at Good Will though. For some reason he dragged home a typewriter... why I have no freakin' clue, he has like 10 plus old computers... I think he likes shopping for cheap stuff.

 

[Urshurak776]

Upset about a a free service to get rid of stuff you don’t want and worthless to you.

Seems what I posted is a bit too difficult for you to understand. Maybe try again?

 

[PandaBear]

They don't spend it on whiskey and blow?

They probably do too, no way to prove regardless.

 

[The_Jeff]

Well... it seems pretty unremarkable that a religious organization (Methodist) would not approve of things related to the occult.

It's just disengenuous to accept the donation if it's not going to be put to use. Maybe I'll give the books to a different charity instead.

 

[Krieg]

After Donating blood ...the calls never stopped, especially at work..

 

[MrkofXcellence]

The guys goodwill pay under minimum wage get something good for the experience: a boost in self esteem, a little independence, and a little socialization. And it's a little less help society has to provide via taxes.

I basically have a choice when I get rid of stuff between goodwill and the dump and I go with goodwill, warts and all. I believe they have a program with missions to give those down-on-their-luck suits for job interviews. Who knew they're a shade of grey!

And at least resold stuff means less new stuff is bought from overseas, that would have been made from petroleum, added to our trade deficit, yadda yadda...

Salvation Army will throw away Harry Potter books for reasons of their own morality. Kids rip through those books, it's better than staring at a screen.

You articulated my thoughts perfectly. I would add that a lot of the people I see working there appear as though they would have problems finding work elsewhere.

 

[Adkcedarman]

How is this thread still alive lol. Seems very edgy.

That being said @Owen Lucas is spot on.

 

[daves87rs]

Very few that I deal with now…..