Giving Well, Better Ways to Get Rid of Stuff

Lessons from a clothing pantry about better ways to make donations.

Like many people in the US, I have a lot of stuff, way more than I really need. I need to do a better job of not accumulating stuff in the first place, but I have been trying to be more vigilant about at least putting some of the extra stuff to better use by donating it to organizations that can get it in the hands of people who need it.

I have a good friend who helps run a clothing pantry. There are different models for clothing pantries, some sell things and use the funds for good causes, others give clothes away to people who need them. Her pantry is the second one. Their clients are a combination of homeless people and people who have places to live but are living on the edge, just getting by.

They have several tasks, generally. They have a system to accept donations. They have volunteers who process the donations and get them ready to give away, and they run a weekly “shopping day” where clients can come and shop through whatever is available that week.

They are staffed by volunteers. I don’t know if they have any paid staff at all. So everything that has to be done involves getting enough volunteers set up to do it. They can’t spend unlimited hours getting things done, they are constrained by the number of people who are available to help. So they have to set up rules that make the whole thing manageable. They have certain hours when they accept donations. They have a list of the specific donations they are equipped to handle. And they have rules about when and how clients can select and take their clothes.

Listening to the things that she has to do each week, I have come up with a list of things that would get more mileage out of the work their charity does.

Donate When and Where They Ask

Theirs, and every other charity that I am familiar with, has a web site that describes how you can make donations. In their case, they are set up to accept donations one day a week. That’s the day when they have volunteers to set out bins, pull them in when they are full, and answer questions from people dropping things off. The rest of the week there is nobody there. One big headache they deal with is people that drop bags of stuff there other times of the week. The bags get wet and ruined and block traffic, since nobody is watching for them. Processing those donations actually takes more work later than donations made on the specified dates.

Donate What They Ask

As noted above, they have a clear list of the types of things they are equipped to handle. They are not set up to handle anything else. Many times when people want to get rid of a bunch of stuff, they throw in a lot of unrelated items. This charity can’t or won’t put those items out for shopping, so they have to get rid of them. My friend generally ends up loading up her personal car with items they can’t use and then drives around town dropping them off at more appropriate places. In some cases, she ends up discarding them because there aren’t any appropriate places for those items. Some items are liability issues (many places can’t accept used car seats or mattresses for instance), sometimes they just aren’t things their clients can use. Leaving things a charity can’t use is just giving the charity another job to get done with what is probably already an inadequate staff. If you can’t tell what they take from a web site, call them and ask ahead of time!

Donate Only Clean and Usable Items

Apparently it’s quite common to get a bags of dirty, stained, smelly, torn items. As noted above, many of their clients are homeless, and have no way of washing things, or live in apartments without in-unit washing machines. The charity itself does not have washing machines. Who is going to clean this stuff? Those items can’t be put out, nor can torn or broken items. The charity has to pick through the donations, separating good items from bad ones. The dirty ones will probably just end up in the trash because they can’t do anything with them. If things are in good shape but dirty, take the extra step of washing it before donating them. If they are torn or broken, don’t donate them. I confess I’ve donated some questionable items in the past, thinking maybe they can find a way to use them. I didn’t do anyone any favors.

Donate in Season

This is a funny one that I wouldn’t have realized before. If it is summer, donate things that can be worn in the summer. Don’t give a charity a bunch of winter coats then! They have limited storage space. They can’t give out winter items and they don’t have room to store them. They will have to get rid of them. If you like to clean things out at the end of a season, switch that around and do your cleaning at the beginning of the season!

Charity Begins With You

Giving away stuff you don’t need is a great idea. But with a little extra thought and work you can make that donation mean a lot more! It is a little more work to do these things, just think of that as part of the donation!