Refurbishing computers at our ReCompute facility in Redwood City.

How your donations support Goodwill’s work in the community

By Tim Murray
SF Goodwill

Everyone knows that Goodwill operates stores — 19 of them in our three-county region, to be precise. But the business of Goodwill is more than just retail sales.

We operate what we call a “value recovery enterprise.” We identify the inherent worth in things that would otherwise go to waste — like your first-generation iMac, Aunt Sue’s china or an armful of stuff from your closet — and we figure out how to extract the most value from them.

Although you’ve moved on to a new Apple operating system, your computer is still worth a lot to us. We’ll harvest memory and useable parts from it and, combined with the parts salvaged from other donated computers, create a refurbished system a low-income family can afford. What’s left over from that process doesn’t get tossed into a landfill, but sold to certified-green salvagers who turn the components, including the metal and plastic into raw materials for new technology. The proceeds flow into our revenue stream, while as little as possible goes to waste.

Aunt Sue’s china might have sentimental value, but is it worth anything? The folks who sort donated goods in our operations facilities are trained to spot products of high quality. The best of what we receive is sold through our e-commerce website, a 24/7 treasure hunt accessible to a global audience of collectors eager to pay what the market will bear.

Making the most of your Manolos

What about that armful of seldom-worn clothes and shoes? Our merchandise managers recognize vintage finds, one-of-a-kinds, trend colors and designer labels in the apparel and accessories donated to us. These garments, handbags and shoes flow back out to stores whose clientele appreciates a particular kind of merchandise — like our Haight Street store in San Francisco that specializes in vintage clothing and our upscale boutiques in Menlo Park and the West Portal neighborhood in San Francisco, where brand names abound.

In every case, we maximize the value of the items donated to us. Like the most private enterprises, we want to grow our revenues. The difference with Goodwill is that we reinvest our revenue back into workforce development, employment opportunities, and job readiness — not executive stock options and shareholder dividends.

What other businesses call “profit” for us flows to people who need it the most. People who have made the courageous decision to turn their lives around through the power of work. People who will, with Goodwill’s proven methods of classroom instruction, workplace learning and life-skills coaching, transform themselves, their families and our communities.

When it comes to where to donate your gently used stuff, you have many choices. You could put it on the curb; you could search for a for-profit reseller; you could put it on Craigslist; you could list it on eBay. Or you could donate it to Goodwill and put it to maximum use for the people and the place you call home. We’ll make sure of it.

That’s the business of Goodwill.