My wife and I recently noticed a fairly nice couch sitting outside a Goodwill Industries donation center on our way to get groceries. When we came out of the store the couch was gone. This started us wondering, is it unethical to steal from Goodwill?
Consider the following-
Goodwill is a for-profit company (last time I checked)
They get most (all?) of their products from the generosity of others
Many people go to Goodwill to avoid the hassle of taking their “donations” to the dump.
Your thoughts are much appreciated and may influence our future home furnishings.
Some people either know they can’t even afford Goodwill prices, or they’re too cheap and evil enough to do something like that. I don’t approve of people taking things that aren’t theirs because it’s wrong. This just seems to me like someone trying to find a loophole.
IIRC, Goodwill is a not-for-profit organization; i.e., they make a profit not for investors and VPs, but to fund their charitable activities (and of course, their employees wages).
I donate not to avoid the dump, but to help someone who may have a need for something I no longer do. If I suspected that my drop-offs were just being stolen by people who aren’t necessarily in-need, I wouldn’t drop them off unattended.
Stealing from Goodwill is like pretending you’re homeless to get free meals at church missions. It may not seem like you’re hurting anyone, but in the long run you’re displacing someone who could really use a meal.
I’m not familiar with Goodwill’s policies or practices, but taking something that doesn’t belong to you is stealing. Whoever donated it intended it for the use/benefit to Goodwill, not any lighthanded passerby. I dunno, but taking something intended as a charitable donation is just plain damn tacky.
I’ll hasten to say that maybe Goodwill doesn’t care a lot. Some of their donation bins I’ve seen have been left overflowing. So the rationale for “help yourself” is understandable, maybe.
Call me a purtianical twit, but even so, helping yourself to something that doesn’t belong to you is still stealing. The thrift stores run by agencies rely on donations, and the items can be purchased very inexpensively–or sometimes they will even be given to people in need. Sidestepping the donor/agency issue is still stealing.
Yup, it’s stealing, not “stealing,” but stealing–no quotation marks. No matter that the intended recipient hadn’t picked it up yet, the intention of the donor was to help fund Goodwill’s work, not furnish some slimeball grifter’s house.
It’s stealing - morally, ethically, and legally - around here they’ve actually prosecuted people for it in the recent past. If you’re going to donate, either make sure whatever it is fits in those donation boxes or actually go to the store or donation center to assure your donations get to the proper recipients.
In the interest of debate, I want to point out a nuance that hasn’t been addressed. Who were the couch-nappers actually stealing from?
If it was outside an unattended Goodwill donation center, then clearly Goodwill hadn’t taken posession of the couch yet. Moreover, the donors had equally clearly relinquished posession of the couch by leaving it behind. So who was wronged?
Yes, but outside of a Goodwill centre, the intent is clear. They intend for their stuff to go to Goodwill. Whether the Goodwill drop off location in unattended or not really doesn’t make a difference. It’s Goodwills property, at a clearly marked drop off point, so they have taken possession.
This is slightly “off topic” but when my daughter and son-in-law recently moved to a smaller house they took a pick-up load of toys to our local Salvation Army store to donate them. They were turned down (the toys were all in good shape, not “junk”)
They were told that the purpose of the store was not to give things away to the needy but rather to sell these items and use the cash for their programs, and toys didn’t bring in enough money to bother with. When my son-in-law ask if they couldn’t just put a “free” sign on them and give them to the kids he was told flat out NO.
They then took the toys to the local fire department which accepted them gladly. Needless to say, we have a lot less respect for “charity stores” now.
Ok my brother works for Goodwill, executive level, so I have learned a few things about how it works.
Goodwill is a non-profit agency. They receive SOME funding from places such as the United Way, but they do have to generate a large portion of their income on their own.
yes, most of the items are donated. What do these go for? Some items, lawn mowers, hospital equipment… is given away to people who can use it(canes, wheelchairs, etc). Items like lawn mowers are often used for job training programs-small engine repair classes. The funds raised in the stores also assist with these programs. When quality items are removed from the donation sites, this is lost income for them.
yes some people do treat Goodwill as an alternative to the dump. When unuseable items are left at a site, it costs Goodwill to dispose of them. Goodwill is NOT the dump, but it is highly beneficial to people who may be mentally challenged, recovering drug/alcohol addicts, or just struggling with finding a job.
So yes, taking the items from a donation site IS stealing, and not just from goodwill, but from those who would benefit from the sale of those items.
Here in the DC area they had a TV program look into this and not all goodwills are created equal. While some like the Salvation Army were fairly good, others were goodwill only in name as the amounts that went for charity were minimal. They explained you can set up a business and use the goodwill name just by giving a tiny amount of what you make. So they recommended you investigate them before you give them anything.
In San Jose california, employees of Goodwill took several million dollars worth of stuff or sold it by the truck load privately. So the FBI put tracers on some stuff & gave it to the shops to find out where it went …