A Nonprofit Like No Other: Corporations with Surpluses Connected to Organizations in Need
(ARA) – Two semis of assorted groceries loaded for a delivery to food shelves, a bank of computers found for a job training center, warm clothing collected for hundreds of children in head start programs. Just a typical day at Hope for the City.
If a corporation has too much of something, whether it’s potatoes, bicycles, canned goods or office supplies, Hope for the City can find a worthy nonprofit that needs it, and they can do it right away.
“We have a network of partners all over the continental United States and can pick up anything within 48 hours,” says cofounder Megan Doyle, who along with her husband created the organization 4 years ago in an effort to find the best way to put their business skills to work for worthy causes. Convenient and reliable, the organization’s delivery service can even turn around large donations of perishable goods within a day if necessary.
Hope for the City then immediately finds an appropriate nonprofit (nationally or internationally) that needs the supplies and ships the goods to them. “We can find someone who needs what you have,” adds Doyle, who has found organizations in need of supplies as varied as several semis filled with powdered milk, used office equipment, to a truckload of body lotion.
Donated goods can be everything from end-of-season clothing, to product overruns, store returns, and food nearing an expiration date or goods that are mislabeled or technologically fading. Beauty products, office equipment and supplies are needed as well. The most in-demand items: packaged food, canned goods, dry goods, and clothing and personal care items.
“It’s a way to lift up the morale of nonprofits by giving them the physical resources they need to serve their constituencies better,” says Doyle, who explains that the organizations that receive donated goods are carefully screened. They must fall into the 501(c)(3) category, must serve the poor directly and are not allowed to charge for any of the supplies they receive. A good number are schools, food shelves, work programs and homeless shelters that can use the supplies to enhance their programs.
One of the largest donation areas is medical supplies and equipment, which are shipped overseas to anywhere from Afghanistan to Kenya to India. “What we needed medically 20 years ago, the rest of the world needs now,” explains Doyle. In the last year they have shipped donations of hospital crank-up beds, bed pans, hospital gowns, X-ray equipment, a used ambulance and medicines to hospitals and clinics in need all over the world.
Unlike many nonprofits, Hope for the City manages to do all of this while spending only one percent of what they give away on operating costs (which in 2003 was over $100 million in wholesale goods) according to The Business Journal. Most of their infrastructure is donated, including the time of the many groups and individuals who volunteer in partner warehouses throughout the country.
What’s on Doyle’s wish list right now: back-to-school supplies. You can be sure she’ll find a good home for them.
For More Information:
Hope for the City accepts cash donations as well as surplus goods. To locate a local partner, make a donation or get more information, call (952) 897-7726 or visit www.hopeforthecities.org.
Article courtesy of ARA Content
