Donate Stuff. Create Jobs.

I’m posting this public service announcement on behalf of the Ad Council.

My family loves to shop at Goodwill. My city, Richmond, seems to have especially good pickings compared to other places I’ve lived. There’s even one “showplace” Goodwill in the city that takes the best goods from the donation centers from surrounding areas.

We’ve found hardwood furniture, perfect sets of china, and expensive shoes that have never been worn (thrift store GOLD!). My daughter’s favorite Goodwill were a Beatrix Potter porcelain cup she bought for a dollar, but that’s worth $20, and a vest with airplanes on it. She assures me the vest is ironic.

When it comes to our own stuff, whether we’ve either outgrown it, replaced it, and just plain don’t need it anymore, we donate it to Goodwill .

I hate to waste clothes, shoes, games, toys, and home goods that someone else can use. Why dump something in the trash when it’s got so much life still left in it? If you’re like me and downsizing, decluttering, or re-organizing, you can give your stuff to Goodwill and do way more than just clean.

When you donate your stuff to Goodwill, the revenue from the sale of your donations helps fund job training and placement opportunities for people with disabilities and disadvantages directly in your community. That’s cleaning with a purpose.

Goodwill’s “Donate Stuff. Create Jobs.” is currently running an informational campaign that you should check out. Thanks to the programs and support services made possible by donations of clothes and household items, more than 261,000 people earned jobs in 2013 – that’s one person finding a job every 27 seconds of every business day.

So you’re literally donating your stuff AND helping to create jobs. You can calculate how much your donation helps your local community by using Goodwill’s Donation Impact Calculator. Just input the items you are donating to calculate the number of hours of career counseling, on-the-job training, résumé preparation, financial planning classes, and other services you’ve helped provide someone facing challenges to finding employment.

How you can help Goodwill do good work.

Show your donation on social media.

When you take your donation in next time, take a picture and post it to social media with the hashtags #ReverseHaul #Goodwill and/or #DonateStuffCreateJobs. Show your stuff by doing a “Reverse Shopping Haul” photo or video. Share a video or pictures of the items you plan to donate and use the donation impact calculator to let the world know how many hours of on-the-job training you could be creating with your used stuff – stuff that doesn’t help anyone when it’s stuffed in the back of your closet or under your bed.

Watch this PSA video.

Decluttering feels amazing for so many reasons. Get all the benefits when you divest your home of clutter, and give so much more to others helped by your donation. Who knows what “stuff” from you will be someone else’s treasure.