Originally Posted by
madamekelly
Just curious. So Goodwill does some kind of community service with its donations?
I don't have any particular knowledge of Goodwill. In general I would suggest looking at a charity's website and Wikipedia before donating (Wikipedia can be subject to tampering, but in general I find the information good).
It took a little digging, but I found this on the Goodwill site:
Originally Posted by www.goodwill.org/
Goodwill’s mission is to provide job placement services, onsite and virtual skills training, employment training and other community-based services, such as career counseling, industry-recognized credentials, résumé preparation, and many other services. Goodwill organizations provide these services to people in local communities by selling donations of used items in Goodwill stores.
I want to emphasize that I am neither pro- nor anti- Goodwill and am just trying to provide information to help people search for information so that they can make up their own minds.
When trying to evaluate a company or charity or any organization, another strategy is to do some creative googling, like the name of the organization and "scandal" or "controversy" or "ripoff" and things like that. Of course, not everything out there is true, and it's important to consider the source. If I find something on an unfamiliar website, I try to look around at other things on the website to see if they seem to have a particular bias. All this research takes time, but I figure 30-60 minutes of verification on my part can save me from doing business with an unscrupulous company or donating to a charity that isn't what I thought it was.