Goodwilly — Giving, lending, passing on
Giving & Donating
What Happens to a Donated Sofa Between Your Door and the Shop Floor
Giving & Donating
Why Fewer, Larger Donations Beat Spreading Money Thinly
Giving & Donating
What a Standing Order Buys That a One-Off Gift Cannot
Giving & Donating
The Donation Drive That Ends Up Costing the Charity Money
Collections of goods generate strong participation and a mountain of sorting. Whether the result helps depends almost entirely on…
Giving & Donating
How to Read a Fundraising Appeal for What It Is Actually Asking
Appeal letters follow a well-worn structure with a purpose behind every element. Recognising the parts makes it easier to decide on…
More this week
Everything →
Giving & Donating
Why Aid Agencies Ask for Money and Not Blankets
The instinct after a disaster is to send things. Almost every agency working in emergency response asks for cash instead, and the…
Giving & Donating
Why Charities Ask You to Confirm Your Tax Status
Donation forms in many countries carry a declaration about tax that has nothing to do with the charity's curiosity. It changes how…
Giving & Donating
Choosing Between a Cause Down the Road and One Far Away
A given amount of money buys very different quantities of benefit in different places. So does the ability to see what it did.
Giving & Donating
Why Every Appeal Asks for a Specific Number
Suggested donation amounts are chosen carefully and rarely correspond to a real price. Knowing what they are for makes them easier…
Giving & Donating
Naming a Charity in a Will Without Creating a Problem
Legacies are the largest single income line for many charities and the most frequently botched form of giving. Most of the failures…
Giving & Donating
What Employer Matching Schemes Actually Match
Workplace giving programmes promise to double your donation and frequently do something narrower. The conditions are where the…
Giving & Donating
All giving & donating →Giving & Donating
Why Unrestricted Money Is Worth More Than the Same Amount Ring-Fenced
Two donations of identical size can be worth very different amounts to the organisation receiving them. The difference is what the…
Giving & Donating
What Happens to a Donated Sofa Between Your Door and the Shop Floor
A large donated item passes through collection, safety checks, storage, cleaning and pricing before anyone can buy it. Each stage…
Giving & Donating
Why Fewer, Larger Donations Beat Spreading Money Thinly
Splitting a charitable budget across a dozen organisations feels prudent and usually is not. Processing costs and attention both…
Volunteering
All volunteering →
Volunteering
Why One Afternoon of Help Can Cost an Organisation Two Days
Short volunteering placements carry setup costs that fall entirely on the host. Whether they are worth it depends on the type of…
Volunteering
The Volunteer Roles Charities Struggle Hardest to Fill
Offers of help cluster heavily around a few visible activities. The persistent shortages are in roles nobody pictures when they…
Volunteering
When Your Day Job Is the Thing a Charity Actually Needs
Professional skills donated well are worth many times the same hours spent sorting boxes. Donated badly, they create work that…
Secondhand & Thrift
All secondhand & thrift →
Secondhand & Thrift
The Best Second-Hand Buys Are the Ones Nobody Brags About
Used markets price desirability, not utility. The gap between the two is where almost all the value sits.
Secondhand & Thrift
Why the Same Jumper Costs Three Times as Much Three Streets Away
Charity shop pricing varies wildly between branches of the same organisation. The causes are structural and mostly have nothing to…
Secondhand & Thrift
Why the Good Stuff Rarely Reaches the Shop Floor
Charity retail has quietly split into several channels, and the highest-value donations are routed away from the front of the shop…
How Charities Work
All how charities work →
How Charities Work
The Overhead Ratio Is a Bad Measure, and Here Is What to Read Instead
The proportion of a charity's spending that goes on administration is the most cited and least informative figure in the sector.…
How Charities Work
Reading a Set of Charity Accounts Without an Accounting Degree
Published charity accounts follow a predictable structure in most countries. Four things in them answer almost every question a…
How Charities Work
Why a Charity Sitting on Money Is Not Necessarily Hoarding
Reserves attract criticism whenever they are visible and save organisations whenever they are needed. The judgement is about the…
Community Projects
All community projects →
Community Projects
Why Most Community Projects Stall in Their Second Year
Launch energy is abundant and lasts about eighteen months. What replaces it decides whether anything is still running at year three.
Community Projects
The Founder Problem: When a Project Cannot Outlive Its Starter
The qualities that get a local project off the ground are frequently the ones that prevent anyone else from running it.
Community Projects
Starting a Community Group Without Registering Anything
A great deal can be done by a few people with a shared purpose and no legal structure at all. Knowing where that stops matters more…
Repair & Reuse
All repair & reuse →
Repair & Reuse
Why a Repair Café Works Socially Before It Works Materially
The number of items mended at a repair session is modest. The reason the model has spread across dozens of countries is not the…
Repair & Reuse
The Economics of Repair Versus Replacement, Honestly
Repair is not automatically cheaper and the comparison is frequently framed dishonestly in both directions. The numbers depend on…
Repair & Reuse
Tool Libraries and the Items People Actually Borrow
Most households own tools they use once a year. Lending libraries exist because that pattern is obvious and the logistics of fixing…