Reviews on American Kidney Donation Job Receiving Donations at Mall
This story is co-published with Salon
ATLANTA – On a sunny afternoon before Halloween, shoppers at Value Village Atlanta cruise the aisles, browsing for bargains. They hope to observe a beaded gown befitting a Bride of Dracula or a fringed Elvis jumpsuit.
Billed every bit a "Treasure Hunter's Paradise," the popular thrift store sits in the corner of the old Moreland Shopping Centre. A sandwich board solicits donations to the American Kidney Fund, forth with more signage for the charity in the windows.
Merely consumers and donors could be unaware that, unlike many austerity stores, sales from their secondhand appurtenances go to a profitable business and not a clemency.
The growth of for-turn a profit thrift stores similar Value Hamlet Atlanta is expanding nationwide as many Americans use the extra fourth dimension at home during the pandemic to make clean out their closets, while others turn to austerity stores as they tighten their belts.
The surge in secondhand shopping opens opportunities for the public to be misled about how much money these for-profit retailers are making off the charities they brag about benefiting, according to charity watchdogs and regulators, every bit well as government records and other information gathered by InvestigateWest of the for-turn a profit thrift shop industry.
"They pay a very, very small-scale pct to the charities, while giving people a very unlike impression," said Adele Meyer, executive managing director of the Association of Resale Professionals, the leading trade organization for secondhand stores. "It's not clear to the public who'south benefiting."
In November 2019, a Washington land Superior Courtroom judge ruled that TVI Inc., likewise known as Savers, the largest for-turn a profit thrift retailer in the world, had been deceiving consumers for years. A serial of articles by InvestigateWest in 2015 exposed the practices of the Washington-based for-turn a profit thrift chain, leading to actions by regulators in California, Illinois and Washington.
The company, which operates stores called Savers and Value Village, was sued by the Washington state Attorney General in 2017. The state charged the visitor with misleading consumers and donors into assertive that all types of donations and purchases benefited clemency, creating the impression that the company itself was a clemency.
"Despite the fact that no portion of an in-store purchase benefits a charity partner, Value Hamlet yet advertises that store purchases benefit charities," according to Washington state's courtroom filings.
And this design is being copied by other for-profit thrift-shop chains around the nation.
Value for whom?
Value Village Atlanta is unaffiliated with the Washington state thrift chain and operates a dozen Georgia stores. It too owns and operates outlets in North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Missouri, either "directly or through affiliated companies," according to the visitor'due south posted privacy policy.
Window of a Value Village Atlanta store calls information technology a donation center for the American Kidney Fund. (Photo credit: Ty Tagami)
The company's privacy policy says one of its missions is acquiring almost of its goods from "companies that support charitable organizations." Just, mirroring arrangements at a growing number of regional for-profit thrift stores, donations come in directly from consumers either at the store or via home pickups and donation bins placed around the greater Atlanta area and beyond.
And the size of the store'south charitable contributions versus its revenues are non disclosed to the public. No signs alert shoppers or donors at the shop that it is a for-profit corporation.
"Everything donated goes 100% to the American Kidney Services. And of everything sold, 95% goes to American Kidney Services," said a manager of Value Village Atlanta, when asked how much of the store's proceeds go to clemency. The store itself is "all nonprofit," she told a reporter who visited incognito in October 2018. A second journalist heard much the same when he visited the same store nearly a year later.
American Kidney Services' mission, according to its IRS Grade 990, is to "provide support to kidney disease sufferers through contributions to the American Kidney Fund, primarily through the sale of used clothing and household items donated by the general public." The clemency receives a failing score past nonprofit watchdog Clemency Navigator.
American Kidney Services sent 18% of its revenues to the national American Kidney Fund in 2017, according to calculations based on its nonprofit 2017 tax return. The pct is not revealed on the brightly colored donation bins dotting Atlanta streets. As with nigh other for-profit austerity stores and associated charities contacted by InvestigateWest for this commodity, American Kidney Services and Value Village Atlanta refused to exist interviewed or provide relevant documentation.
InvestigateWest's efforts to get information to more fully convey the position of the Value Village Atlanta and American Kidney Services, including numerous telephone calls and emails to both entities, culminated with Kate Stutzman Harper, a spokeswoman for both entities, telling InvestigateWest that any further contact with the company or the charity would be reported to the local police as harassment.
The pitch to donors
A former telemarketer for a unlike retail chain, Carolina Value Village (at one time, but no longer affiliated with Value Village Atlanta), said that most solicited consumers are led to believe their donation is going entirely to charity, National Kidney Services, said Tina Quizon, whose minimum-wage job was to dispatch donation pickups from the Value Hamlet offices in Charlotte, North Carolina.
"Donors are giving out of the kindness of their hearts and take no idea who they're giving to," Quizon told InvestigateWest. "And people are giving nice stuff, too."
Quizon'southward complaint to the land about workplace conditions, as well every bit consumer charade, became the field of study of a local Television receiver exposé on Charlotte's WSOC in November 2018, in which reporter Paul Boyd concluded: "The money trail between the three organizations [charities NKS and NKF and the Carolina Value Village thrift stores] lacks transparency." National Kidney Services likewise receives a declining score by Charity Navigator.
Carolina Value Village filed for defalcation in February 2019 but was however operating its half-dozen stores in the greater Charlotte expanse final month.
Wearable collection bin in Atlanta. American Kidney Services sent 18% of its revenues to the national American Kidney Fund in 2017, according to calculations based on its nonprofit tax return. (Photo credit: Johnny Crawford/InvestigateWest)
Maria Stedry, an attorney for the charity National Kidney Services, with the Atlanta police force business firm Schulten, Ward, Turner and Weiss, told InvestigateWest in Nov 2019 that, while she did non represent the austerity stores, she did not call up they'd provide further information about their financial arrangements or portions going to clemency. "Information technology's their privilege to keep it confidential," Stedry said.
The law firm is listed as a registered agent for many for-profit austerity stores, recycling companies, and their charities, in Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio and elsewhere.
Quizon, who left the company in August 2018, says hundreds of potential donors she talked to on her v-hour shifts likely idea that all of their donation was going to clemency. She said that the visitor's canonical sales pitch never mentioned a for-turn a profit company existence involved.
InvestigateWest also found that for-profit thrift stores give consumers dislocated signals virtually their for-turn a profit status. At stores InvestigateWest visited and contacted, fifty-fifty some store employees were, at best, themselves confused.
At the Carolina Value Village, a person answering the phone declared her store to be a nonprofit. A receptionist for Tennessee'south Southern Thrift Stores said those stores are charities. And when asked if the store was a nonprofit, a staffer at Metropolis Thrift in Lilburn, Georgia, answered, "I guess so." A sales clerk at a Urban center Thrift in Memphis asked about the portion of sales going to charity, said, "It all goes to the veterans."
Some of these stores might use marketing to convey an aura of clemency. For example, America's Thrift Stores currently advertises, "Your donations and the resulting in-shop purchases contribute to brand wishes come true for Alabama children with life-threatening medical conditions." Today, Make a Wish Alabama is paid a majority rate just does not see a percentage of sales, according to the organization's representatives.
King'southward Home, a Christian-based organization in Alabama, was the main charity partner of America's Thrift Stores until 2017.
"People but don't know! They think the charities are making then much more than they really are. They fifty-fifty make information technology audio similar a whole lot [in their marketing]," said Lew Burdette, Rex's Dwelling president.
King's Home runs 22 shelters serving youth, women, and kids seeking refuge from domestic violence, homelessness, and other circumstances. Shortly afterward severing relations with America'south Thrift, King's Dwelling started its own chain of three austerity stores on a strictly nonprofit model, and Burdette reports they're off to a proficient beginning.
America'southward Thrift Stores did not render requests for annotate.
Impact on other charities
"You tin can rest assured that your contributions are being put to good employ because all of the proceeds from these [donated] items go directly to the National Kidney Foundation and its efforts to reduce the prevalence of chronic kidney disease in the United states," advertises one National Kidney Services website.
"Such language is misleading to the public because it leads one to believe that any dollars that are raised through your donation would become directly to the nonprofit. Nevertheless there's money being made that is non going to the nonprofit from your donation," said Kris Kewitsch, of the Minnesota-based Charities Review Council.
"They're not being transparent by not telling the public what the real organization is," she added. "At that place's no clarity on the relationship between the stores and the nonprofit."
>>> Read: Regulators scissure down on misleading austerity operations <<<
Occasionally, savvy consumers take hold of on.
An acquaintance who had managed a for-profit austerity store told Rose Ackley of Columbus, Ohio, nigh the business organization model. Later Ackley got a call from someone claiming to represent the National Kidney Foundation, a noted charity. She agreed to donate several bags of accumulated goods.
When the truck rolled upwards to her door, information technology said "Ohio Thrift," which is office of the for-profit concatenation Ackley's acquaintance warned her most. She refused to make the donation.
That was 2007. Today Ackley continues to refuse to shop at the shop as a matter of principle.
"If Goodwill and Salvation Regular army and other nonprofit stores had that money, a lot of people would be taken intendance of," Ackley said in an interview in 2019. "They help a lot of people."
For-turn a profit austerity stores like Value Village Atlanta and Carolina Value Hamlet expect superficially similar Goodwill and Salvation Regular army, standards of the American secondhand market.
Past contrast, these nonprofit stores usually return nearly all of their revenues to charitable causes after paying operating expenses. St. Vincent De Paul reports in its federal records that it returns 90% to its charitable mission. Goodwill returns 83%. Nonprofits are by law responsible for insuring that their assets become to clemency and for filing detailed tax returns, which are open to public view.
The average donation to Goodwill—a few bags of goods—is worth about $45 or $fifty to the austerity store, according to Mark Kahrs, executive vice president of retail operations at Goodwill in St. Louis.
"That donation of your stuff is really worth something to a nonprofit," Kahrs said. "Yous wouldn't just write a $l check without knowing it would really aid someone."
Pound-for-pound, a donation to a nonprofit goes much further, said Greg Rue, manager of thrift businesses for ARC's Value Village, a Minnesota nonprofit with several stores. "If you lot brought in a pair of jeans as a donation to united states, we might put it out on a rack for $5 or $x. So, we'd become a $5 or $x profit that would come back to us. That aforementioned pair of jeans donated to a for-profit austerity store would likewise sell for $5 or $ten but the for-profit would give the charity far, far less… probably only pennies for that pair of jeans."
Consumers tin as well deduct the off-white-market value of their donation, though picayune of that value goes to charity, co-ordinate to tax expert Philip Hackney, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh Schoolhouse of Law and a former attorney for the main counsel to the Internal Acquirement Service.
"The for-profit has an opportunity to brand a real profit off the way the revenue enhancement code is written now," Hackney told InvestigateWest. "I think there's a legitimate question virtually whether these charities are operating exclusively for charitable purposes… [if they're] providing the for-profit nearly of their take."
America'due south Thrift Stores is a private equity-owned, for-profit company that operates 18 stores in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, and according to its ain website, pays Make-A-Wish Alabama three.five cents per pound for clothing donated by the nonprofit, with a minimum annual guarantee of $650,000.
America'south Thrift Stores partnering charity, Make A Wish Foundation of Alabama, says the company does non pay the nonprofit for furniture. "This is made articulate to our supporters and to America'south Thrift Stores donors through this website and our communication with external audiences," said Tracy Smith, President and CEO of Make A Wish Foundation of Alabama.
Nevertheless on its website, the austerity shop directly solicits donations of "chairs, sofas, couches, loveseats, recliners, foot stools, storage dressers, armoires, bookcases, cabinets, entertainment centers, dining tables, kitchen tables, java tables, end tables, computer tables, nightstands and patio sets."
Smaller nonprofit thrift stores competing with for-profits object to such business practices.
Tanya Mahrous Tobias, director and co-founder of 2d Life Atlanta, a nonprofit thrift store dedicated to raising funds for animal rescues, feels that many charity shops similar her own, which make upwardly a large function of the Clan of Resale Professionals' membership, face unfair contest.
"We have to spend more money to keep our name height of listen because nosotros don't have fleets of trucks driving effectually the neighborhood or donation bins all over the identify," she said. "It's misleading to the public for [for-profit austerity stores] to say they're donating to sure charities and truly helping significantly," noting that "nonprofit stores send much larger proceeds [from their profits] to clemency."
With nigh of the companies, public information does not mention what actually goes to charities. That's because in most states in that location are few or no disclosure requirements. California is an exception, where records show that charities doing business with for-profit thrift stores are typically receiving significantly less than what charities make running their ain austerity stores.
California land records prove, for example, that in 2018, for-turn a profit thrift stores purchasing donations from charities paid most 16% of their revenues to charities; those that received a fee or commission from charities received about 7.5% on average.
None of the ten for-profit thrift store chains contacted by InvestigateWest agreed to provide fiscal statements showing their benefits to charities. However, in some cases, nonprofits accept received amounts less than 3% of the for-profit stores' revenues, as disclosed in contracts obtained by the Minnesota Attorney General for the Savers for-profit thrift concatenation, the nation'south largest. For example, Vietnam Veterans of America, in contracts with Apogee Retail, LLC (a subsidiary of TVI), received less than 3% in many cases and consistently under 5% between 2015 and 2018; Disabled American Veterans, too, consistently got less than 10% of proceeds to the stores.
"People are being misled into thinking that they're giving to charity when there's picayune charity existence served," said Daniel Borochoff, founder and board director of CharityWatch in Chicago, which monitors charity fundraising practices nationwide.
The thrift is in
Today, in that location are at least 500 for-turn a profit thrift stores, owned past virtually xx regional branded chains, operating in the U.s.a. and Canada, according to an InvestigateWest count.
With shopping malls and retail shops rapidly shutting downwardly nationwide, thrift stores represent a bright spot among the generally declining brick-and-mortar retail industry.
Sales of secondhand goods are booming, growing about three% each year, faster than conventional retail. And market researchers projection this multibillion-dollar manufacture volition grow exponentially: The business organisation inquiry firm IBISWorld found sales of $20.five billion at 84,960 used goods stores in the United States in 2019, with online reselling also growing thirteen.vii% each year.
>>> Read: There's big business in thrift <<<
"Austerity shopping is really trendy right now," says Michael Becerra, marketing managing director for Sunshine Thrift Stores, based in Tampa. "We get a very diverse group with a lot of young people in higher, or contempo graduates, young families and parents, as well as low-income families who shop here because it's the simply mode they're affording shopping."
Add to this mix "treasure-hunters and resellers looking for subconscious gems at decent prices—a little fleck of everything," he says.
Still, every bit consumers caput in droves to thrift for Halloween costumes, a leading national abet for fundraising transparency said people should watch for misrepresentation, in both shopping and making donations.
"Being for profit is perfectly legal, but misrepresenting a business organisation as a clemency is not," said Bennett Weiner, of the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance.
Robert McClure contributed to this report. This story was supported in role past a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
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Francesca Lyman is author of The Greenhouse Trap: What Nosotros're Doing to the Atmosphere and How Nosotros Can Slow Global Warming, with Earth Resources Institute; andWithin the Dzanga Sangha Pelting Forest. She has written for Seattle Met,Crosscut.com, Popular Mechanics, Ms. Magazine, MSN, New York Fourth dimensionsouth,L.A. Times, The Washington Mail, and others, and wrote the Your Environmentcolumn for MSNBC.COM. She has contributed to InvestigateWest since 2014.
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Source: https://www.invw.org/2020/10/30/profiting-from-thrift-whos-getting-rich-off-your-secondhand-stuff/