Our Mission & Impact
We believe in:
Benefitting local charities. 25% of the sales price is given to charity. Anything that can’t be sold but it still usable is given to TFG Charitable Supply & Foundation, to be sorted and given away, for free, to other local charities.
Our donors’ and customers’ right to choose. When you donate unwanted items to Thrift for Good®, you can choose which charity will receive 25% of the proceeds from sale. The charity name is printed on each tag, so customers can see which charity their purchases are supporting.
Making shopping for used goods accessible for everyone. Thrifting has traditionally been a time-consuming and sometimes dirty or disorganized process. Our stores are clean, bright, well stocked and have consistent in-season inventory. We also offer a personal shopping service – during your appointment, choose from items hand-picked to your specifications. We want shopping to be easy and fun!
Maximizing the circular economy. The circular economy is the result of prioritizing the reuse of goods, and prevents the environmental costs of both disposing of those things and producing new things. The novel systems that we have developed (and are developing) to process goods and supply our stores help more used goods to move through our economy.
Preventing landfill. Very, very little of the stuff donated to us winds up in the landfill. Only genuine trash – broken things, mildewed clothes, etc. Why is that surprising? The big thrifts throw away a lot of good stuff! Sometimes it just sits out in the weather until it’s damaged, and sometimes it’s sold in large lots to resellers. Whatever the resellers don’t want gets tossed in the dumpster on the spot.
Preventing dumping into foreign markets. The end of the line for a lot of unwanted clothing donations is overseas. A small portion of that clothing makes its way into used markets there, but most of it ends up as trash. A lot of clothing is not biodegradable, and much of it is coated with chemicals, which can seep into the water supply. It is as toxic to the environment as old tires or plastic waste.
Reducing the demand for new materials. 20% of the world’s water waste is from the manufacture of clothing, and 8% of the world’s greenhouse gasses come from clothing and footwear manufacture. Creating new things has a big environmental impact, and we can change that just by buying used!
Reducing the demand for sweatshop labor. A huge amount of our clothing is made in sweatshops overseas. Conditions are horrible and abuse is rampant. Someone is having a horrible life just so we can buy t-shirts. But buying used eliminates the demand for those items. Another reason to shift to thrift!
Creating US-based production. We work really hard at what we do. Quality control, pricing, fulfillment, and merchandising are all complex and distinct roles in our organization. Our work turns items from an unwanted donation into a marketable product. In that respect, we believe that Used is Made Here®.
Let's talk about our Quality Values!
At Thrift for Good®, we are focused on the used goods market. We believe that we can make a big impact on a lot of problems if we better utilize used goods.
We began with a novel-concept. Unlike most thrift stores which are run by charities, Thrift for Good is a for-profit store that gives to charities, all chosen by the people. It's better for the environment, for our society, and for our wallets.e donor's charity of choice. We consider our retail store and donation processing facility to be a research and development lab for our processes and technologies. We believe shopping for used goods should be as fun and easy as buying new, and we're proving up our concept with hard work and careful curation in this high-volume, high-turnover environment.
Thrifting is an important part of the solution to two major problems in this country. It's not just "reduce" and "recycle" - environmentalists agree that reuse is the most significant component of waste reduction available to us as a country. At the same time, more and more people have needs that cannot be met with their wages alone. Thrifting extends the life of a product and makes it accessible for those who might not be able to afford it. We believe that it's important from an ethical perspective to de-stigmatize the idea of buying used goods. Buying used is better - not worse - than buying new.
