Think Before You Donate…
And We Think You Will Donate to Goodwill
Every so often an email or social media post titled, “Think Before You Donate” circulates. This messaging, which has been around for many years, contains false information about several charities—including Goodwill. We know that you want your donations to be used wisely, so we would like to clarify and provide you with the correct information.
The email/messaging falsely claims a person named Mark Curran is the president and owner of Goodwill and that he profits $2.3 million a year from your donations. This is NOT the case. Goodwill is a worldwide network of 157+ autonomous organizations in the United States as well as 12 countries abroad. Each is governed by a local volunteer Board of Trustees. Goodwill Industries International is the network’s association office that supports the local Goodwills. There is not an “owner” of Goodwill. Furthermore no one by the name Mark Curran has ever headed a Goodwill organization! Locally, Mark B. Boyd has served as president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Southern NJ & Philadelphia since 2005.
Other clarifications:
- Goodwill Industries of Southern NJ & Philadelphia is a community-based, nonprofit 501 (c)(3) organization. A volunteer Board of Trustees consisting of individuals from throughout the communities we serve governs us–providing strategic planning, ensuring sound financial management and making sure that we fulfill our charitable mission.
- When you donate to Goodwill, 100% of your donation supports us. We sell your donations in our thrift stores and use the revenue to fund job training programs that help individuals with disabilities and disadvantages to get to work. If a charity does not operate its own thrift stores than they are not getting 100% of your donation.
- More than 87 cents of every dollar generated by Goodwill supports its life changing mission programs. Nationally, CharityWatch, an independent organization that evaluates philanthropic organizations, gives Goodwill an ‘A’ rating—one of the highest in the country for nonprofit organizations. GuideStar has also given us their seal of approval. Typically, these independent organizations expect a charity to devote at least 60% of its revenues to mission programming.
The bottom line is that because Goodwill is widely known and respected in the nonprofit world, we sometimes stand in the line of fire from individuals and organizations that are misinformed and/or misrepresent us to the public. Goodwill encourages everyone to “think before you donate” – the one legitimate message that this otherwise spurious email contains. Please always take the time to research and learn more about the charities you support and be certain that they organization you choose uses its revenue for charitable purposes in support of a mission that you believe in. You can be rest assured that when you donate to Goodwill, we will put your donations to good use by helping individuals find meaningful employment and building stronger families and communities one job at a time.
Click here to see what SNOPES has to say about this false email.