EA aligned version of “Oxfam stores” … in the USA+
I used to buy a lot and give away a lot of stuff at Oxfam stores in the UK. I don’t agree with all of the approaches and campaigns but I think that they do a great deal of good. I think that before their prostitution scandal broke the stores were earning about £20 million per year.
Do we have anything like that in the US? We have Goodwill and the Salvation Army but those are doing domestic charity only and thus an order of magnitude less effective, I suspect.
This made me think: would there be any value potential in having a store like this, especially in the USA that was supporting a variety of EA causes (Global health, animal welfare, reducing existential risk…)? If it’s done right it might raise a few tens of millions of dollars per year at least. (Maybe much more. I’m seeing very inconsistent numbers for Goodwill’s and Salvation Army’s revenues for example). [1]
I suspect that much of this would be counterfactual because people in the USA tend to give domestically only, and the people using this store would otherwise be going to Goodwill or Salvation Army.
My impression is that donations themselves might be the minority of the benefit. The presence of the Oxfam stores in the UK also had big community building and public awareness benefits (for Oxfam). Nearly every moderate sized city/town had an Oxfam store which was pretty stylish and had lots of volunteers and maybe some activities around it. It was also not just students but a lot of other people were involved with it.
Any thoughts on whether this idea might have legs?
This is a really interesting idea! I’m very fond of charity shops so I love the idea of making ones for EA charities. I have no idea how easy or hard it is to do and how it compares to other fundraising tactics, but it seems like it could have a big impact both from profits and from raising awareness. It could be a good thing to do for people with experience starting or running shops.
EA aligned version of “Oxfam stores” … in the USA+
I used to buy a lot and give away a lot of stuff at Oxfam stores in the UK. I don’t agree with all of the approaches and campaigns but I think that they do a great deal of good. I think that before their prostitution scandal broke the stores were earning about £20 million per year.
Do we have anything like that in the US? We have Goodwill and the Salvation Army but those are doing domestic charity only and thus an order of magnitude less effective, I suspect.
This made me think: would there be any value potential in having a store like this, especially in the USA that was supporting a variety of EA causes (Global health, animal welfare, reducing existential risk…)? If it’s done right it might raise a few tens of millions of dollars per year at least. (Maybe much more. I’m seeing very inconsistent numbers for Goodwill’s and Salvation Army’s revenues for example). [1]
I suspect that much of this would be counterfactual because people in the USA tend to give domestically only, and the people using this store would otherwise be going to Goodwill or Salvation Army.
My impression is that donations themselves might be the minority of the benefit. The presence of the Oxfam stores in the UK also had big community building and public awareness benefits (for Oxfam). Nearly every moderate sized city/town had an Oxfam store which was pretty stylish and had lots of volunteers and maybe some activities around it. It was also not just students but a lot of other people were involved with it.
Any thoughts on whether this idea might have legs?
Annual report reports ~$47 million in goods sales, but Forbes reports $5.8 billion in revenue, mostly ‘other income’
This is a really interesting idea! I’m very fond of charity shops so I love the idea of making ones for EA charities. I have no idea how easy or hard it is to do and how it compares to other fundraising tactics, but it seems like it could have a big impact both from profits and from raising awareness. It could be a good thing to do for people with experience starting or running shops.