Things to Do - Donate Used Clothing During the Pandemic

A widely circulated idea is that “No One Wants Your Used Clothes Anymore.” But this isn’t actually true. The economic crisis accompanying the pandemic has many individuals and families seeking free or inexpensive clothing.

Check first with local thrift stores. COVID has changed store policies. They may no longer provide pick up services, but many have drop off locations. Find additional COVID response information for national thrift store organizations here:

• Career Gear (accepting men’s suits by mail)
• Goodwill
• I Support the Girls (accepting bras and menstrual products by mail)
• Salvation Army

Online thrift and consignment stores allow you to make a little cash for clothing you are willing to part with. One large popular site is ThredUP for women’s clothing, shoes and accessories, and children’s wear. You pack up your discards in their free shipping package and send it to ThredUP; they take it from there. You can earn cash or shopping credits on the site.

Poshmark bills itself as a “social marketplace for new and secondhand style.” They accept clothing for women, men and children, as well as home decor and (only new) beauty items. You set up a sales “closet” for your discards that buyers can shop online, and Poshmark takes a commission on your sales.

Online peer-to-peer marketing is another option. For example, eBay provides additional support for buyers and sellers during the pandemic.

You can’t use the excuse that no-one will accept gently used clothing now to avoid cleaning out your closet. As Planet Aid points out, you can help other people and aid the Earth by donating your used textiles and secondhand clothing responsibly.

Support Virtual Ability When You Shop at Amazon

If you are one of the many people who use Amazon.com, you can support Virtual Ability every time you shop. Just use https://smile.amazon.com/ch/26-0613580 to launch Amazon instead of the usual “www.Amazon.com”, and Amazon will automatically donate 0.5% of your purchase price to Virtual Ability, Inc.® There is no additional cost to you (or to VAI) whatsoever. 

Virtual Ability uses the funds generated by this program to help pay for our community services, including our Second Life islands. 

Just remember to use this link when you sign into Amazon, and you will be directly helping us! 

 

How does AmazonSmile work? 

When first visiting AmazonSmile, customers select a charitable organization from almost one million eligible organizations. For eligible purchases at AmazonSmile, the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price to the customer’s selected charitable organization. 

What is the AmazonSmile Foundation? 

The AmazonSmile Foundation is a 501(c)(3) private foundation created by Amazon to administer the AmazonSmile program. All donation amounts generated by the AmazonSmile program are remitted to the AmazonSmile Foundation. In turn, the AmazonSmile Foundation donates those amounts to the charitable organizations selected by our customers. Amazon pays all expenses of the AmazonSmile Foundation; they are not deducted from the donation amounts generated by purchases on AmazonSmile. 

Can Virtual Ability tell what I purchased? 

No. All we get is a donation deposit every few months. We have no way to be able to tell who has participated or what they have purchased.

December 3 is Giving Tuesday - please help support Virtual Ability

Dec 3 is Giving Tuesday. Here are some ways to support Virtual Ability.

• Support Virtual Ability when you shop at Amazon
  If you are one of the many people who use Amazon, you can support Virtual Ability every time you shop.  Just use https://smile.amazon.com/ch/26-0613580 to set up or change your charity donation. Then use https://smile.amazon.com to launch Amazon instead of the usual “www.Amazon.com,” and Amazon will automatically donate 0.5% of your purchase price of qualifying items to Virtual Ability, Inc. There is no additional cost to you (or to VAI) whatsoever and it's totally anonymous. 
  
  Just remember to use this link to get started:
  
  https://smile.amazon.com/ch/26-0613580
  
  
• If you know a virtual world researcher, have them get in touch with Gentle Heron.  We can help them design and execute their research in virtual worlds.
  
  
• Also, if you have contact information for a Center for Independent Living (CIL or ILC), please pass that to Gentle Heron.
  
  
• If you know of a foundation that funds non-profit work, please let Gentle Heron know that too. We can apply for grants to help offset our SL expenses.
  
  
• Donations are always appreciated! You can donate Linden dollars or RL cash.
  

You can donate Lindens in the wishing well on Virtual Ability island here:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Ability/46/158/23

and you can donate through PayPal on our website here:

https://virtualability.org/make-a-donation/

You can request that a tax receipt be sent to you for cash donations, because we are a registered nonprofit.

• One final way to help Virtual Ability is by purchasing a parcel on one of our residential islands: Cape Able, Cape Serenity or Cape Heron. Chat with our estate managers: Treasure Ballinger, Zip Zlatkis, and iSkye Silverweb. 

Thank you for your interest and support of our community.

Make Charitable Contributions Safely

When you donate money to a charity, you want to be sure that it ends up furthering the cause you intend to support. Here are six steps to take when donating to ensure the charity delivers on its promises.

1.    For your donation to be tax-deductible in the US, the charity must be a registered, qualified non-profit. Search for the organization’s name in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) database of tax exempt organizations.

2.    Check out the organization’s website. Look for the organization’s mission statement, then find evidence of outcomes or impact of the organization’s work that align with its mission. Is the information updated and current?

Does the organization publish an annual report or other documentation of its claims of effective use of funds? Read accounts by persons served by the organization, but also look for statistics.

Check the staff’s contact information. Is it possible to identify actual persons you could call or email? Read their biographies to get a feel for the types of people intimately involved in the work of the organization.

3.    How do others feel about this organization? While you do not necessarily have to agree with people who offer either glowing testimonials or scathing negative reviews, it is useful to read both.

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) issues reports based on 20 Standards related to governance, finance, effectiveness, and informational materials about organizations for which they have received complaints. (Charities can also request a BBB evaluation. Those which meet all 20 Standards are then display the BBB National Charity Seal.)

Several independent organizations monitor the spending patterns of charities. It is felt that reasonable organizations spend no more than 30% of their income on running the business (salaries, office expenses, fundraising, and marketing). The charity should put at least 70% of donations toward the organization’s mission. Here are places to check how the charity you plan to donate to will use your dollars.

Charity Navigator shows the percentage of the organization’s budget spent on everything not related to its mission for organizations on their alphabetical listing. The website has a separate list of charities their experts have various levels of concerns about.

Charity Watch is like Charity Navigator but is organized by category rather than alphabetically. This can be helpful if you look for alternatives to the charity you were originally thinking of.

GiveWell is a VERY picky site. They create an annual short list of top global charities in the healthcare and poverty reduction arenas that are evidence-based and under-funded. This is useful if you want to donate where funding would be most effective.

GuideStar is perhaps the best-known source of information about charities. Free registration offers you tons of information on nonprofit organizations.

4.    From your research in steps 2 and 3, write a list of questions you would like answered about the organization.

Charity Navigator has a great list of questions that each organization should be able to answer, either through online documentation or by phone call or email.

5.    Contact a real person by phone or email and get answers to your questions. Follow up if you don’t understand an answer or need more depth.

6.    If you are planning to donate online, take these extra safety precautions.

·         Don’t ever consider giving your financial information through a website unless it is “secured.” You can identify a secured website by the letters in front of its URL. Secured websites begin with “https” where the “s” stands for “secured.”

·         Give directly to your desired charity instead of to a third party who is collecting donations “to be sent to” it.

·         Protect your personal information. Read the website privacy policy. Find out how the charity says it will use the information you provide. They should give you an “opt in” choice to allow them to disclose your information to other organizations. Find out if they place “cookies” on your hard drive.

·         Print out a paper record of the confirmation screen (or confirmation email) that your donation was received. Put this with your tax records.

Most charities are reputable and strive to improve the human condition. Don’t refrain from donating to charities. They need our support. Just be sure you donate safely.