Sorting it all out

It's January, and the new clothes and toys your family got at Christmas aren't going to fit into those overstuffed closets. Time to start seriously culling. But before you make a donation to a local charity, stop and ask yourself: "Will my trash really be their treasure?"

The best donations, say those in the field, make both the giver and receiver happy. But how do you know what the charity's needs and goals are? It helps to "check the local listings," since they can vary from one region to another. And it's important to understand that the charitable landscape is more complicated than it used to be.

It's also much more costly.

The Goodwill operation in Boston, for example, spends $300,000 annually disposing of items that don't meet its needs. And the California arm of the organization spends a whopping $7 million a year in dumping costs.

That's why it's good to know what to donate and what to put out for the trash. It's also helpful to understand what happens to your castoffs after you've dropped them off.

Each charity - and each store - has slightly different needs, of course, but there are certain items that tend to be popular across the board.

Clothing donations drive thrift-store operations, according to both Goodwill and the Salvation Army, two of the largest and most visible of the charities that accept used household goods and resell them.

"Probably 70 percent of our income comes through our clothing sales," says Maj. Leo Lloyd, administrator of the Salvation Army's Saugus, Mass., Adult Rehabilitation Center. "I'd rather have more clothes to sell than even furniture."

All types of clothing are welcome - modern styles to vintage - so long as pieces are neat and usable. Most people wash or dry-clean clothes before donating them, which the charities prefer. Major Lloyd says the Salvation Army does not wash things before putting them on display.

Once clothes are on the racks, they usually remain there for 30 days at full price. A man's sweater, for example, might sell for $2 to $8.

At the end of a month, clothes may be marked down for clearance, or, if there is too much merchandise coming in, taken off the floor completely. At the Disabled American Veterans Thrift Store in Meriden, Conn., for example, many items are scooped up during monthly bag sales, in which patrons can fill one bag for $5, a second for $4, and each bag thereafter for $3.

Clothes that don't sell after 30 days - about 50 percent of the total - are sold to textile salvagers for their rag value or shipped overseas. Donations that are torn or stained when they come in go directly to the salvagers.

One exception is torn jeans, since the tattered look is considered fashionable by young people, and the jeans can always be turned into shorts. A quality coat with a ripped pocket lining would also be acceptable, since it still has good resale potential.

"What we tell people is that before they give to Goodwill, they should think about whether or not they would give the item to a relative or friend," says Christine Bragale, a spokeswoman for Goodwill Industries International. "If the answer is no, they should probably put the item in the trash rather than give it to us, because every dollar we spend in disposing of an item that we can't sell in our thrift stores is a dollar we can't spend in our employment and training programs."

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