Nextdoor, for those that don’t know, is one of those local social media apps. It can be a great place to find out local news, although the number of posts about cats being run over can be depressing. The other day I saw a post that depressed me despite featuring no dead pets. A presumably well-meaning lady asked, “Would it be unreasonable to remove the shop brand labels on clothes that I want to give to local charity shops?” She had observed that some people buy clothes with prestigious labels from charity shops or second-hand clothes apps such as Vinted and then sell them at a profit. She thought this was terrible and wanted to stop it happening.
Several people challenged her view. “Why would you take the labels out if you are donating to a charity?” said one response. “The charity could make more money with the labels in”. That seemed to be the majority opinion. But a distressingly large minority clearly felt that reducing the charity’s income from selling donated clothes was worthwhile to ensure that no “spivs” could make any money from selling them a second time.
” But a distressingly large minority clearly felt that reducing the charity’s income from selling donated clothes was worthwhile to ensure that no “spivs” could make any money from selling them a second time.”
It depends what you consider the main purposes of selling secondhand clothes are. For some it would just be raising of funds for the charity in question. If so then yes, you wouldn’t have a problem if a multi-national corporation bought every item of clothing donated and fed them all into a big mincer and turned them into roof insulation. What happens to the clothes is immaterial, just that the charity gets its moolah first.
If on the other hand you consider that a decent secondary purpose (maybe even rivalling the money raising one) is that people with not much money can find decent quality clothes at cheap prices, then what happens after the monetary transaction DOES matter. If clothes are being bought and immediately resold at higher prices then they won’t be going to those at the lower end of society – those people will be being priced out. Many people might consider that not acceptable, especially the donors. They might consider that they are donating to two ‘good causes’ – the charity itself AND the person who gets to have a nice thing for a cheap price. They might not appreciate a third party trying to make a quick buck on the back of their donation, and at the expense of the potential impoverished buyer.
I’m not saying I necessarily agree with the latter argument, but I do have some sympathy for those who would make it. I don’t think its as morally clear cut as you make it out to be.
What @Jim said. People have a perfect right to direct their charitable donations where ever they want, and if their goal is to provide people poorer with nice clothes at a lower price rather than having them skimmed off for a profit by some enterprising “dumpster diver” equivalent in a charity shop, then this seems a perfectly reasonable strategy to me.
As long as it isn’t Oxfam. Nobody should be giving anything to those bastards.