The Nonprofit Insider Podcast · Swim Karim

The Uncut Series: What Happens to Your Donated Goods After a Disaster?

·25 min·1 clip

At Sandy Hook, donations included 65,000 teddy bears or stuffed animals in Newton, Connecticut.

1. The Nonprofit Insider Podcast episode 48 focuses on what happens to donated goods after a disaster, using New Mexico wildfires and Rio Doso as the opening example. 2. Swim Kareem frames the episode as a practical explanation from a nonprofit worker, a moving resident, and someone responding to questions about donated items. 3. The episode asks what nonprofits actually do with goods after disasters and why cash can be more useful than household items. 4. Kareem says everyday donations often start with moving, yard sales, or empty-nest cleanouts, and he says he has donated only about 5% of his own belongings while relocating. 5. He argues that people overvalue their possessions and assume others will want old vacuums, dressers, printers, and worn T-shirts. 6. He cites an estimate attributed through the Seattle Times to a University of Nebraska source that says 60% of thrift-store donations across the United States are not worth anything. 7. He says Goodwill affiliates can end up spending as much as $115 million a year on trash services because so many donated items are unusable. 8. He uses examples like an old vacuum with years of dirt and pet hair to show why donated goods are often treated as a dumping ground. 9. Kareem says criticism of nonprofit pricing is not always fair, even though he says nonprofits should still be open to public feedback. 10. He shifts to disaster response and lists hurricanes, wildfires, tsunamis, flooding, and mass shootings as situations where people want to help quickly. 11. He says the Hawaii wildfires showed how people send goods tied to a place they care about, even when those goods are hard to transport or manage. 12. He says organizations often prefer money because a donated kitchen table or other bulky item may not be useful in Hawaii or Texas after a disaster. 13. He says there is often “another disaster” created by donated items themselves because the logistics of sorting, shipping, and storing them become overwhelming. 14. He cites Sandy Hook in Newton, Connecticut, where donations included board games, clothes, bedsheets, and a reported 65,000 teddy bears or stuffed animals. 15. He says local EMS, fire departments, police stations, and USPS workers had to help handle the donation volume in a town of about 27,000 people. 16. He says many donated goods are either never used or are passed to another nonprofit, sold later, or stored for a future disaster response. 17. Kareem says diapers, formula, bottled water, and back-to-school supplies can be useful, but even those items may be used first from existing stock and replenished later. 18. He describes a New Mexico credit union that collected bottled water, Gatorade, pens, pencils, and back-to-school supplies but did not have a system to process the donations. 19. The tone is conversational, opinionated, and explanatory, with direct address to listeners and examples from New Mexico, Hawaii, Connecticut, and Texas. 20. The format is mostly a solo monologue with brief promotional breaks and a practical, donation-focused argument throughout.

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