Giving the gift of giving

Americans gave a record of more than $300 billion to charities last year, according to a recently published report. Of that, Gifts in Kind International, a philanthropic enterprise based in Alexandria, was responsible for distributing nearly $800 million in product donations to 120,000 community-based service organizations here and abroad.

And it was done with a 28-person staff.

The nonprofit Gifts in Kind, in its 25th year, refers to itself as a “transparent organization,” which it largely is - except to recipients it reaches through an impressive network of contacts and alliances.

Eighty percent of recipients are domestic; the rest are in 105 countries around the world. In June, 300,000 pounds of tents were shipped to China to help provide shelter for the millions of people left homeless by earthquakes. Much of the merchandise came from companies such as REI, a membership chain of retail stores known for sporting goods. Some tents also went to areas in Iowa and Mississippi stricken by floods, says Gifts in Kind Chief Executive Officer Richard Wong.

A more common beneficiary closer to home is someone like Sinda Lewis, a 54-year-old recovering drug addict and mother of three in Greensboro, N.C., who, through luck and perseverance, achieved a kind of sanity after divorce and 10 years of substance abuse. Along the way, she received many personal products from Gifts in Kind through one of its clients, the Welfare Reform Liaison Project, run by the Rev. Calvin Odell Cleveland in Greensboro, N.C.

“We’re talking about gifts as simple as a box of diapers and what that means to a single mom coming off welfare who no longer gets food stamps,” Mr. Odell says, adding that his nonprofit has helped about 9,000 people in 11 years, a lot of them single mothers “from domestic abuse situations.”

He can request specific products or check a Gifts in Kind bulletin to see what is available from manufacturers.

“It’s almost like recycling,” he says of the donor’s mission.

Mr. Odell’s project, which in turn works with a variety of community-action groups such as shelters, operates a faith-based program that involves guidance and job training that Ms. Lewis says brought her away from the edge and got her back on her feet to the point where she could get on the dean’s list at a local community college.

Most of the nonperishable donations given to Gifts in Kind by corporate entities are new. Organization officials say parameters are applied carefully so as not to upset local economies. A sudden influx of goods to an underdeveloped country, for example, might cripple fragile indigenous businesses. The exception is computer technology, which usually is costly overseas.

In the past, companies deemed older items ideal donations; today, many prefer to give up-to-date models because they know “they are training future users on their best products,” Mr. Wong notes. The spirit of giving has a practical brand-enhancing side.

Gifts in Kind, an outgrowth of United Way, calls itself unblinkingly the “World’s Leading Charity in Product Philanthropy,” a boast that begs the question of just what product philanthropy is and how many such charities exist. The Chronicle of Philanthropy calls it the eighth-largest charity in the United States, according to the nonprofit’s Web site (www.giftsinkind.org), which goes on to say it works with “nearly half of the Fortune 100 consumer, retail and technology corporations.”

Companies consider donations valuable for tax purposes, and many have established foundations. They rely on Gifts in Kind for expertise in logistics and transportation and for experience in knowing what goods do best where. The nonprofit, in turn, says it carefully vets recipient organizations to be sure products are being used the right way.

“We’re very proud of our efficiency,” Mr. Wong says.

Although toys and personal consumer products may be top draws for recipients, it’s important to know the vagaries of shipping and understand what is appropriate for what areas of the world - to know that shampoo bottles can freeze and break under certain conditions and that “a squirt gun probably isn’t appropriate in a conflict zone,” says John Connolly, a Gifts in Kind board member and official of an international shipping company based in Springfield.