It’s officially fall — a great season to clean out closets and prepare for winter! Donating your gently used goods to Goodwill is easy and makes a positive impact right here in our central and southern Indiana communities. Here are three ways you can directly support local social, economic and environmental sustainability by donating to Goodwill. 

With more than 70 Goodwill central and southern Indiana retail sites, our stores are an important and significant part of who we are and what we do. They fuel our social sustainability work, generating revenue for critical services while providing job opportunities for thousands of Hoosiers, many of whom face limited job options.

Everything we do, including our retail operations, helps us further our mission of empowering people to increase their independence and reach their potential. From education to health to employment, all our programs and services – made possible through your support – provide life-changing opportunities to those who connect with Goodwill.

2. Help Indiana’s economy

By making a donation to Goodwill, you help fuel our local economy by not only providing thousands of jobs to our retail associates but also by helping us change lives through mission programs. As a non-profit, all of the revenue made at Goodwill's stores goes right back into our community through services like:

• The Excel Center: Tuition-free, charter high school for adults that focuses on removing barriers to education by offering students flexible scheduling, tutoring, life coaching, child care, transportation, college credits and other resources, while helping them prepare for postsecondary education and a career.
• Nurse-Family Partnership: Pre-natal and maternal health, parenting skills, child development and school readiness.
• The Children's Learning Center: A child development center and preschool for children ages six weeks to five years. Our services set us apart from other child care facilities, allowing us to help all children, challenged to gifted, to develop to their full potential.
• New Beginnings: Job readiness, training and outplacement for individuals with a history of involvement in criminal justice.

Many companies are focused on reducing their carbon footprints, packaging waste, water usage and more to help protect our planet. At Goodwill of Central & Southern Indiana, however, stewardship for the Earth is a large part of what we do every day.

“Goodwill helps keep millions of items out of our landfills every single day,” said Brodie Sears, vice president of retail, facilities, and real estate at Goodwill of Central & Southern Indiana. “Goodwill’s donation centers are ready to receive your clothes, toys, furniture, electronics and other items, which ultimately impact our local and global sustainability.”

Once an item is donated to one of our Goodwill retail locations, it is evaluated and tagged for sale in our stores or online. If an item does not sell after a period of time, it is then shipped to one of our Goodwill Outlets, where items are sold by the pound.

Items not sold at our Goodwill Outlet locations are recycled or sold in bulk so that they stay out of our landfills at all costs.

When you donate to Goodwill, you change lives! Hope to see you at one of our donation centers this season.