uncluttering one day and one thing at a time

This post was inspired by a conversation in the comments of one of November's daily posts. I volunteer in a (UK) charity shop and have some tips for how to help your chosen charities get as much money as possible for your donations.

I'd like to start by saying that I don't want to add to anyone's guilt or stress when decluttering by making them worry about not being "perfect" about how they donate. If that clutter needs to be gone, get it gone in whatever way is easiest (including general trash).

So here are my tips. These are all based on what we do at my shop; other charity shops may do things a little differently and it may work differently in your country's equivalent (op shop, kringloop, Goodwill etc.) — please do comment if you have insights into how it works where you are.

1. Ask the people in the charity shop you're donating to what they can and can't accept — ideally before you walk in with your donations.

For example, my shop can't take electrical items that plug into a wall outlet, because we can't get them safety tested, but we can take battery/USB powered items. We also can't take furniture, because the shop isn't big enough to display it. And we don't take things like child car seats or bicycle helmets because of the liability issues if it's faulty.

We're more than happy to suggest other places where people can donate some of those things. (We're next door to another charity shop that can take both electricals and furniture, for example, and we have no problem sending people there.)

2. To avoid frustration, check what times or days the shop is able to take donations. My shop's policy is to take donations all day every day and never turn donations away (with the exceptions listed in the first point) but some shops only accept donations on certain days or at certain times of day. If you want to donate large items like furniture, you can also ask them if they do pickups (or even house clearances).

3. If you have clothes, shoes, accessories, bedlinen etc that are very worn or stained, bag them up separately and tell the shop staff when you donate that they're in poor condition and only fit for recycling. They can then send the bag straight to recycling without sorting through it. (We're even happy to give people bags to fill with straight-to-recycling clothes.)

4. If you're donating seasonal clothes and accessories (summer dresses and sandals; winter coats and boots), please try to donate them near the start of that season. We can only keep "the best of the best" of out-of-season clothes, so we're likely to send more of your donations to recycling if they're the wrong season rather than being able to put them out in the shop (and get 100 times the money for selling them than we get sending them to recycling).

5. Please check pockets and the insides of bags etc before you donate. One reason is that you might accidentally donate something you want to keep — we had a donation of handbags where every bag had at least £2 in change in it (currently the price of a single bus fare) which netted us an extra £23, but probably wasn't intentional. Another reason for checking pockets is that it's really not fun as a volunteer to check the pockets of a good quality coat in good condition. only to find half a dozen dirty tissues!

6. Please put your donations in a bag or box that you are willing to donate. It's awkward and time-consuming to have to decant items from a donor's box/bag into another one. If you're willing to leave the items in the bags you brought but would like similar replacement bags (e.g. really strong re-usable grocery bags), we can usually offer you ones that came in as part of another donation (possibly even from the same brand!)

7. Please don't bring in very heavy bags/boxes: it makes it hard for volunteers to move them into the storage areas in the back of the shop and then get them out again to be sorted. (We don't sort everything immediately because we may not have enough volunteers at that point to get through everything being donated that morning or afternoon or we may not have volunteers who specialise in and are knowledgeable about those kinds of donations.)

8. Books, fragile ornaments, china and glass are usually better donated in boxes (again, please keep in mind the weight of each box) as these items can more easily be damaged and no longer suitable for sale if they're put in bags. Clothes are better donated in bags (preferrably trash bags that can be tied).

9. If you're in the UK and you pay tax, please sign up for gift aid. The government will give the charity an extra 25p for every pound the charity makes from your donations, at no extra cost to you. (You need to sign up separately with each charity.) I don't know if there are similar schemes in other countries — if you know about one in your country, please tell us about it in the comments.

10. Please consider volunteering in your local charity shop! It obviously depends on the shop and the shop's managers, but it can be a lot of fun working with other volunteers and satisfying to see happy customers leaving with their bargains. If you love talking to people, working on the till is great fun. If you're the shy or introverted type, there's always plenty to do in the back of the shop. You don't need any particular skills, just a willingness to get stuck in and follow instructions.

If you're out of work, it's an excellent way to build confidence and useful skills that will help you get a paid job — several of our volunteers have moved on to paid jobs over the last year and our shop manager was very happy to provide references for them. If you're in school, it looks great as an extra-curricular.

If you have any questions, please ask and I'll do my best to answer them.