Catholic Social Services Southern Nebraska (CSS) launched the eCommerce program three years ago as part of our Sustainability Department’s regift, resell, recycle initiative. Through this initiative, we select donations and list them on various online platforms, enabling us to better extend the life cycle of donations and divert them from landfills. We now have a global reach to share our mission, to reach customers, and to steward donations in a whole new way to gain more funding to support our programs.
Challenge or Need
First, as more families and community members came to our door for assistance, we wanted to see if we could steward donations in a new and innovative way to generate more needed revenue.
CSS is blessed with a generous community that provides items for our thrift stores. Those items, in turn, are placed on the thrift store floor for local patrons to purchase, and those sales support our programs. Thrift shoppers expect to stretch their dollar, so pricing at the thrift store reflects that. But we also realized that some items could bring in more revenue if we had a wider audience. This is when we decided to start our eCommerce program. Our program allows us to research and analyze donations to determine if they should go to thrift or online. We now reach a global audience of people placing much higher value on the items we list. This has created an unrestricted revenue stream that goes directly to support our programs in order to do more good.
The second challenge we hoped to address was waste reduction. We live in a time of intense waste. Clothing, tech items, toys, etc., are all being produced at a rapid speed and donated in high volumes. Many organizations cannot keep up with the amount of donations, which then end up in the landfill. We wanted to reduce and prevent this destiny. We accomplish this by having diverse platforms for selling as well as through our collaboration with local vendors, recycling partners, etc.
Why It’s Innovative
Our eCommerce team is using technology and online platforms to produce results that better serve the 24,000 square miles we support. We are using new approaches and tools every day to maximize the good we can do with donated items. Take, for example, a Coach purse that was donated. Before eCommerce, it would have been placed at the thrift store and sold for $15-$25 to a bargain buyer. With eCommerce, we took researched this item through AI-driven software and/or selling groups to determine its authenticity and resale value. Our team then processed it, listed it for sale on eBay and five other platforms, and then waited for it to sell on the global market. Eventually, it sold for $325 to an excited buyer on the East coast. This is just one of many examples of how our innovative approach has yielded extraordinary results for our agency.
We are also innovating as the world changes. Online shopping continues to grow, and shoppers continue to change their buying behaviors. Online platforms allow buyers across the globe to access sought after items, collectibles, old memories, and favorite brands with just a few clicks. eCommerce has allowed us to think differently about items we receive as we take a seemingly innocuous item and learn that people across the globe have been searching for it and are willing to pay higher prices. This results in us doing more good for our local communities.
Program Impact
This initiative has a great impact on the work we do. We have created a strong revenue stream for the agency. This is another great way to diversify funding and use it to best serve our clients without overreach from other entities. eCommerce just wrapped up its third fiscal year, and our revenue shows great growth. The first year, we generated $25,000; the second year, $50,000; and the third year, $206,000.
Our eCommerce presence has allowed us to create global awareness of what we do. We speak about our mission on our online platforms and encourage buyers to visit our website to learn more about our work. We have shipped to every state in the union and 20 different countries. We have taken a donation from Lincoln, Nebraska, and found it a second home in London, completing a collectors set. Buyers from many backgrounds have shared their love for our mission and support our online stores to join us in that mission.
Our recycling and waste diversion have come a long way. Over the past year, our waste reduction has gone from 20% down to below 10%. Our partnership with a local recycling service follows industry protocols and meets professional compliance standards.
We’ve also had full circle moments. A couple of years ago, a buyer picked up the items she purchased. We asked if she had heard of CSS and how she found us. She said she was a previous client in our St. Gianna’s Home (domestic violence Shelter) and was so grateful for all the help she received. She was excited to come back and support us by purchasing an item she wanted. This was a great encounter that fuels us to continue doing what we do!
One final example to illustrate how this innovation is helping our community think differently about things they might not otherwise have donated or thought could do much good. A donor gave several pounds of sterling silver. A few months later, we thanked her and shared that it generated $6,000 for CSS. She responded, “GREAT NEWS for CSS and for your ingenuity and ability to turn ‘basement boxes’ into revenue. I was so thrilled when CSS announced online sales for donations. I knew it would be a perfect place for my family’s items!”
Lessons Learned
Think big and think differently!
Think big: Three and a half years ago, when we launched this program, we were told by a consultant we would be generating $5K to $6K per month in online sales. That was very exciting and seemed like an impossible goal as we started. We are now doing $15K to $18K per month.
Think differently: We have learned to pivot when things don’t work, tweaked systems, and given items that we never thought would sell a chance. We dove into AI and other tools to see how they could best support our workflow to make us more efficient. We found local businesses and networked to receive free shipping supplies that allow us to be a lean operation and maximize revenue. At every turn, we explored new ways to think about what we had and what we could do with it.
Think big and differently: We have learned to take what we already had, which was generous donations, and to make their impact bigger by using them differently. Each agency has strengths, each community has various forms of generosity. This initiative has encouraged us to ask other agencies: How can YOU maximize those strengths and put that generosity to use in different, creative ways to bring more good to your community?