The donation bin is the worst deal in charity

You clear out the garage, load the car, drive it all to a donation bin, and feel good about it. You should. The alternative for most of that stuff is a landfill.

But follow one bike out of the back of that car. It's worth about forty-five dollars to the right person. At the bin it gets sorted, priced by somebody with thirty seconds to spend on it, put on a shelf and sold for eight. The charity keeps a slice of that once the shop, the staff and the space are paid for. You got nothing, you didn't choose which charity, and you'll never find out which one it was.

The same bike, sold

Forty-five dollars, from somebody who specifically wanted that bike. We take 15% and the card takes about three percent, and the rest is the seller's — to keep, or to send to a cause they picked by name.

None of that is a dig at thrift shops. They exist because matching one used bike to the one person who wants it used to cost more effort than the bike was worth. That's the part that changed.

What we're actually asking for

Photograph the thing, pick a cause, agree a pickup. We're not asking anybody to be more generous than they already are. We're asking it to take four minutes instead of a Saturday.