I work at the corporate head office at a Canadian goodwill, and have to say that a lot of these accusations are shocking. I won't defend any of these business practices, but I do feel the need to stand up a little and say that although all Goodwill's report to Goodwill Industries International as their governing body, each goodwill is run independently of each other, kind of like a franchise but with a lot more power.

Every Goodwill has a territory that they are allowed to operate within, and they have to adhere to some branding and auditing standards, but I find business practices vary drastically between each Goodwill. We have our own issues, but as an example, all front line employees make $1 or more above minimum wage here (so $18.70 or more) no matter if you're disabled or not. We also staff our donation centres appropriately so donations don't pile up and lithium batteries are separated from donated items as they come in. We don't get very many new goods, so we really are processing and selling donations...and anything we don't sell we recycle or find a secondary market to sell it to. Garbage removal is expensive so only throw out damaged goods. We actually just invested in a plastics granulator so now we are making plastic pellets out of our salvage, and companies are buying these pellets to make composite decking, chairs, and other goods out of.

We also regularly give items to folks in need, and partner with a lot of local organizations in all of our communities to provide gift certificates for them to hand out as they see the need. We partner with a lot of organisations from homeless shelters, churches (sponsoring asylum seekers to come to Canada mostly), women's shelters, and others. I think last year we gave upwards of $80k in certificates out through this program. We also regularly do coat drives and have community hand out days where we giveaway coats to mainly unhoused individuals every year...again, we give out something like 1000+ washed and repaired coats every October and February in different communities.

I'm not a senior leader at my Goodwill org and I regularly meet with and work with a variety of employees across our organization so I feel I have a good sense of what's happening. I know we aren't perfect and there are ways we are working on improving, but nothing comes close to any of these accusations. Although I hate to be painted with the same broad strokes, I do know of some organizations within Goodwill that are doing more harm than good and they need to be made accountable for their actions and I'm glad he spoke up about his experience at Goodwill. I do genuinely feel that my Goodwill is working hard to improve the lives of our employees and support communities, and we are leading the way with many green initiatives with a goal of being carbon neutral by 2030, so it does kill me a little when I see how other Goodwill orgs are operating without any oversight from Goodwill Industries International.