Nothing wrong with making a profit. Maybe something wrong with guilting people for donations. IDK, maybe I'm missing out. Maybe I should do a guilt drive. /jk
I was also thinking that on the bus home. Why not? Stop bitching and fund if you want features, progress, etc. Maybe it might be enough to be worth it. And with some ad development, more users still. Layout the roadmap, make a plan. With enough funds we could start a freedom/voluntaryist funding cause, give grants, etc.
Because they run a non-profit foundation, they have to reinvest any surplus, if I understand correctly.
For the fiscal year ending June 2025 (FY 24-25), they reported a surplus with ~$18 million in revenue over expenses, totaling around $209 million in revenue against $191 million in expenses, boosting net assets to nearly $300 million, primarily funded by donations for free knowledge infrastructure, not business profit.
(I don't know why anyone has a problem with Wikipedia.)
Basically it is profit for the organization. Accounting-wise it is profit even if the owner can't take draws because the organization's net assets went up. Basically if you plan on take a salary instead of draws, running a non-profit isn't a bad gig if you were going to re-invest anyway.
The guy who runs Goodwill is rich as fuck. I used to hate on goodwill but then I realized Goodwill is a good business if it weren't for people not understanding it is just a business. It's good that things get re-used. It's good that people can buy things cheaper rather than shelling out real money for the next lot of chineseum. It's good that people have kind of a BS reason for a tax write off. Converting trash to fewer taxes is a good thing. But it really isn't charity. The only negative aspect of anything they do is having people believe it is when it isn't.
Goodwill is known, wrongly, as a charity. This is misrepresentation and fraud.
In Canada there is a chain called Value Village, owned by a billionaire family, with many chains across North America - all thrift stores. I haven't looked them up in a decade, but it's hard to find any info about them. It used to be reasonable but is now waaaaaaaay overpriced.
People donate their stuff for free, thinking it helps. It only makes these thrift store owners wealthy. So wealthy they control the vast majority of the thrift-store market in Canada.
So many were killed by COVID and Facebook Marketplace (even Kijiji, Canada's version of Craig'sList, is pretty dead), leaving a sprinkle of thrift-stores, some antique stores, and even more insanely overpriced pawn shops that must be fronts for other things. It's only worth it if you want solid furniture that's better than Walmart shit. You might as well buy new tools for the same price with a warranty.
Yeah - Goodwill's companies are run like massive businesses, the largest of which is Goodwill Industries International. FY 2024/25 they had a surplus of ~$623 million, from $8.2B revenue. But they'll have to re-invest that surplus.
The average Goodwill employee makes $11-$15/hr, which is not a living wage in many places. I would hope Goodwill would invest in a living wage, rather than give the CEO $600k+. They won't, but it would be great if they would.
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Nothing wrong with making a profit. Maybe something wrong with guilting people for donations. IDK, maybe I'm missing out. Maybe I should do a guilt drive. /jk
I was also thinking that on the bus home. Why not? Stop bitching and fund if you want features, progress, etc. Maybe it might be enough to be worth it. And with some ad development, more users still. Layout the roadmap, make a plan. With enough funds we could start a freedom/voluntaryist funding cause, give grants, etc.
I was curious about this and looked through the audit report, here: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_FY_24-25_Audit_Report.pdf
Because they run a non-profit foundation, they have to reinvest any surplus, if I understand correctly.
For the fiscal year ending June 2025 (FY 24-25), they reported a surplus with ~$18 million in revenue over expenses, totaling around $209 million in revenue against $191 million in expenses, boosting net assets to nearly $300 million, primarily funded by donations for free knowledge infrastructure, not business profit.
(I don't know why anyone has a problem with Wikipedia.)
Basically it is profit for the organization. Accounting-wise it is profit even if the owner can't take draws because the organization's net assets went up. Basically if you plan on take a salary instead of draws, running a non-profit isn't a bad gig if you were going to re-invest anyway.
The guy who runs Goodwill is rich as fuck. I used to hate on goodwill but then I realized Goodwill is a good business if it weren't for people not understanding it is just a business. It's good that things get re-used. It's good that people can buy things cheaper rather than shelling out real money for the next lot of chineseum. It's good that people have kind of a BS reason for a tax write off. Converting trash to fewer taxes is a good thing. But it really isn't charity. The only negative aspect of anything they do is having people believe it is when it isn't.
Goodwill is known, wrongly, as a charity. This is misrepresentation and fraud.
In Canada there is a chain called Value Village, owned by a billionaire family, with many chains across North America - all thrift stores. I haven't looked them up in a decade, but it's hard to find any info about them. It used to be reasonable but is now waaaaaaaay overpriced.
People donate their stuff for free, thinking it helps. It only makes these thrift store owners wealthy. So wealthy they control the vast majority of the thrift-store market in Canada.
So many were killed by COVID and Facebook Marketplace (even Kijiji, Canada's version of Craig'sList, is pretty dead), leaving a sprinkle of thrift-stores, some antique stores, and even more insanely overpriced pawn shops that must be fronts for other things. It's only worth it if you want solid furniture that's better than Walmart shit. You might as well buy new tools for the same price with a warranty.
Yeah - Goodwill's companies are run like massive businesses, the largest of which is Goodwill Industries International. FY 2024/25 they had a surplus of ~$623 million, from $8.2B revenue. But they'll have to re-invest that surplus.
Re-invest? Like in the stock market? Couldn't be more rigged if they tried.
The average Goodwill employee makes $11-$15/hr, which is not a living wage in many places. I would hope Goodwill would invest in a living wage, rather than give the CEO $600k+. They won't, but it would be great if they would.
The $184M went to politial causes of the Liberal Democrats.