Our mission to streamline item donations

The Problem

Our journey began after experiencing overcrowded warehouses filled with unwanted and unsorted item donations, and hearing caseworkers’ frustrations about the poor conditions of these items. We realised this was a problem especially for smaller charity organisations due to limited manpower and storage. At times, caseworkers felt like a logistics company when handling in-kind donations, and sometimes donors had a ‘dumping ground’ mentality for charities to accept their items because they were giving away things for free. For some charities, this issue was so prominent that they refuse to take in anymore in-kind donations and received only cash donations instead.

These organisations shared that there are many people out there willing to give away quality second-hand (or even brand new) items for free, but there had to be a better way to filter for these items without having to initially take everything in regardless of their condition.

Our Solution

Reloved is social tech initiative helping small charity organisations manage the logistics of their item donations. Our mission is to make it easier for these organisations to collect, sort, and distribute essential items to those in need. By streamlining the donation process, Reloved helps charity organisations be more effective and efficient in their efforts to support those in need. This, in turn, helps to ensure that essential items are delivered to those who need them most.

Current Focus Area

At the moment, our focus is on supporting young mothers in need of baby and household items. We chose this vulnerable community to begin with as we recognised that baby items had shorter lifespans - they are for temporary use until the baby outgrows it. This gives an opportunity for the the items to have a new lease on life when it is donated to a mother and baby in need while still in good condition as it hasn’t been used for long.

Testing & Feedback

During our minimum viable product (MVP) phase in June 2022, we tested our solution with 3 charity partners (total ~350 beneficiaries). As baby items have shorter lifecycles, our target beneficiaries are currently mothers in need. Through this MVP, we have iterated and fine-tuned our operations process, identifying pain points and increasing the number of automations to ensure an efficient and smooth user journey for both donors and caseworkers.

The positive feedback from donors and charity partners have been our motivation. This is the feedback from one of our main charity partners! “Before, the process was long & tedious with messages back and forth to ask for photos and verify the quality, arrange for deliveries. The whole process with Reloved is definitely more efficient and relieves us from the tedious checking/QC of items via photos and logistics of getting them delivered to us. Saves me lots of time so that I can concentrate on the other aspect of our baby supplies management.”

Plans Moving Forward!

In 2023, we have plans to help more charity organisations and create more educational content to help charities receive better quality donations.