Value Village has one store in Clark County, at 7110 N.E. Fourth Plain Road, that provides donations to The Arc of Southwest Washington. Dick Hannah Collision Center recently submitted an application to the city of Vancouver to expand into the building that houses Value Village, and the future of a Vancouver store is uncertain.
The Bellevue-based owner of Value Village thrift stores has agreed to overhaul its donation and disclosure practices and pay $1.8 million to a half-dozen nonprofits to settle a lawsuit filed last month by the Minnesota attorney general accusing the company of violating the state’s charities law.
Savers, as the privately held company is called, agreed to disclose that it is a for-profit company and to compensate charities for nonclothing items.
Previously, charities received no payment for items such as furniture and electronics, although people donating them were not informed of that.
It will also pay $300,000 each to six of its partner charities in Minnesota, including True Friends, a charity that cut ties with Savers in November after allowing it to collect donations of clothes and household items in its name for six years.
The agreement, approved Thursday in Hennepin County District Court, requires “enhanced transparency” about Savers’ role and the amount it pays to charities, said Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson.
“Donors need transparency to decide whether and how to donate,” she said in a statement.
Savers contracts with charities to use their names, handling solicitations and collection of clothing donations and other items. It often pays the charities by weight, and sells the goods in its 330 stores worldwide. In the U.S., stores are under the names of Value Village, Savers, Unique and Valu Thrift; in Canada, it’s known as Value Village and Village des Valeurs.
The arrangement is convenient for donors, who get a tax deduction, as well as for the charities, which get a source of revenue without having to run costly fundraising operations themselves.
However, in the lawsuit, Swanson raised questions about the way Savers operates.
Swanson also said Savers concealed from the public both its role as a for-profit company and how little of the value of the donors’ items ends up helping charities.
In Washington, Savers operates 24 Value Village stores. The Washington Attorney General’s Office is aware of the action taken in Minnesota, but spokesman Peter Lavallee said its policy is “not to comment on ongoing consumer protection investigations, even to confirm whether one is under way.”
