Each month as part of StartHub Startups to Watch Program we connect with the winning company to learn more about them. Our July Startup to Watch is Donii, a donation matchmaking service. Recently we had the pleasure of interviewing Angie Janssen, Founder and CEO of Donii. Here’s what we learned:
Tell us about your company. What is Donii?
Donii is a donation matchmaking service that gets donated items to people in need. Our mission is to get the stuff you donate to the people in our community who need it most.
Donii is available as an app and a service. As an app, our application allows users to search for local charities – like women’s shelters, homeless shelters, and child welfare programs – who need their unneeded items for someone they serve. As a service, our concierge pick-up and delivery service is available to the employees and tenants of companies that sponsor Donii. Our sponsors love us because we provide a way for their employees to create meaningful social impact right from the building lobby.
What is your background?
I formerly worked in Socially Responsible Investing analyzing the social and environmental impacts of publicly traded companies. This was my introduction into how corporate actors can be drivers for positive impact. I had prior startup experience in my job before that leading the US efforts of startup company Climate Neutral Investments (recently acquired by Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc. (ISS)). My educational background is in policy and design: I earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Government and a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from Harvard University.
How did you come up with the idea for Donii? Who is your target customer?
I founded Donii because I wanted to make sure my goods had maximum impact. As a mom with two young kids, I found myself constantly giving away things my family no longer needed. At the same time, I began to learn how much material need still exists among the critically poor in Boston. After the Long Island Shelter in Boston Harbor shut down in 2014, I read of homeless women sleeping in the woods because it was easier to safeguard their one bag of belongings there than in an overcrowded shelter. I learned that Boston has one of the highest rates of family homelessness in the country, resulting in scenarios where homeless new mothers go from maternity wards into the street holding nothing but their child.
That’s when I started to wonder, “Where are my donations going?”
How do you think Donii is going to disrupt the market? What are the main differentiators between you and your competitors?
Donii keeps donated goods local.
Large national donation centers like Goodwill and the Salvation Army, and drop-box operators like PlanetAid, do not reinvest most donated items into the community. Conservative estimates suggest that 80% of the donations they receive are ultimately sold for profit – but other estimates put the number closer to 98%! Clothing is sold to textile wholesalers who resell it overseas in regions like Africa and Central America. This system is incredibly damaging to developing economies. The overwhelming quantity of used clothing coming from the West is disruptive to their local industries. It’s a cycle that puts manufacturers, factory workers, and even skilled laborers like tailors, out of work. Really, unless it’s a strictly local operation, any agency that plans to sell your donations is likely part of this problem.
Groups like Goodwill and PlanetAid do not assess how the items they receive can best alleviate material need as a symptom of poverty. They do not communicate with human service organizations in their cities of operation to find out where items like furniture, home goods, or appliances could have meaningful impact. Everything is sold, regardless of the social value it could create.
Meanwhile, in Greater Boston, over 105 charity organizations actively request goods like clothing, household goods, and baby items to help the people they serve. Donii currently works with about a dozen nonprofits serving more than 13,000 individuals each year and is adding more organizations to its platform on a rolling basis.
Donii ensures that donated items stay in the community, support our social sector, and help our most vulnerable neighbors.
Who are your main investors?
As a non-profit we don’t take investors. So far we’ve been funded largely by individual philanthropy, in particular people who believe that Donii provides a needed piece of civic infrastructure. There’s no other way currently to intelligently allocate donated goods, and our biggest supporters are funders who want to see this solution succeed. We’re always building our network of individual donors. We ultimately expect to be self-funding through our corporate partnership model – where companies and buildings get our concierge pick-up and delivery services in return for their sponsorship.
Why did you decide to start your business in Boston? How long has your company been around?
What resources in the startup community have contributed to the success of Donii?
How do you use StartHub professionally?
What are the next steps for Donii?
Something our readers should know about Donii:
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