MacHub nonprofit still alive, helping

Time for an update on MacHub, a unique local project creating new funding streams for nonprofit agencies through a professional online sales operation of donated items. We’ve been unabashedly supportive of MacHub because the project exists to benefit other programs.

Donors decide who receives the net proceeds from the sale of their contributed items, and in turn are credited with tax deductible contribution values in the amount of those arms-length sales. In December, we urged prospective donors:

“Look through your decorative art, collectibles, jewelry and small musical instruments; check out your dolls, bears, toys and hobby items; pull out those cell phones and accessories, that electrical and test equipment, and all vintage items … Go through the hundreds of items accumulated on your shelves and tabletops, in cabinets and every corner of your garage or attic. Pack it all up, and haul it downtown to MacHub.”

Nonprofit tent sales may build camaraderie, but they can be labor-intensive and often less than lucrative. When donors bring their valued items to MacHub, sales prices can be many times what those items would have drawn in a tent sale, allowing more revenue for the designated nonprofit even after MacHub takes a share to cover its operating costs.

In the past six months, about $30,000 has gone to diverse local nonprofits through the work of MacHub. Now, thanks to leaders of the Yamhill County Gospel Rescue Mission, MacHub is beginning what supporters call Pilot II — a quest to complete the financial proof of concept that has been growing steadily during the past six months.

Pilot II runs through the end of 2016. In that time, MacHub hopes to fine-tune its operations and develop new marketplaces of donors — from senior residential communities to college campuses. Wherever people have items they are ready to leave behind, MacHub wants to create the kind of win-win-win situation we described this way in December:

“We all have articles we don’t need, perhaps don’t even appreciate, but seem too valuable to just give away. So, they gather dust. MacHub can convert those things into value to your selected nonprofit, value to a new owner and value to your own tax return.”

YCGRM is engaged in its own major initiative to expand emergency housing services. Kudos to its leaders for recognizing MacHub’s potential for long-term value, and continuing its service as nonprofit parent to the MacHub project. For more information, see MacHub.org.

Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-687-1223.