March 2018, the Executive Director of Redwood Park Communities (Redwood), Timothy Kent, was introduced to Dan Kershaw, Executive Director of Furniture Bank.
Meets
Redwood Park Communities is a charity in Barrie, Ontario founded in 2009 to respond to the community’s need for more affordable housing. Since inception, Redwood has operated as a social enterprise, seeking to solve social challenges in the community while optimizing internal operations.
In March 2018 Redwood’s co-founders, Timothy and Rhonda Kent, were contemplating how to provide furniture to their housing clients in Barrie. They were committed to assisting everyone who moves out of Redwood’s furnished supportive housing units to furnish their next place. But staff were spending evenings and weekends trying to source furniture for transitional residents who are moving into permanent housing. Their team is at capacity.
They begin to explore establishing a furniture bank within the organization, not just to meet the needs of their own residents but to address the need in the broader community. But they don’t have any experience doing furniture banking at scale and do not have a capital fund to establish a removal trucking enterprise to create a flow of goods.
Simultaneously, Furniture Bank is exploring how to support other charities outside the GTA without a cash drain on its core operation. Dan Kershaw, Executive Director of Furniture Bank is introduced to Tim and Rhonda and sees this as an opportunity to test some theories that he and Annalee Sawiak, now Chief Sustainability Officer, had. They called it Something From Nothing, based on the Phoebe Gillman children’s book.
Here are the elements used in the proof-of-concept:
Furniture Bank had:
- A call centre that fields in-bound queries for furniture removal
- An IT framework for booking pickups and tracking the goods as they are picked up and brought to the charity
- Expertise in negotiating and drafting
- Expertise in logistics
Redwood had:
- Strong relationship with local government
- Deep understanding of the needs of the community
- Reputation for Competence and Integrity in their community
The main benefits Timothy and Rhonda saw in partnering with Furniture Bank:
- Letting Furniture Bank handle inbound requests for pick-up of furniture and household goods. A smaller community doesn’t have the volume of furniture donations that would justify a standalone call centre. It made more sense to outsource this to Furniture Bank, which already operates a full-time call centre.
- Furniture Bank is well-positioned to provide the technology infrastructure and inbound sales support, handling calls from furniture donors.
- Its operations do not support an investment in a truck, and they needed help in creating a relationship with a local removal company, Jeff’s Junk., run by Jeff and Barb White.
Quick-start formula
At the end of May 2019, Furniture Bank, Redwood, and Jeff’s Junk’s leadership teams agree on a quick-start formula to start up a furniture bank by mid-June 2019. They sign a collaboration agreement with the following roles and responsibilities:
Furniture Bank:
- Online system to book Redwood clients’ furniture requests and schedule deliveries.
- Digital marketing to drive inbound furniture removal queries from Barrie and Simcoe County region.
- The back-office sales funnel, including managing inbound queries and referring them to Jeff’s Junk.
Redwood:
Accepts furniture donations, issues charitable receipts, liaises with social service agencies for client referrals, and distributes the goods to clients.
Jef's Junk:
Manages both furniture removal from donor’s homes and deliveries to client families. Jeff’s Junk converts many of its direct junk removal calls into furniture donations to the furniture bank.
Operational impact
On August 1, 2019, the Furniture Bank powered by Redwood Park Communities is up and running. The onboarding process is smooth, and staff work well together.
With much of the infrastructure in place through partnerships with Furniture Bank and Jeff’s Junk, staff can devote time to other critical tasks.
One early impact is the increased capacity of Redwood to accept client referrals. They reach out to agencies serving clients in need of furniture and set up 40 referral relationships.
Another impact is having the capacity to innovate in the provision of affordable housing in their communities. Check out their blog to learn more: Innovation in Affordable Housing: Outcomes Purchasing 101: a new tool for building community housing – Redwood Park Communities
Additional and unexpected benefits
The final puzzle piece is a three-year, $300,000 grant from United Way directly to Redwood . The unique partnership model unlocks this funding, which is allocated specifically to collaborative partnerships. Redwood is able to funnel these funds directly into their operations because the partnership did not require their investment in capital assets.
Finally, they can move to a bigger warehouse, enabling them to scale their operations and continue to rely on the partnership to drive pickups and the flow of goods into their pipeline.
We’re Moving!
“The Furniture Bank has been bursting at the seams for a few months now, and so we are very excited to have secured some new warehouse space.
This new warehouse is almost 35,000 square feet. We’ll be using about 15,000 sq ft and allows for more storage, some space to display furniture, dedicated Up-cycling space, some office, meeting, and maintenance space for Redwood. Our fantastic pickup and delivery partners Jeff’s Junk are going to be moving with us, and we have a couple of other sublease options that are going to offset the costs.
We have the keys now, and we’ll be doing some reno’s and energy efficiency upgrades over the next month or two, with plans to move in January 1, 2021.”
They saw tremendous growth:
40% annual increase in donors and 30% annual increase in clients.
With Jeff’s Junk completing 732 pickups since 2019, 575 (or 79%) come directly from Toronto’s call centre. Salesforce driven custom IT infrastructure supported by Furniture Bank.
By 2023, Redwood shifts its emphasis to building out new revenue streams. The Salesforce module is helpful for donor acquisition and stewardship. Funders want outcomes and impact data. Anna Sedore can provide details on clients served, including their primary demographic – such as whether they are single parents, refugee families, or Indigenous clients. “In the beginning, we didn’t realize how valuable this data aspect of Salesforce was. It’s helped us to win some grants, it’s helped with tax receipts, donor stewardship and auditing”, says Anna.
Longer term, Anna thinks that the organization can build a case for outcomes purchasing from the City of Barrie. This would rely on having firm figures for how much waste is diverted from landfill. Thanks to research commissioned by Furniture Bank, Redwood can access the numbers it needs.
By the numbers
- 385% increase in donors for Barrie Furniture Bank from launch of program (62 to 301).
- 2285% increase in clients (14 to 334).
Submissions via webforms to Toronto team: 2019-2024 = 1135
2019:
56 Pickups
15 Deliveries
2023:
201 Pickups
210 Deliveries
Interested in reading more about the inception of the Redwood Furniture Bank? Check out our blog: Barrie’s new Furniture Bank to learn how it all started!
Live in Simcoe County?
Call Furniture Bank at 705 410 3391 for a furniture removal quote.
We’ll work with our transportation partner Jeff White Group to ensure your donation is professionally removed and transported to the Barrie Furniture Bank to support families and individuals in need.
