5. Online Platforms: If you are unable to find a suitable local organization, you can explore online platforms that connect donors with beneficiaries. Websites such as Freecycle, Craigslist, or local Facebook groups can help you find individuals or organizations in need of board games in your area. These platforms allow you to post your donation offer and connect with interested parties directly.
Freecycle Network: Freecycle is similar to Buy Nothing, in that it’s a place based program where you can sign up to give or receive free stuff in your community. One way that Freecycle is different from Buy Nothing is that you can form a “Friends Circle” with your local friends in addition to giving and receiving from other people in your town. You can sign up on their website.
Say you have an item you no longer want, but it’s too good to toss out. Garage sale? Way too busy. Donate it to a charitable group? Set it at the end of the driveway with a big sign that says FREE? Or give it away on the Freecycle Network.
Sites such as Freecycle and Facebook Marketplace have reported an enormous increase in users. One woman who recently got a gem from the latter is TikTok user Emery Land, 33, a property manager from Texas.
The internet is awash in digital communities dedicated to the unconditional giving away of unwanted items —Craigslist and the Freecycle Network tops among them. But these folks found and stuck with a different space, one with growing traction in neighborhoods around the country and beloved for its sense of community, its members’ generosity and responsiveness.
A nonprofit organization, Freecycle has local groups all over the world where members can post items they want to give away or request items they need. Everything is free, with the goal of keeping usable items out of landfills.
It’s a feel-good site, in other words. And though items on offer can be hit or miss, if you live in a reasonably populated area, they’re often more hit than not.
Don’t be a victim. Never pay for delivery of a Freecycle item.
The incidence of scams is on the increase, on Freecycle and elsewhere. Here’s how you can identify a likely scam:
The offering member claims to have recently moved or posted to the wrong Town group and they need money to send the item to you.
The post contains a photo of an email address.
The subject of the post uses unusual punctuation or odd symbols, such as ~.ṀusicaĮ Įnstruments~
The offer seems too good to be true, especially if the member has recently joined Freecycle or posted the item to multiple towns that aren’t near each other.
Any time you find a suspicious post, or are asked to pay for an item or delivery of an item, please use the “Report” button on the post detail page, or send a message to your town moderators. Please don’t become a victim of another delivery scam!
Thanks for helping keep scammers out of Freecycle!
Freecycle Network in 2003 when he couldn’t find a place to recycle a perfectly good bed. The website started as a small group of friends and has grown to over 10 million members in 5,000 online communities across 110 countries. Volunteers moderate the groups, and Beal estimates members kept more than 807 million pounds of used items out of landfills in the last year alone.
