Marie Kondo's Tidying Up Is Causing a Spike in Goodwill Donations As People Declutter Their Homes
Thanks to Marie Kondo, people across America are getting rid of everything in their homes that doesn’t spark joy, and nonprofits like Goodwill say they are gladly accepting all that “clutter.”
Lauren Lawson, a representative for Goodwill, says many of their local organizations have seen a spike in donations in January that correlate to the rising popularity of Kondo’s Netflix series, Tidying Up, which premiered Jan. 1.
“We know that a number of our community-based Goodwill organizations have seen a year-over-year spike in donations in January that they attribute to Marie Kondo’s show,” she says.
She notes that because Goodwill is comprised of 161 independent organizations across America, she can’t provide a nationwide overview of the apparent uptick. But branches around the U.S. have documented the surges they’re experiencing.
In January, Lawson says donations in the Houston market were up 22 percent, while donations in Roanoke, Virginia, rose 20 percent, and those in Grand Rapids, Michigan went up 16 percent.
The Tampa Bay Times recently reported that, across Tampa Bay, Goodwill has experienced a 3 percent increase in drop-offs throughout its 10-county region, resulting in an additional 5 million pounds of clothes, furniture and other items being dropped off just in the month of January.
“Our donations departments keep getting calls from people saying they’ve been inspired to clean out their clutter,” Tampa’s Goodwill spokesperson Chris Ward told the outlet. “At our Wesley Chapel store, donations have tripled.”
While Lawson says not all Goodwills have experienced an uptick in donations and some of the local organizations cite other factors that might have contributed to their increase, such as warmer temperatures and New Year’s resolutions, the popularity of Marie Kondo is certainly reaching far and wide.
WATCH THIS: We Tried It: Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
“We are seeing a steady buzz about the show on social media channels across the Goodwill network, and we thoroughly embrace the philosophy of reorganizing your closets and reusing your household goods!” Lawson says.
Kondo’s 8-episode series has inspired fans to hilariously document their obsession on social media, binge-clean their homes, and purchase her first book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, in record numbers, putting it back on the bestseller list, five years after its initial U.S. release in 2014.
Her organization practices, dubbed the KonMari Method, dictate an order in which you should clean out your entire house. Rather than working room by room, followers clean by category, starting with clothes, then move onto books, papers, komono (aka miscellaneous things) and sentimental items.
The main takeaway however, is that rather than judging items by how often they’re used or their value, Kondo instructs that cleaners should pick up each item they own and ask themselves if it “sparks joy” in them. If it does, it stays. If it doesn’t, it goes. Before giving anything the boot (or the garbage bag, as the case may be), Kondo says to thank the item for its service.
RELATED: Marie Kondo Reveals What People Love (and Loathe) on her New Netflix Show, Tidying Up
Kondo’s method spread across the globe with the popularity of her book, which has sold 8 million copies and been translated into 40 languages.
Inspired to try KonMari? Pick up Life-Changing Magic or its illustrated companion book, Spark Joy, and tune into Tidying Up on Netflix. All episodes are now streaming.
