Alternatives to Goodwill for Donating Kids' Clothes

Published August 1, 2026 by Ryan Young, founder of ParentKind

Good alternatives to Goodwill for kids' clothes in Portland include ParentKind, which picks up donations free from your porch and funds the school you choose, and Northwest Children's Outreach or With Love Oregon, which send clothing directly to families and foster kids in need.

Why look beyond Goodwill in the first place?

Goodwill isn't a bad option, and donating there does support job training programs. But it's also earned some real skepticism over the years:

• A federal wage exemption has allowed some Goodwill locations to pay certain workers with disabilities far below minimum wage.
• Some regional affiliates have drawn criticism over executive pay.
• It's not always easy as a donor to see exactly how much of a sale ends up funding programs versus overhead.

None of that means Goodwill does no good. It just explains why "where does my donation actually go" is a question a lot of Portland parents start asking.

On top of that, at any large thrift retailer, only a portion of donated clothing sells on the store floor. The rest moves through outlet stores, bulk sales, and textile recyclers, and some ends up exported overseas. That's true of the secondhand clothing industry broadly, not unique to Goodwill, but it's part of why some donors prefer a smaller, more direct chain between their donation and its outcome.

Option 1: Donate somewhere the money funds your kid's school

ParentKind offers free porch pickup of outgrown kids' clothes anywhere in SE Portland. We clean, photograph, and sell the clothes online, and a meaningful percentage of every sale goes to the school you designate at pickup. If the reason you're looking past Goodwill is wanting to know specifically where your donation's value ends up, this closes that loop directly: your kid's old clothes fund your kid's own school.

You don't have to be inside the SE Portland porch pickup boundary to take part. Depending on where you live, there are a few ways in:

• Free porch pickup for families inside the SE Portland service area.
• A convenient drop-off site for families outside the porch pickup boundary.
• A large haul pickup for families outside our boundary who still want the convenience of porch pickup. Rally a few neighbors to combine donations, and ParentKind will schedule a pickup for the group.

Don't have a school picked out yet because your kids are younger? Families with pre-K kids can still donate. Instead of designating a school right away, the funds are held for your family until your child reaches kindergarten, at which point you choose the school.

Option 2: Donate somewhere the clothes go straight to a family in need

If your priority is making sure the actual clothing reaches a specific family rather than moving through a resale system, a few Portland organizations handle direct distribution:

• Northwest Children's Outreach distributes clothing for newborns through teens directly to families across the Portland metro area.
• With Love Oregon provides clothing and essentials specifically for children ages 0 to 6 in foster care.
• PPS Clothing Center serves Portland Public Schools families who need clothing directly, no resale involved.
• Rose Haven is a day shelter serving women and children in Portland, and accepts in-season clothing donations for both.

Why aren't consignment shops listed here?

Consignment is a different animal from donation. A consignment shop buys and resells your items for its own profit rather than passing a share along to a school or cause you choose, so it doesn't really belong on a list about where to donate. It's also worth knowing that consignment shops are notoriously picky about what they'll accept, which often means bringing in a full load of clothes only to have a good chunk of it turned away on the spot. That's a real time cost for parents who don't have much of it to spare. We've covered Portland's consignment options, picky policies and all, in a separate post.