On July 17, the first story appeared about the Prosperity Project – an ‘open source’ social enterprise introducing four enterprises in the new donation services industry:
http://www.happynews.com/news/7152006/The-Prosperity-Project-An-Open-Sou...

The Prosperity Project is an ‘open source’ social enterprise - it is licensed freely to those who abide by the principles of ‘doing well by doing good’. Prosperity Project builders own their donation services businesses outright.

On August 17 – coincidentally just one month later - the donation services became far more important when President Bush signed the Pension Protection Act of 2006. As of that date, deductions for donations of peersonal belongings restricted to items in 'good used
condition or better'.

Key benefits of the donation services industry are the photographs and itemized lists of deduction values customers receive – documentation that is now essential when claiming deductions above $500 for personal belongings.

The Prosperity Project includes:

DoughNation: the first service providing homeowners (or others who itemize) with tax deduction documentation and delivery for donations of quality clothing and belongings. DoughNation customers all gain back at least what they pay for service in their
tax deduction.

Gentle Disposition: clearing the entire home through donation, recycle and disposal. As with DoughNation, Gentle Disposition customers gain back at least what they pay in their tax deduction.

Full Circle Fundraising: flexible programs for schools and nonprofits that leverage the tax benefits of quality donated items.

Community Partnership: linking local businesses with schools and nonprofits for mutual benefit.

There are numerous reasons why the donation services industry is important:

1. This is an entirely new industry that creates new jobs spanning every skill level from professional to laborer.

2. This is LOCAL industry – happening close to home and creating potentially hundreds of new jobs. In addition to the four new Prosperity Project enterprises, great potential exists for a variety of spin-off businesses.

DoughNation and Gentle Disposition produce a ‘donation stream’ that people can use to start high-end resale shops, sell on eBay, or learn furniture refinishing and electronics repair, etc. (Nonprofits used to employ people in some of these capacities – and had to stop for lack of funding. The revenue stream donation
services introduce makes it possible to restore these lost opportunities.)

Full Circle Fundraising and the Community Partnership offer new opportunities for event planners and communications professionals.

3. Donation services is the socially positive and economically promising industry to emerge in decades. The Prosperity Project is based on ‘doing well by doing good’, the ethic I believe is most important to counter today’s twisted business practices causing the
income gap between rich and poor to soar astronomically.

4. Donation services offer positive environmental impact. These new local jobs will reduce long commutes - an issue becoming more important as we address global warming. Once furniture refinishing and electronics repair are established, less will end up in landfills and more will become useful to the community.

Supplemental Information on DoughNation and the donation services industry:

DoughNation does not serve businesses, because it is much more complex to determine deduction value (depreciation being involved, among other things).

Homeowners with a lot of good things to donate (and people willing to pay for donation valuation have really nice things!) call DoughNation. Families who have lost loved ones, or seniors moving to retirement living, can use our Gentle Disposition service to
clear the entire home through donation, recycling and disposal. Both these services generate tax deductions for customers worth at least what they paid for service – and allow them to help the community in a big way.

We pick up the belongings, photograph them, create an itemized list of everything donated, and then deliver to the nonprofits they choose (or if they have no preference we deliver to local nonprofits with solid track records of serving the community.

So, instead of having a yard sale and donating the leftovers, homeowners can help the community benefit from the good stuff they no longer use (along with whatever would have been leftover).

While DoughNation customers do not get immediate cash in hand– like they do with a garage sale – they actually do better financially through their tax deduction, and save themselves a great deal of work! The guideline for what you can claim as a deduction for quality belongings is the ‘resale shop value’. In
other words, you can claim how much you might pay to buy something in a resale shop.

Most homeowners do not know that the quality goods they drop off without a thought about receipts may be worth $100’s-to-$1000’s in deductions. Documenting this tax deduction value is the service DoughNation and the donation services industry provides.

If you are an individual committed to 'doing well by doing good' with strong business skills, I encourage you to learn more about the Prosperity Project and take the lead in building it in your community.

If you know individuals and organizations in your community with a demonstrated record of 'doing well by doing good' and solid business skills, bring the Prosperity Project to their attention!

In prosperity,

Kim Breas
DoughNation Services LLC
503.320.8213
www.doughnationservices.com
'Helping homeowners do well by doing good since 2002.'