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Where to donate used boardgames?
Looking for recommendations or ideas of organizations that might appreciate some well-taken-care-of board games. They range in complexity from classics like catan to more complicated ones. My knee jerk reaction is Goodwill but I figured there were other lesser known orgs that might receive direct benefit from them instead.
You could check your local library. They could potentially want something like that, either for their collection or their programming team.
Do you have any boardgames cafes near you? You could arrange to sell them to the cafe, or make an "in kind" exchange, where you give them the games and they give you free entry or free drinks for a few months.
You could try schools (primary or high school depending on the complexity of the board games). They sometimes have clubs for students to play board games during lunch.
I'm guessing there are probably a couple of children's hospitals that would be happy to take them. I'm out of the country right now so it's harder to look up, but I'm sure Child's Play, Extra Life, or any Children's Miracle Network hospitals might be a good place to look.
Check if there's a local convention with a board game library that'll take your donation. That'll ensure that your game continues to get played, not just sold off.
Thank you for posing this question. I had never thought about what to do with old board games and, like you, thought only of Goodwill.
That being said, I wouldn’t ignore that idea either. A few years ago I happened to stumble across a complete box of not just Catan, but also Catan Junior at my local Goodwill. Even though my kid was only a toddler, I picked them up knowing the day would come where I could introduce these games to my child. Nearly 5 years later I was finally able to do so.
I'd look for any local restaurants or bars, there's several around where I live that have a decent supply of board games and they get used at least somewhat regularly