A vision of hope

Before the Rev. Ron Davidson founded Gleaning for the World, he’d never worked with the homeless before.

“I had my delusions of what that meant,” says the Lynchburg native, who started the nonprofit organization in 1998. “But when I met them, they were us. They were people living the American dream, who just lost it all.”

For the first couple of years, he ran Gleaning out of a basement, expecting it to be a small operation.

“We were just going to do this part-time, and probably pastor a church part-time,” says Davidson, who left a 1,200-member church in Gloucester for the project. “(But) after it took off, we just had to run.”

The organization helped out the needy right here in the U.S. at first and eventually expanded to help those in other countries.

Today, Gleaning for the World works with more than 40 partner nonprofit organizations to provide and manage supplies, like food, clothing and medicine.

The operation is now based in a warehouse and office facility in Concord.

“We’re the matchmaker,” Davidson says. “We’re not feeding the hungry child. We’re the ones that get the milk there so the hungry child can be fed.”

Recently, for instance, someone contacted him about surplus shipments of high-protein soymilk in Wisconsin and New York. Davidson knew about a nonprofit in South America that needed it, so he arranged for it to be sent there.

“Within 10 minutes, we’d placed six tractor-trailer loads,” he says. “We knew who had it, and we knew who needed it. It’s that type of networking that keeps the product moving.”

Most of Gleaning’s work involves taking products that companies can’t sell for one reason or another, like a load of baby food that’s currently sitting in California, waiting to be placed. The only thing wrong with it, Davidson says, is that the labels weren’t put on right.

“As long as they’re producing, there’s going to be a subsidiary product we can use,” Davidson says.

Gleaning also gets supplies from other nonprofits, which can’t afford to place everything that’s been donated to them.

“That part is growing,” Davidson says. “A lot of nonprofits just don’t have the money. At the same time, we’re seeing a 62- to 63-percent increase in requests for supplies because of the economy.

“The need for nonprofits in the U.S. is multiplying at the same time that they are least capable of filling those needs.”

In October, Guide Star, an organization that tracks nonprofits, reported that 60 percent of nonprofits saw donations decrease or stay the same in the first nine months of 2008.

While many of those nonprofits struggle, Davidson says Gleaning is doing well, mostly because they started downsizing before it was absolutely necessary. Last year, they stopped filling positions when employees left and cut their budget by a third.

“We kept ahead of the bubble,” he says. “Not having any fat means we didn’t have to cut it out.”

Gleaning relies mostly on private donations, many of which come from local churches and individuals. They also charge their partner nonprofits a small fee to cover transportation costs. That way, all the money that is donated can go directly to obtaining and transporting supplies.

Davidson says every dollar that is donated can provide about $72 worth of supplies.

To him — a man who wears his passion for helping others in his warm smile and friendly demeanor — there’s nothing better than the work they do.

“I would rather come in and load a truck and watch that truck pull away, knowing that 1,000 people are going to have their life changed, than anything you could ever do,” he says.

In 2008, Gleaning sent out 183 tractor-trailer loads, or 4.1 million pounds, of supplies, most of it used internationally.

Before this year, the majority of Gleaning’s domestic aid was in disaster relief but that’s changing as needs have grown on the homefront. So far this winter, they’ve already shipped more than 20,000 blankets to needy communities in the U.S.

“It’s amazing the number of calls we’ve gotten in,” he says. “It is just unbelievable the amount of pain that is out there.”

The operation is run by Davidson and eight employees, and he says they couldn’t do it without their huge base of volunteers.

“If you’re going to build an army of volunteers, you want to do it in a community like this,” he says.

“The whole staff is just committed to making this thing happen. I don’t know that Gleaning for the World could exist anywhere else. I really don’t think it could.”

Forbes.com recently cited Gleaning, for the second year in a row, as one of the nation’s top charities in terms of both fundraising efficiency and charitable commitment. Forbes.com defines fundraising efficiency as “the cut of gifts left after subtracting the cost of getting them,” and charitable commitment as “how much of total expense goes directly to the charitable purpose as opposed to management, overhead and fundraising.”

Davidson says the secret is their unassuming nature.

“While the bigger organizations have offices in New York, we have a metal building out here in Concord,” he says. “We’re country. We’re not a high-maintenance group.

“We’re just hardworking people trying to do the right thing.”