BIG BRANDS: Brainerd's Common Goods thrift store stocks merchandise you'd also find at a mall, according to Bridges of Hope executive director Jana Shogren (above). The nonprofit opened the store to provide quality goods at affordable prices and to boost its bottom line.

As she surveys the spacious, well-lit salesroom at Brainerd’s Common Goods, Jana Shogren is keen to point out a few distinctions from the typical thrift store.

Instead of the usual carpet and sheetrock décor, Common Goods boasts a modern look, with a finished cement floor, corrugated metal walls and splashes of bright color.

Then there is that thrift store aroma—or, more accurately, the lack of one.

“Thrift stores have a bad rap for a certain odor,” noted Shogren, the executive director of Bridges of Hope, the Crow Wing County family crisis referral service that runs Common Goods. Shogren says customers at Common Goods often remark on the pleasing olfactory atmosphere, which she attributes to both the remodeling and the routine steam cleaning of donated clothes.

The 6,000 square-foot operation, located on a commercial strip along Highway 371 just north of Baxter, opened in September of 2009. From the outset, Bridges of Hope had a different kind of thrift shop in mind, one less musty and yet more discriminating about merchandise than the secondhand stereotype. But they also wanted their shop to be modestly priced and offer more practical items than most boutiques or antique stores.

Marketplace positioning aside, the principle ambition for Common Goods was simple: to make money for Bridges of Hope. After seven years of planning, Bridges secured roughly $100,000 in startup grants from the Brainerd Lakes Area Community Foundation, the Otto Bremer Foundation, the Initiative Foundation, and Crow Wing Power.

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“Such enterprising tactics have become increasingly vital to the survival of small nonprofits.”

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So far, the store’s performance has exceeded expectations. At the start of the year, according to Bridges of Hope board member Bill Brekken, the fledgling operation had $60,000 of its seed money left; by August, the balance had grown to $109,000. “We’re hoping that Common Goods will be able to write a check to Bridges of Hope after its first year of business,” he said.

As institutional donors have become more circumspect about cracking the checkbook year after year, such enterprising tactics have become increasingly vital to the survival of small nonprofits. In Braham, the Tusen Tack thrift store funds the local community center. The Community Closet Thrift Store in Milaca channels its proceeds to the Pearl Crisis Center, which helps victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault.

These innovations are proving effective in tough economic times. In 2009, according to Shogren, the caseload at Bridges increased by 30 percent over the previous year. “There’s only so many times you can to back to the same funder without a really new, radical idea,” she said.

While making money is central to Common Goods’ mission, it is not the only goal.

For the store’s seven employees, Common Goods serves as a sort of workforce training operation, according to store manager Suzanne Welch. “We teach them retail—how you greet people, how you run a register,” she said. “A lot of it is just people training skills.” The store also provides volunteer opportunities for young adults with cognitive disabilities and other citizens just looking to pitch in.

Common Goods also allows Bridges to forge alliances with other local nonprofits.

In the store’s processing area, bins of donated items not destined for the show floor are set aside for other charities. A tub of dirty rags made from unusable clothes will be donated to a program that teaches kids how to fix bikes. Even though only about 30 percent of merchandise donated to Common Goods makes it to the floor, Welch says, virtually nothing goes to the landfill. IQ