# SWEDOW and other new fundraising acronyms?

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/06/05/swedow-and-other-new-fundraising-acronyms/
- Published: 2011-06-05T22:48:53+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

I’ve just come across ‘SWEDOW’, a recently created acronym relevant to those fundraisers
who deal with donated goods. It stands for ‘Stuff we don’t want’, as in inappropriate
or unwanted donated items.

 

I spotted the acronym in the latest issue of Wired magazine, but it looks like it
has been around for at least a year, with humanitarian aid blog Tales from the Hood
seeming to coin it in its April 2010 post [SWEDOW](http://talesfromethehood.com/2010/04/20/swedow).

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Of course the issue has been around a lot longer. Governments do it, dumping out
of date medicines on UN agencies, and individuals do it by donating blankets to 
aid agencies for emergency work when the transport costs alone make them unusable.
Charity shops receive plenty of SWEDOW in the form of donated goods of poor and 
therefore unsaleable quality or simply material that should be recycled elsewhere
such as electronic waste.

 

I like the clunky acronym and think fundraisers should embrace it as part of our
ongoing effort to explain to donors that charities know what they are asking for,
and are usually equally clear about what they do not want.

 

What other acronyms does the fundraising sector need that help us or the public 
focus on a particular issue of giving or fundraising? I’d welcome your suggestions.

 

 * **[A nudge in the wrong direction](https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/06/09/nudge-wrong-direction/)**(
   9 June 2011)
 * **[Donations to largest 500 charities down by £70 million](https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/07/11/donations-largest-500-charities-down-70m/)**(
   11 July 2011)
 * **[How to fundraise without ‘the ask’](https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/07/28/how-fundraise-without-039the-ask039/)**(
   28 July 2011)