NewFit Sports Donates Hundreds of Pickleball Paddles Using NAEIR

Sometimes a donation is a way for a company to free up warehouse space for newer products. Sometimes it’s part of a larger corporate philanthropy program. And, sometimes, well, at least this one time, the donation comes out of a love for pickleball.

For NewFit Sports, based in Larkspur, CA, donating pickleball paddles was a way of spreading joy and giving back to the sport they love.

“We're a small, family-owned business and we wanted to do whatever we could to broaden the reach of the sport,” says Richard Roberts, co-founder of NewFit Sports. His company donated 327 pickleball paddles to NAEIR, a gifts-in-kind organization that makes corporate-donated products available free of charge to schools, churches and other nonprofit members. “We believe pickleball is fun for everyone and it helps make people of all ages happier and healthier.”

Pickleball’s popularity has exploded in recent years with the number of places to play more than doubling since 2010, according to the USA Pickleball Association (USAPA). The number of pickleball participants has increased by almost 10 percent in the last three years with an estimated 3.3 million pickleball players nationwide, according to a 2019 report from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. (With its lightweight paddles and smaller courts that require less running, pickleball offers an advantage over tennis for players looking to avoid injuries like tennis elbow or knee problems. Plus the length of the games, typically 10 to 15 minutes, makes pickleball accessible to a variety of fitness levels.)

Roberts and NewFit co-founder Brian West are both avid tennis players who first started playing pickleball as way to get their kids ultimately interested in tennis. But they quickly fell in love with pickleball and what Roberts called it’s “more relaxed, playful vibe.” Plus, they liked the idea that it was a sport the whole family could play. “We now have three generations out on the courts together,” Roberts notes.

Roberts and West founded NewFit Sports partly out of frustration. They wanted good-looking, quality paddles, but with some companies selling what they perceived as similar paddles for three to four times the price of others, they had trouble ferreting out which paddles gave them the most bang for the buck. So, they set out with a plan of their own—to offer well-made paddles with a great design at a fair price. Based on their experience in the sport, they developed paddles with a combination of graphite face and polymer honeycomb core that they felt offered players the best benefits.

When it came to donating some of their paddles, they wanted a way to reach a broad audience. That’s how they ended up partnering with a gifts-in-kind organization.

Gifts-in-kind organizations like NAEIR (www.NAEIR.org) are companies that take unsold merchandise from corporations or small businesses and redistribute it to member schools, churches and nonprofits. Popular items include toys, office supplies, art materials, electronics, sports items and clothing. Typically, a company that has items to donate will contact a gifts-in-kind organization. Once the organization approves the donation, the company ships its products to their warehouse. Donations may be as small as a few boxes to as large as multiple truckloads. Once the donation arrives at the warehouse, the gifts-in-kind organization sorts and catalogs the items and provides the company with tax documentation for their donation. The gifts-in-kind organization then makes the donated items available to its members. Those members pay a small annual membership fee which entitles them to request as many products as they want throughout the year, paying only for the cost of shipping and handling.

In addition to knowing that their products are going to people who can truly use and enjoy them, companies that donate to a gifts-in-kind organization can earn a tax deduction under Section 170 ( e )(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. The IRS Code states that regular C corporations may deduct the cost of the inventory donated, plus half the difference between cost and fair market value. Deductions may be up to twice-cost. Companies that are an S corporation, partnership, LLC or sole proprietorship qualify for a straight cost deduction—which could still be more than they would make by going through a liquidator.

For NewFit, partnering with a gifts-in-kind group meant that they could do more than reach out to members of their local community. It meant they could spread the joy of pickleball to people all across the county. And they could make getting involved in what is already a low-cost and extremely enjoyable sport that much easier.

NAEIR, National Association for the Exchange of Industrial Resources, is the largest gifts-in-kind organization in the U.S. Based in Galesburg, Illinois-based NAEIR (naeir.org) has received donations of excess inventory from more than 8,000 U.S. corporations and redistributed more than $3 billion in products to more than 110,000 nonprofits. During fiscal year 2018, NAEIR collected more than $99.5 million in inventory and distributed more than $105 million.