How Laci Rathbun Turned Doing Good Into a Business at Donation Warehouse

I'm sitting outside Donation Warehouse in Missoula at 10 a.m. when I see Laci Rathbun turn the sign at the doorway from closed to open. When I walk in, Laci is already behind the counter. She sees me, smiles and immediately offers a tour which allows me access behind those "staff only" doorways. It gives me a peek into the inner workings of an impressive operation.

Within minutes, I'm noticing things that don't match my assumptions about thrift stores. Why does this furniture look showroom-ready? How did she find so many young people who know how to repair appliances? How are trucks of donated goods already being unloaded this early in the morning?

What I'm looking at didn't happen by accident, it started with a simple idea fifteen years ago that kept growing, in part thanks to the way Laci’s mind works.

The Moment Everything Clicked

The story begins back in 2010 with an unexpected layoff. Laci was watching her husband Mark navigate how to fill his time after suddenly losing his job. He started helping Laci's father run an annual garage sale fundraiser for The Parenting Place, a local nonprofit focused on child abuse prevention. Her dad had developed a system: take the leftover items from the sale, clean them up, and resell them on Craigslist to generate a few extra thousand dollars for the cause.

"Very quickly my husband was like, 'Well, you know, if we go pick things up from people, we might be able to get more items,'" Laci recalls, settling into her office chair — next to one of five incredible lamps that she purchased on site. That's when Laci's systematic mind kicked in. She started asking questions that nobody else was asking: Why were other thrift stores turning away perfectly good couches? What happened to appliances that just needed simple repairs? And most importantly, what were the real costs and real benefits of solving these problems properly?

"Most of the other thrift stores were like, 'we don't have room for an entire couch and we can't clean it and we don't have a way to test the appliances and we don't want the liability of selling an appliance that might flood someone's house,'" she explains.

Where others saw logistical challenges, she saw solvable problems. Many people couldn’t easily dispose of large furniture, while others couldn’t afford to buy new when theirs broke down. Donation Warehouse would become the bridge between those needs.

Laci and her husband Mark

The Mind Behind the Method

When Donation Warehouse first started, Laci held onto her "regular" full time job. Before she was ready to take the risk of letting that go, she wanted to make sure this model would work. To test it, she created a meticulous tracking system — handwritten cards for every item, logging time and effort down to the minute.

This wasn't just record-keeping. It revealed true costs, helped set fair prices, and ensured The Parenting Place received genuine profit instead of charitable scraps. It's this willingness to dive deep into the details that sets Laci apart.

Today, that systematic approach supports twenty employees and generates between $8,000 and $15,000 monthly for The Parenting Place, accounting for nearly half of the nonprofit's annual income. In July alone, they sold eighty couches.

An Innovator's Instinct

Walking through Donation Warehouse, you notice things: the furniture has a beautiful sheen, everything smells fresh, the displays look more boutique than thrift. When I comment on how nice the furniture looks, Laci shares another story. 

"So the local furniture refurbishers were all buying this really expensive wood treatment product," she begins. Local shops like Missoula Used Furniture and At Peace were using a product called Wise Owl, but only one person in town had a wholesale account. "Tanya from At Peace was like, 'This is really expensive. We should just figure out how to make our own.' 

That spark of an idea set Laci’s solution-oriented brain into motion. She was determined to crack the code for her own business and to help others as well. 

"I started looking up different recipes online, and I just started buying stuff going, 'How do I make our own knock-off version of their furniture salve?'" Now she produces "Magic Salve" right at the front counter between customers. It’s a mixture of beeswax, coconut oil, hemp seed oil, and lemon verbena that not only refreshes wood but makes the air around it smell fresh and clean. She supplies it back to the other small businesses, and gives it as Christmas gifts to her kids' teachers.

"It's like my go-to Christmas gift," she admits with a laugh. "I'm that mom who shows up with homemade furniture polish."

That problem-solving instinct doesn't stop at the Donation Warehouse door. A few years ago, when she had young children at home, Laci was watching the same questions cycle through the Missoula Moms Facebook group every week: 'What pediatrician should I choose? What free activities are there on Thursday?' She could have kept answering individually. Instead, she did what she always does, she built a system.

She built an online resource guide she created with two friends to curate family information primarily in and around Missoula and called it 406 Families. Their summer camp guide became the breakout success — systematizing what had been, for Laci's family, 'a giant game of Tetris' involving hours with calendars, listings, handwritten notes and Excel spreadsheets.

As 406 Families grew, it needed more time and infrastructure than three volunteers could provide. The trio – Laci and two capable friends with complementary skill sets – passed the project to the Montana Edit, who could give it the attention it deserved.

The Unexpected Scale

While 406 Families found new stewards, Laci's attention remained focused on Donation Warehouse, where the numbers tell their own story.

On any given Tuesday, their trucks make eight to ten deliveries and pick up from eight to eighteen homes. Most items don't stay in the store more than a week.

They still track everything meticulously and that system has revealed fascinating patterns. "We get a lot of the same items donated multiple times," she says. "There have been, like, multiple couches that we're like, “Stop it, we sold it in the fall, we saw it in the spring, and then we'll see it, like, a year or two later."

A Rising Tide Philosophy

Perhaps most telling is how Laci thinks beyond herself and her own business. When Donation Warehouse can't accommodate requests, she refers customers to other thrift stores such Secret Seconds, Teen Challenge, and Home Resource.

"I think Missoula is very much a place where we are all seeking connection and we all want everyone to win," she reflects. "We're not out to compete with other secondhand stores. I want more people to know about them, to donate to them too, and help keep things out of the landfill."

It's community systems thinking: understanding that creating abundance for everyone strengthens the whole network. That ethos shined through in 406 Families as well, where the goal was always to connect people with the best resources, whether Laci's team had created them or not.

Building Something That Lasts

The business has grown to the point where The Parenting Place can demonstrate sustainable income to other grant organizations, making them more attractive for additional funding.

"Having sustainable funding where they know they're getting a check every single month has opened them up to other grant opportunities," Laci explains. "It does make them more appealing to donors and to grant funding to be able to say, we know that this organization is going to exist a year from now."

As Laci walks me through the warehouse at the end of our conversation, I now understand that what I see is a systematic workflow, and many small daily decisions in action that connect to larger goals. That goal, in 15 years hasn’t changed: raising money to support child abuse prevention. It looks humble, but it’s incredibly impressive. 

Donation Warehouse reflects Laci's core belief that dignity and functionality aren't luxury items. 

"Everyone deserves to have nice things," she says. "Even somebody who needs a dresser donated — they deserve to have something that functions, that smells clean and that they got to pick out.”

About 406 Families: When Laci Rathbun and her co-founders could no longer sustain 406 Families alongside their growing careers, they passed the project to the Montana Edit. True to Laci's 'rising tide' philosophy, the goal wasn't to own the resource — just to make sure it kept serving Montana families. Today, you can find summer camp guides, activity listings, and family resources within the pages of the Montana Edit. Subscribe now to never miss an update.