Glad to see the references to Craigslist, freecycle, etc.

As for putting things out on the curb, yeah, sometimes that works. But stuff can get damaged by rain or even just drizzle, dew, and dust. Plus, sometimes it gets vandalized instead of picked up.

Every community probably has some charities that will give away stuff to people who need it instead of just trying to sell it at thrift stores. Battered women's shelters, e.g., do that.   

I'm getting more reluctant to donate a lot of things to charities for thrift stores, because too many of them now are operating on the move-mass-quantities-as-quickly-as-possible-with-no-discounts principle, meaning they try for a fairly high (sometimes unreasonably so) price and then "dump" whatever doesn't sell at that price within a few weeks, regardless of quality of the item.    I.e., many of them do not have, as part of their mission, to connect useful items with people who need them or to keep that sort of stuff out of landfills.   So whenever I can find a place that will place as high a value on matching people with "stuff" as they do on turning a buck "efficiently," I prefer to donate there.

I still like to get the tax deductions when I can, but not if it means the item's likely to be trashed or discarded before it can even find a home.