How Harvey Norman and Good360 turned surplus into second chances
There’s a moment in a recent video Harvey Norman released with national charity Good360 Australia that stops you in your tracks. A woman named Rhiannon, a single mother of three who survived years of domestic violence, talks about the impact of moving her family into a unit at a new women’s refuge in Orange, NSW, that was fully furnished with fresh bedding, towels and a kitchen – things most of us don’t think twice about.
“It was just a light at the end of the tunnel,” she says. “The support we received turned everything around for me and the kids.”
It’s incredible to think that that light was possible from products that had been in a Harvey Norman warehouse.
A business decision that became a values decision
When Good360 first approached Harvey Norman about partnering to furnish The Orchard, our response was immediate: “Yes, and how quickly can we move?”
If we’re honest, it started as a practical decision: Harvey Norman had some surplus stock, Good360 had a network of charities and community organisations with real, urgent needs, and the logistics made sense.
What we didn’t fully anticipate was what the other end would look like.
Through Good360, our donated goods didn’t just move from a warehouse to a storage facility, they moved into the lives of women and children at their most vulnerable. Six units transformed from empty rooms into real homes, almost overnight.
That’s when this simple business decision became something more.
It takes a village and retailers are part of it
The Orchard story is really a story about what’s possible when the right partners find each other: Birds in the Bush (an organisation of domestic violence advocates located in Orange) identified the need, the RAS Foundation fundraised to help fill it, Harvey Norman brought the product, and Good360 made it all possible.
No single organisation could have done this alone, but together, we furnished an entire refuge for women fleeing domestic violence in a regional community that had never had one.
As Large Format Retailers, we have something uniquely valuable to offer in moments like these: scale, product, and reach. What Good360 gives us is the infrastructure to deploy it: a vetted network of charities, logistics partners, and community groups ensuring that what we donate actually gets to where it’s needed, with accountability and impact reporting to match. They understand the need that exists, and we can comfortably progress knowing where our goods will go.
Our message to other retailers
Trust and community relevance are no longer soft metrics; they are increasingly tied to how your brand shows up when it matters. Customers notice and communities remember.
Partnering with Good360 also makes commercial sense. Surplus stock that might otherwise sit, depreciate, or be destroyed instead generates measurable social impact, and the kind of brand association that no marketing budget can manufacture.
Our advice to fellow LFRA members is simple: don’t wait for the perfect moment. The need is there, the infrastructure exists, and the impact, as Rhiannon’s story shows, is real.
If your organisation is interested in exploring a partnership, reach out to the Good360 team at corporatepartnerships@good360.org.au. We encourage every Large Format Retailer to start that conversation.
Harvey Norman – partnering with Good360 to build stronger, more resilient communities across Australia.
