Lisa Gautier’s environmentalist career didn’t begin with a treetop hunger strike or a bracing voyage on a Greenpeace boat. It began with an old rug. “I bought a new rug and I didn’t know what to do with the old one,” says the 36-year-old San Franciscan. So Gautier...

The deluge of closures and cutbacks at tech startups is creating at least one beneficial side effect. Charity workers who distribute furniture and gadgetry that companies leave behind are finding themselves with plenty of stock. That's how it seems at...