New Office Supply Vendor at UCSF

Office-supply vendor Give Something Back (GSB) is now available to UCSF shoppers through BearBuy. The Oakland company, known for its donations to local nonprofits, has been the small-business office-supply option at UC Berkeley for the past three years. In that time, they’ve taken on OfficeMax and gone from less than 10 percent of the office supply spend to about 50 percent.

“We’re excited to bring them to UCSF to let them compete with OfficeMax there,” said Supply Chain Management’s (SCM) Alex Butler. “With their demonstrated competitive nature, we think they’ll be good for UCSF not only as a small business, but for office supplies in general. We’re hoping for better prices from both companies as a result.”

Butler said that while GSB’s pricing was very competitive, it was their customer service that was the key to success when competing with OfficeMax.

“Give Something Back has at least one, if not two, sales representatives on campus every day,” he said. “If there is something wrong, they fix it right away. They’re doing that at Berkeley and now at UCSF they have two representatives going out every day.”

The deal with GSB has not only paid dividends in quality service, but to the bottom line. Butler credits the competition between GSB and OfficeMax with bringing about the recent deal for paper made from 100 percent post-consumer-waste. OfficeMax broke away from Boise Cascade, a company that used to own OfficeMax, to reach out to Georgia Pacific and make the deal for the eco-friendlier paper. That contract is now a University of California systemwide agreement.

GSB’s charitable giving is another selling point. The firm donates more than 70 percent of its after-tax profits to local charities, including UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, the San Francisco Food Bank and the Breast Cancer Emergency Fund (operating in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties).
Butler also pointed out that OfficeMax has charitable giving comparable to GSB. It’s just not as targeted to the Bay Area.

When you’re ready to place an order, GSB has a BearBuy hosted catalog. Once you add GSB items to your cart, the order proceeds with the same approval and delivery process as other catalog procurement. Give Something Back is certified with the federal government as a Small Business Enterprise (SBE).  If you are purchasing for a federally funded contract or subcontract for which small business goals have been approved, any procurement with GSB will count toward those goals.

If you have questions about GSB, their UCSF sales representatives are:


If you want to know more about GSB’s charitable donations, check out their giving page:


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