Ten Things You Probably Don’t Know About Goodwill

My work as the spokesperson for Goodwill® and Ambassador of the Donate Movement is the most fulfilling thing in my career, and I was so honored to recently win the Philanthropy Award at the NAPO-LA Organizing Awards! Thank you to everyone who voted for me. Goodwill also won for "Most Supportive or Organizer-Friendly Charity," so the evening couldn't have gone any better! (Here is the list of all of the finalists and winners.)

I was so deeply happy to have a platform, if just for a few minutes, to tell my peers why Goodwill is so important. I also was excited that I could tell everyone from the podium that my evening gown came from Goodwill! I found this gown for $24.99 at one of my favorite Austin Goodwill stores with $200 Neiman Marcus tags still on it! I scanned in the tag so you could see it. (Fun photo here is of me with my very dear friend Dorothy Breininger of A&E's Hoarders— click for larger view– event photos by Bryan Moore and Tara Tortorello)

There are so many surprising and interesting things about Goodwill that people don't understand or don't know… I wanted to commemorate this honor by making a list of the top ten things I want people to know:

1. Goodwill does so much more than only providing jobs in their own retail stores. This is a huge misconception– that Goodwill is only about the stores. Goodwill also assists with job placement services throughout the community. Many Goodwill agencies provide jobs through temporary staffing services or through commercial service contracts that they staff for services like groundskeeping, document imaging, and food service preparation, packing and assembly.
   
2. Every 45 seconds of every business day, a person served by Goodwill earns a good job. Goodwill helped 155,000 people in the US and Canada to earn $2.5 billion in salaries and wages in 2009, and they provided training and other services to 1.9 million people.
3. The mission of Goodwill is to provide job-related services and opportunities to people who face obstacles to finding employment. We need that now more than ever! Obstacles can mean many different things, such as disabilities, lack of education, criminal records, or logistical issues like transportation or child care. This is done through training programs, classes on financial planning and job search, youth services, and actual job placement, among others.
4. Collectively 83% of the revenue generated goes directly to the mission. On the local level, this percentage may be even higher, such as Goodwill Industries of Central Texas (Austin Goodwill), where the percentage is 89%. Goodwill is spinning your clutter into gold that goes right back into your own community.
5. The CEO of Goodwill Industries International is Jim Gibbons, who is himself blind– he embodies the spirit and mission of the organization by showing that obstacles can be overcome. In 2010 he won a Jefferson Award for Public Service, for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged. Past winners of this award have included Cesar Chavez, Bill & Melinda Gates, and Paul Newman.
6. Goodwill has its own auction site online for selling high value items that are donated, at shopgoodwill.com. Overall Goodwill expects to earn over $25 million in online sales this year. Read this great NPR story about thrifting going high-tech.
7. Since January 1, 2010, Goodwill has diverted over 2 BILLION pounds of usable goods from landfills! You can see the ongoing ticker at http://donate.goodwill.org. Goodwill has been an environmental pioneer and social innovator of the "reduce, reuse, repurpose" practice for over 100 years.
8. Goodwill has a headquarters office but each regional Goodwill member agency is autonomously operated. There are 165 independent member agencies in the US and Canada and 14 international affiliates as of this writing. They may have different policies about what they do and don't accept and may offer different programs and services from place to place.
9. One working computer equals 8.1 hours of on-the-job training! The Reconnect partnership with Dell started here in Austin in 2004 and diverts computers and electronics from landfills and creates green-collar jobs. More than 2,014 Goodwill stores and donation centers operated by 97 Goodwill agencies in 36 states and two Canadian provinces serve as collection sites for the Dell Reconnect electronics recycling program. More than 98 million pounds of electronic equipment have been recycled through Goodwill since the partnership began! You can enter your zip code here to find the nearest drop off location and other information.
10. Not all thrift stores are charities, and some parking lot drop boxes are scams! Be a Conscious Donor… donating household goods IS philanthropy, and just as you would not write a check to an organization without knowing why, please be conscious of where you are leaving your donations. Some drop boxes sell donations for profit at flea markets, and some thrift stores and other operations solicit donations but give as little as 5% of the revenue to charity. (See #4 above…) 

It was hard to choose those ten things because I could go on and on about Goodwill and all of the amazing things I have learned… and the stories of the people that have been served… I would encourage you to visit our Donation Impact Calculator at http://donate.goodwill.org and see the real world impact of your donations. For example, 10 CDs or DVDs = 50 minutes of a job search class!

Thanks for your support, and spread the word!

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