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Hello, I'm Sheryl Coulman, Managing Director of the Wharton Social Impact Initiative. We're being joined here by
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Jim Gibbons, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries International, and we're going to talk about their their
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really successful hybrid model for their business. So, welcome, Jim. It's great to be here. Good to have you here.
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I know you're you're talking to a lot of folks about Goodwill, and and one of the
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things that I think is really interesting for our audience to hear about is Goodwill is one of those sort
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of highly recognized brands. So, you guys have been around a while doing great work, but why don't you, for the
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audience, tell us a little bit about the core of your work? Cuz I think a lot of
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people may know the name more than they understand what your business is. You know, it's great. It It's great to be a
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part of Goodwill. It is a household name. Uh, there are more than 3,200 Goodwill stores throughout communities
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all over the place. Uh, and a lot of people do know the mission. More importantly, they know
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that it's a brand that they can trust. Uh, but our real focus is not uh, the
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thrift industry. Our focus is really revolves around job creation and job training and working with individuals
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and families uh, so that they can achieve their own personal economic success. And I think that's an
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interesting point, cuz I think for most people when they're they're aware of
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Goodwill in the the stores, um, the thrift stores, and they probably have this tendency to see those as an end in
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themselves, that you have the store so you can have money. Tell the how tell the audience how the the stores help you
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do your mission. Oh, well, the that's it's really twofold. So, we have this network of Goodwill
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stores. Each are community-based organizations uh, that provide a wide range of other
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community services. Uh, but the the retail store model uh, serves two functions.
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One, that entire business infrastructure to the tune of about $4 billion is an infrastructure that's fully
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leveraged uh to create job opportunities for people with disadvantage and conditions. So, it
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could be transitional employment, it could be first-time opportunities, it could be job training programs,
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uh but really working to create an inclusive uh work environment so that uh individuals with barriers to employment
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get a shot. And we are just as happy when we have a talented team member leave us for a new and a bigger and a
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better opportunity uh as we are to have them on the team in the first place. Uh and then secondly, uh
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if uh those Goodwill stores are run successfully, and they are for the most part, uh
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all of the earnings before incremental mission activity uh are then plowed back into that community
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uh for other programs and services uh to sustain that organization and to meet the specific needs of the community
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where that Goodwill is. Yeah. And you, you know, you mentioned that that word sustainability. And I know for many
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social enterprises, either for-profit or or nonprofit, they really are trying to
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focus on sustainability. How do I How do I make sure that I can keep doing the mission that I want to do?
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Mhm. And how do I get the capital and resources to do that? So, your thrift stores provide a really uh successful
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example of how that happens. Yeah, we um you know, we're fortunate in many ways
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that the model has been able to uh create resources to support and fund some incremental
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growth. But, still uh capital for anybody in the not-for-profit space is always a
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difficult thing to come by. We've got an innovative initiative uh that we call the Goodwill Job Creation
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Fund right now that has been launched by Goodwill Industries International in partnership uh with three founding
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investors, the Kresge Foundation, the Casey Foundation uh and the Ford Foundation. And what's really exciting
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about it is it's it's a loan fund to Goodwills to build out the social enterprise.
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But its measure of success certainly uh calls for repayment of the loans, which happens 100% of the time.
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Mhm. Uh but more importantly has a very social impact-oriented scorecard uh so that we can connect the dots uh between
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uh the economic or capital outlay and the social impact that's derived from that
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very specific investment. So let's help uh talk about this a little bit and and
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bring it down to example. So if I'm a uh local community uh CEO of my local Goodwill Mhm. I can
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go to this fund if I want to sort of make a bigger store. I can go to this fund and get uh money to make an
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investment that way. Is that how I use it? So for expansion Mhm. uh you know, and it's got it's a you know,
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we uh currently have one kind of product offering uh in the mix, but we're looking to expand that cuz like you said
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earlier, uh right now we haven't fully demonstrated the the full sustainability
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of this process. It's working economically, but is it going to bring enough value from a capitalization
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perspective uh uh to make it sustainable, but we we have uh we're very optimistic about it
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and it looks as if the model's going to work really well. Yeah, and I think that this this kind of
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innovative financing is so um important for the nonprofit approach because even if you're even if you've
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got a strong steady donor base, there's so much fluctuation and change in the
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nonprofit industry that looking for different revenue streams becomes increasingly important. So, it's I think
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it's great to see good you know, brand names like Goodwill figuring out how they can be innovative around this.
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Yeah, it's great. so are you loaning money out of there yet or is it just are. It started with about a 10 10
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million-dollar initial round and almost the entire amount has been uh has been committed at this point.
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You know, the the most interesting thing about this whole sector is when you have levels of economic
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stability, you can actually focus on the community needs and then put plans in place to meet them.
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And that's really the key to a social enterprise model or a sustainability model. Yeah, and I I think that it's
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impossible to you know, under overestimate how important that is cuz for many nonprofits, there isn't that
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kind of stability and they're really you know, having to scrape by each year. So,
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anytime you can get some stability and get some vision into the future, you're
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able to do things a lot a lot more effectively. Yeah, interesting enough our founder from 1902
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uh many of the words uh he said in his time are words that we are all using today whether that's
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really the importance of reclaiming the value of both lives and of things uh all the way to this notion of being
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dissatisfied with the status quo. So, he's and he was quite an environmentalist uh
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then too and we're really connecting the dots between our model and environmental
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impact now as well. So, in that not being satisfied with the status quo, how does an organization like yours
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established great brand name, you want to protect the brand and make sure that you're, you know, really doing the good
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work that you've continued to do it. How do you get innovation going? You've done
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it obviously in the financing area, but how do you get new ideas happening? Are you top-down kind of guy? Yeah, well,
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you know, you know, there are moments that sometimes it'd be nice to be top-down, but we're not.
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Uh so, we actually are designed and structured uh as a networked organization of 165
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uh independent community-based organizations uh in the United States and Canada and then 14 other countries.
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Uh but what that actually results in is 165 plus innovation labs, test laboratories,
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where Goodwills will try new things and if they work, we share. And then it's
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really about rapid replication. Mhm. Uh so, it's innovate and replicate. Uh and
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then, you know, there's never been a replication where you don't have to
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customize that innovation to your own community needs uh because we're in the
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human services business. So, you kind of got to you got to make it work within your community. Uh but that that's one
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big one, but the other one is we have to have a real open mind up for self-disruption right now.
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Uh Those are words business students love. Yeah, well, the competitive the competitive landscape, technology, new
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markets uh all are things that we're uh staying right on top of. Uh eBay. eBay? Is eBay
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a disruptor to the Goodwill model? Probably. But Goodwill embraced that and that we
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have our we have uh not only a great partnership with eBay, but we also have a ShopGoodwill
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uh auction site that has grown rapidly over these last several years. Uh so, innovating uh embracing those
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disruptions is really key to everything that we try to do. And when you're thinking about how
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you're going to, you know, uh expand these these disruptions in your ability
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to respond to them. What role do corporate partnerships play in this? Well, corporate partnerships are really
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important. Uh they're important both from a cause marketing perspective and a building the
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brand, but they're also important from a uh acquiring uh resource and energy within community.
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Uh and so as as corporations are trying to build more substance more substance, so moving beyond the PR
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component of corporate social responsibility, uh and really trying to have impact for
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the uh investment they make, whether that's economic or talent or uh their own team members volunteerism,
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uh they want to know that they're they're having an impact. And so for Goodwill,
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we have that like great model that allows our partners to have great employee engagement,
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uh have a great cause, and then, you know, at the end of the day, benefit an entire community by strengthening the
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workforce that that those corporate partners work in. That sounds great. So, we've covered a little bit around
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financial innovation. We've covered a bit around, you know, innovation and and
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new models and new approaches. We hit a little bit on on the kind of corporate angle. So, let's turn quickly to things
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around HR, you know, because I think that one of the things for for those of us who have worked in the in the
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nonprofit sector, there's always tension around wanting to get really great employees and give them a career path,
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right? Have them find a way to not just be good in the job that they have, but to be groomed for the other job. How do
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you think the either Goodwill itself or the nonprofit sector has to get better at doing that? What
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are some ways? You know, I think talent acquisition in the not-for-profit space is, you know, is a top three challenge.
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Uh so, acquiring top talent uh is is an area that I think everybody across the sector has to pay attention to.
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What we try to do uh is bring in talent at Goodwill Industries International by uh really
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affecting a culture within Goodwill. Uh that is a culture that people want to be a part of.
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Uh an interesting thing uh that people always ask me is, you know, can you bring people who want to, you
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know, give back? And, you know, we really want to hire people who want to engage
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and bring their talents, their skills, and their willingness to work hard to make a difference.
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So, if it's a mindset of just kind of doing a favor, it's probably not a great
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teammate. Mhm. But, if it's a mindset of working hard and bringing your full intellectual
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and work ethic fortitude forward, then you'll probably work real well in our
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culture. Uh and we try to be very uh uh very excited and clear about the kind of
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work uh that we do and the kind of culture that we try to create and hold each other accountable for. Sounds good. Are
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you able to um work with the local affiliates? Do you promote people up through the local affiliate into the
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into the uh international? You know, across the national kind of network organizations, we probably have
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uh I've not actually not benchmarked it, but I would say that we have one of the
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more comprehensive uh leadership development and management training programs. So, we have
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um management training that we use a train-the-trainer model with, so with local affiliates to help
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their workforce grow. We have a social enterprise certificate program so that all employees have an opportunity to
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build a stackable credential. We have retail 101 train-the-trainer programs. But most most uh uh
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excitingly, we have opportunities for people to go into uh senior leaders programs so that they can grow into more
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senior positions uh as well as a executive development programs for people to uh strive to to lead a
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to lead a a Goodwill. Great. So, we're nearing the end of our our segment. Be a little visionary. What do you see
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going on for the the nonprofit sector? Well, I think that, you know, we have a uh a society
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where uh many people of wealth want to create their own not-for-profit. And they want to do it to have impact,
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but also control. Mhm. And what I see happening across the not-for-profit spectrum
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uh sector, as well as with uh business and government is we've got to get better in the world of collaboration.
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So, we got to get clear on roles and responsibilities. We've got to get better at measuring. We
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got to stand tall on common goals and objectives. And when we get all of that done we'll
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be able to drive collaborations in a way that have the impact that we're all
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striving for. But I think uh I think it's going to be a balancing act between
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control and collaboration. Uh and finding that sweet spot is where we're going to find the impact. That's
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great. Thank you so much. This is talking to Jim Gibbons, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries
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International. Thank you, Jim. Thank you. Hey.