Business Insight Zone

(Note: Blog Action Day 2008 — which is dedicated to raising awareness about poverty — is as good a day as any to re-start the Company of the Day tradition. See the CotD archive page for previous installments.)

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Living in Austin, it seems like you can’t turn around without running across yet another Goodwill store. We have big ones, small ones, and in-between ones in every corner of the city. In all, Goodwill Industries has more than 2,100 thrift stores spread across 185 local chapters throughout the world.

While 60% of Goodwill’s revenues come from its retail outlets, the organization also brings in hundreds of millions of dollars each year through industrial and service contract work and other services to people living with poverty, mental or physical disabilities, or other potential impediments to employment. In all, the not-for-profit enterprise generates more than $3 billion in annual revenues, all while helping underprivileged and underserved folks to learn job skills and enjoy the dignity of steady, meaningful work. The organization’s outlets also do other bits of community service: the Central Texas branch, for example, works with local sponsor Dell to collect old computer hardware so that it can be recycled safely.

Goodwill Industries was founded in Boston in 1902 by a Methodist minister named Edgar Helms. He built the bones of the modern organization — collecting donations and giving jobs to the poor — around the motto of “a hand up, not a hand out.” Many years later, Helms issued this challenge to Goodwill’s supporters:

“Friends of Goodwill, be dissatisfied with your work until every handicapped and unfortunate person in your community has an opportunity to develop to his fullest usefulness and enjoy a maximum of abundant living.”

More than 100 years on, Goodwill seems to be fulfilling this role better than ever.