What is Goodwill Industries?
 

It’s an international nonprofit agency and one of the world’s largest providers of education, training, and career services for people with disabilities or disadvantages.
 

Who pays for Goodwill?
 

Most of our funds come from the sale of gently used goods in our 11 retail stores.  We also receive some grants from foundations and fees for our workforce development and social services from agencies who refer their clients to us.
 

85 percent of our revenues support our programs; that’s a very
high percentage among nonprofits.
 

Who owns Goodwill?
 

No one.  We’re a nonprofit corporation.  A Board of Directors, made up of business and community leaders, oversees our agency.  Our President and CEO directs our day-to-day operations.
 

How does Goodwill help people?
 

Our staff helps them discover what kind of work they would do best so they will likely be successful.  We train them for work and we place them in jobs in the community or at Goodwill.  In addition to employment-related programs, we assist some people with social services that help them enrich their lives.
 

What people does Goodwill serve?
 

We assist people with physical, mental, emotional or developmental disabilities, and we serve individuals with disadvantages such as welfare dependency.
 

Where do you get the items you sell?
 

From people in the community.  They donate household goods they no longer can use but someone else would like to buy at a very low cost. 
 

Why do you sell the items instead of giving them away?
 

The resale of the goods is an important means of paying for our programs that assist people with disabilities and disadvantages.
 

What do you do with things you can’t sell?
 

We recycle everything we possibly can.  In fact, Goodwill has been described as “the original recycler.”  We have special programs for recycling metal, shoes, clothing, books and other materials.  Several broker companies purchase items we can’t use very cheaply and in turn resell them to Third World companies or use to make other products.  This keeps a great deal of material out of the wastestream and we’re proud of being good environmental citizens.
 

Where did Goodwill come from?
 

In 1902 a Boston minister had the idea of collecting unwanted goods from people in the city, then hiring unemployed men and women to refurbish them and sell them to the public at very low prices.  The concept of self-help has worked ever since.  Today there are more than 200 different Goodwills in the U.S., Canada, and 22 other countries.