Goodwill of the Heartland has been helping local people for 60 years
Every year during the first full week of May, Goodwill organizations celebrate Goodwill Week. This Goodwill Week, our nonprofit organization encourages you to “Get to Know Goodwill" by learning more about our 60-year history and the actions we're taking now to make our communities stronger.
Goodwill is a network of nonprofits that are each governed by a local president and CEO and a volunteer board of directors. So each Goodwill organization is free to set its own mission statement, choose programs and services most needed in its operational area and create educational opportunities best suited for the local workforce.
Goodwill of the Heartland, for instance, sells donated and new goods in 18 traditional stores to fund education, training, and employment for people in our 19-county territory in southeastern Iowa and west-central Illinois. We also operate a Goodwill Outlet Store, which sells donated goods by the pound, and an eCommerce division, which offers vintage or otherwise unique items for resell online. While it would be great if these ventures fully funded our programs and services, need always surpasses resources. Currently, about 70 percent of the work we do is funded by our retail offerings. We work with regional and national partners to close the resource gap by accepting private and public grants for specific programs and services.
As an example, in 2013, we created a subsidiary organization, Heartland Goodwill Enterprises, to create jobs for local people with significant disabilities through the federal AbilityOne program. Heartland Goodwill Enterprises operates a food packaging plant in Coralville, Iowa and provides janitorial and grounds services for multiple government-owned facilities, such as local county courthouses. More recently, we partnered with several regional organizations and accepted grant funding from a national organization to provide a new career pathway that helps local people gain the skills needed to pursue manufacturing careers.
Services are at the heart of Goodwill Week
Due in large part to our generous donors and loyal shoppers, Goodwill of the Heartland provides programs and services to people from all walks of life.
Through our nine Helms Career Centers and six Career and Support Services facilities, we work with local employers to help them meet their workforce needs. We also work with local people to help them access educational opportunities necessary to skill, upskill or reskill for new opportunities or community employment with family-sustaining wages.
We operate three day habilitation locations to help adults with significant disabilities remain connected to their community, help homeless and near-homeless veterans reintegrate into civilian life, and provide support to local people who want to continue to live independently.
Goodwill Week is a perfect time to remember that your local Goodwill is its very public facing stores, but also so much more.