Goodwill of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas

Goodwill of Southern Nevada, Inc. helps people with disabilities and barriers to employment find jobs by providing programs and services for people who want to work. Goodwill is a community resource committed to deploying our assets and leveraging our resources with those of others in the community to create more opportunities for people who need assistance to improve their ability to earn a living.

MISSION

Goodwill of Southern Nevada, Inc. is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to provide training, employment and job placement services for people with disabilities and barriers to employment to maximize the quality of life of each individual served.

PROFILE

Goodwill's business focus has enabled Goodwill to become the fastest growing workforce development service provider for our citizens with disabilities and barriers to employment since 1997. What separates Goodwill from most not-for-profit, charitable organizations is that we manage our operations and services like a for-profit business. We have an active Board of Directors consisting of volunteer citizens who ensure that Goodwill operates this way and meets the growing needs of our community. Goodwill's Leadership Team fulfills the mission through the implementation of a well-defined strategic plan.

The sale of donated merchandise in Goodwill's retail stores supports the education, job training and job placement services for those in our community with disabilities and barriers to employment.

Local businesses sponsor Attended Donation Centers where thousands of citizens drop off their "gently used" items.

The primary goal of Goodwill is to enable our citizens with disabilities and barriers to employment to start new careers and lives of independence.

HISTORY OF GOODWILL

The Reverend Edgar Helms, a Methodist minister who was seeking ways to help residents in Boston's impoverished South End, founded GOODWILL at the turn of the century in 1902. Helms collected used household goods and clothing in wealthier areas of the city, then trained and hired immigrants and financially challenged citizens to mend and repair the used goods. The goods were then resold, or given to the people who repaired them. The system worked and the Goodwill philosophy of "a hand up, not a hand out" was born.

The organization was formally incorporated in 1910. Known at the time as Morgan Memorial Cooperative Industries and Stores Inc., (a reflection of its headquarters in Boston's Morgan Memorial Chapel), it provided job skills training programs and even a rudimentary placement service. The name GOODWILL Industries was later adopted after a Brooklyn, New York workshop coined the phrase. Helms had described GOODWILL as an industrial program as well as a social service enterprise.

Today, Goodwill Industries International is the largest provider of vocational services and not-for-profit employer of people with disabilities and other barriers to employment in the world. In 1975, the Southern Nevada office opened its doors as the corporate headquarters for GOODWILL of Southern Nevada, Inc., one of 208 affiliate Goodwill members.

The Southern Nevada chapter of GOODWILL focuses on job training and job placement of people with disabilities. GOODWILL generates most of its multi-million dollar budget through the sale of donated goods. The Las Vegas operations include numerous retail store/training centers, a central processing center for job training and several attended donation centers which receive "gently used" donated goods provided by valley residents.