Causes: Employment Preparation & Procurement, Goodwill Industries, Job Training

Mission: Goodwill provides quality, effective employment training and basic education to individuals experiencing significant barriers to economic opportunity. Because jobs change lives.

Target demographics: Persons with significant barriers to employment

Geographic areas served: The North Puget Sound region of Washington

Programs: Retail program: we continue to see growing community need for our thrift stores which sell quality, value priced, clothing and household goods. We opened a new store to serve the Juanita neighborhood of Kirkland, Washington and help fund expanded job training and education services. We processed, sold and recycled 58,500 tons of donated goods, providing much needed value to our customers, training, education and employment opportunities for people with multiple barriers to employment and the environmental benefit of keeping these items out of landfills.

Job Training and Education Program: Seattle Goodwill enrolls people in a variety of instruction and training settings, including workshops in partnership with other organizations, one-on-one services, adult basic education classes and intensive business sector training programs. Student enrollment in our free job training and education classes totaled 8,792 last year. As students become ready to work, our employment specialists provide job search and retention services which helped 1,300 students find employment. Through our partnership with Vita, 4,072 lower-income community members received free tax preparation services which returned $6 million in tax refunds to participants. We assisted 158 of our students enter college or technical training institutions through our career pathways initiatives.