Goodwill Industries Case Study

Nowadays, nonprofits organizations operate as billion dollar companies. The ability of these NGO’s to maintain relevancy and successful lies in their ability to reach volunteers, donors, media coverage, funding, and cooperate sponsors. Without these partnerships the NGO would ultimately fail. Thus, having a strong and visible brand identity is crucial to attaining volunteers, donors, sponsors, etc. Integral to having a strong communication strategy is having a brand idea that unifies the company. Similarly, Goodwill Industries has developed a communications brand idea that separates it from its competitors, giving the company more visibility. By doing a thorough evaluation of Goodwill Industries and its history, the core principals of Goodwill

Since the beginning, community, good and commerce have always been at the core of Goodwill. A business that aimed to do community good was the very idea that motivated the Rev. Edgar Helms to open the very first goodwill store in 1901. After founding a struggling community immigrant from Germany Portland, and Italy in the northern part of Boston, Rev. Helms went door to door carrying a burlap sack asking wealthier Bostonians for whatever clothing and household items they could spare. Using the help of his church, Rev. Helms would clean and fix the donated items and would then sell them at a reasonable price to the immigrants. Many of the immigrants were extremely proud and would only accept the products if they could not pay for it themselves. Using this method, the reverend stated the concept of attainting products from the community and selling it back to the community and would hired community members to operate the store. Rev. Helms used the idea of community good, and commerce to transformed the lives of these individuals in a way the gave independence and

In effort o join the mainstream retail world, Goodwill Industries has started merchandising, decorating, structuring and operating its stores just as any national mass-market retailer would. The company wants the public to no longer view them as a thrift store, but instead, recognized the company as an “alternative for the budget-conscious shopper.” The company has also gone through each of its locations and redesigned them to get a more unified look, consistent merchandising, and similar operations. In some cases, it has been able to remodel stores while in others it has built new ones from the ground up. The company has also mad it appoint to increase their employees pay in order to attract top level retail talent who can make a career out of working for Goodwill. These changes all further the company’s ability to help to community and provide individuals and families with opportunities that they would otherwise not