Goodwill Industries Essay

Before the concept of nonprofit organization was founded around the 1970s in the United States, there were churches that conducted charitable work. In fact, Rev. Edgar J. Helms, a Methodist minister, who is “credited as the founder of the movement that would grow into Goodwill Industries,” was working and helping people when he was in Boston’s Memorial Chapel. He started to take donations from the wealthier residents of Boston and then gave the items to the poor immigrants that helped him or resold the collections and paid his helpers. He did all this simply because he was sickened by the way those immigrants lived without food or shelter and no help from anyone. He founded Goodwill Industries in 1902 and turned the organization into a formal corporation in 1910. Donations and government funding support nonprofit organizations and they can also sell goods and services. However, any profit made must be turned back into the business and must be used to support the services they offer and to pay their employees. Rev. Edgar J. Helms

Helm’s vision. It also provides educational development programs for adults to help them get their High School Diploma, earn college credits, and get access to financial aid for further education. Danielle Fithian and Sean Hinnegan runs The Helms Academy and the Job Club, respectively, t the Stratford, NJ location. Sean Hinnegan says that their mission is to “place people at the gate.” Furthermore, Goodwill helps people to re-enter society through its Ex-Offender Re-entry program, offers Computer Skills Training, and provides a School-To-Work program for special needs children who receive academic instruction from high school teaches and learn hands-on job skills, just to name a few other