If you would like to make a pledge please click here to fill out a form or contact the Development Office at 330-724-6995 ext. 229.

When most people think of Goodwill, they think about retail stores. And why shouldn’t they? Goodwill's retail operation has earned a reputation as one of the most recognized and respected organizations in the world. What many people don’t know is that the revenues from the retail operations are used for the “greater” mission of Goodwill. That mission is to help individuals prepare for, find and retain employment. Those barriers include physical and developmental disabilities, education, socio-economic, cultural or even behavioral barriers.

GOODWILL: Start Here. Go Anywhere.

The new millennium has brought a mandate to prepare for the future. Locally, the city of Akron has completed Imagine.Akron:2025, a blueprint for empowering the community within the next 25 years. Internally, Goodwill Industries of Akron has committed to changing the way it does business and looks to initiate full partnerships with business, education, government, residents and private interests to lead a new era of growth in our community.

In June 2000, Goodwill Industries moved into its 570 East Waterloo Road headquarters facility. The 113,500 square foot facility positions Goodwill Industries perfectly to expand and enhance its services. Its central location garners easy access and the sheer size and capacity allows for Goodwill Industries to engage in the call by Imagine.Akron:2025 for leaders to “develop resources to support families, neighborhoods, education and economic development.” Based on our long standing commitment and our range of expertise, Goodwill is uniquely equipped to have a significant impact in each of the critical areas targeted in city’s blueprint.

The Vision for the Future:

Goodwill Industries of Akron is The Center for Business, Learning and Community.

Through developing new and enhancing current collaborative relationships, Goodwill Industries will serve as the center for an array of complementary programs that meet the mandates of Imagine.Akron:2025 and of the county itself.

Workforce Development

The city mandates:

“For Akron Business, there are few issues more important than knowing Akron will develop a workforce within the community that will sustain industrial and manufacturing operations in the coming years. If Akron is to prosper economically and fill the fundamental positions that permit the city and community to maintain first-rate services, the community-at-large must provide first-class training that will match the community’s expectations for service.”

As the experts in Workforce Development, Goodwill Industries of Akron will partner with the city of Akron, the Akron Regional Development Board and educational institutions to ensure continued success in recruitment, placement, training and retention of a first rate workforce.

As stated in Imagine.Akron:2025,

“It is more true today, and will become increasingly true in the future, that re-training for new skills will be commonplace.”

The Center for Business, Learning and Community lends itself perfectly to assemble educators, business leaders and community leaders to discuss the responsive requirements to ensure the future workforce of this region. Responding to trends and changes is a natural for Goodwill Industries of Akron. Through their affiliation with Goodwill International, Goodwill Industries of Akron has the capacity to garner current statistics and information that can positively impact outcomes in this community.

The Center for Business, Learning and Community will initiate such collaborations, gather research and dedicate space and other resources to ensure that such enterprises produce the opportunity for educational use of facilities.

The Center for Business, Learning and Community will provide critical services in Workforce Training & Retraining by providing:

Welfare to Work Training

Hospitality

Industrial

Contracts

Public Service

Recycling

Business Incubation

Entrepreneurial Education

Apprenticeships

Retail Sales & Development

Technology

Additionally, the Center will maintain programs and services in the following crucial areas.

Skills Training & Development

Interpersonal Skills

Personal Counseling

Job Coaching

Leadership Training

Computer Software

Skills Assessments

Interest Surveys

Career Planning

Continue to Focus on the Special Needs of

People Who Have Disabilities

Seniors/Aging Citizens

Women & Minorities

Displaced Workers

Global Business Attraction

Identification of, Training in and Education for Emerging Workforces

Specialized Support for Employers in Special Needs Training

Recruitment & Retention

Diversity and/or Sensitivity Training

Support of the Incumbent Workforce

Community Resources

Goodwill Industries’ Center for Business, Learning and Community desires to engage with the educational resources to provide learning environments to the community at large. Goodwill is willing to lend its centrally located facility to the educators and the community in order to initiate additional outreach efforts for educating traditional and non-traditional learners.

Imagine.Akron:2025 states:

“Before 2025, school buildings should become centers of learning and technology open to the adjacent community. Neighborhoods are linked to neighborhood schools. These are places from which the neighborhood derives some of its identity.”

Goodwill Industries of Akron is eager to partner with the Akron Public Schools, for they are the resource of our future workforce, and the city of Akron to provide an additional facility to outreach into the neighborhoods.

The new Center for Business, Learning and Community will serve as the hub of the local community, providing much sought-after space for:

Community Assemblies

Police & Fire Education Programs

Meeting Space

Goodwill Industries’ Programs

Information Sharing

Continued Learning Experiences

Neighborhood Asset Identification

Collaborative Efforts

Outreach

Neighborhood Resource Center

A New Kind of Organization

Imagine.Akron:2025 mandates that, “By the year 2025 Akron will utilize the nonprofit sector better, recognizing that volunteers in charitable and social organizations together with members of faith-based congregations can often manage some problems better than government. Akron should develop new models for nonprofit organizations…”

Goodwill Industries of Akron is this new model of not-for-profit organization. With a strengthened Board of Trustees, a focused professional staff, and a vision expansive enough to impact the entire region, Goodwill wants to partner with you to make this vision … this mandate … a reality.

Partnerships for the Future

As we usher in the exciting new Center for Business, Learning and Community, Goodwill invites committed leaders to partner with us to effect this change. We invite organizations, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, foundations, corporations and associations of every kind to Start Here, and be a part of The Center for Business, Learning and Community.

Goodwill seeks not just your financial contributions, but also your ideas to create this innovative concept. We invite you to become a true partner in delivering a Center that improves families, neighborhoods, education, the quality of life and economic development in Akron, a center that will allow participants to…Go Anywhere.