(upbeat music) - Welcome to "Business Forward" I am your host, Matt George and joining me tonight, Don Johnson.

Don is the President and CEO of Goodwill of Central Illinois.

Don is a long time ambassador for nonprofits, he does a lot for the community of middle Illinois and I'm proud to have you on the show, Don.

- Thanks for having me, Matt, I look forward to it.

- Yeah, let's start off with just you for a second.

I know you don't like talking about yourself, but you've been in the nonprofit world a while, haven't you?

- Yeah, I came here back in the late 80s, when even before the whole center was built, and everybody knows the bashes.

And it was built, I was one of the first males hired there.

And was there 16 years and then went over to United Way to move that system from outputs to outcomes, and move that grant process forward to make it more standard in today's world down.

And then six years I started my sixth year with Goodwill Industries of Central Illinois.

- Yeah, so you've been really your whole career helping out the community or a community.

And you're the first nonprofit that I've actually had on the show- - Really?

- So you get an award, I guess, right?

So what drives you to stay in this business and like myself, you get to a certain age and you're sitting here going, "Women, this is what I'm doing now."

And next thing, you know, you're over the age of 50, right?

- 30 plus years.

- [Matt] Right.

- Yeah, you know, it goes back to my mom growing up in Terre Haute and she had a love of not just raising six kids, four boys, but also helping the community.

I watched my mom growing up to the things she did in the Terre Haute community.

And when I went to away for college, you know, it made sense to do something that I had compassion for that I learned at a young age to carry that ball forward.

But I think it was probably my mom that that I watched to do that, yeah.

- So what are some things that she would do on boards or did she?

- Not really boards kind of a quiet leader where when she would help coordinate events, get drinks, get all the supplies, coordinate behind the scenes, and then when it was done clean did everything cleaned up?

- She is a community volunteer?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, and I think, you know, with my own kids, after what they have seen me do in my career, it's an honor to have your kids or your family following those footsteps same with you.

You took after your mom and made an impact like no other so.

So most people when they think of Goodwill, first thing that comes to mind are donations of stuff, right, I mean, is that fair?

So let's just drop off, let's clean out the closet let's drop off some stuff to whether it's clothes or whatever, to one of the locations.

How many locations do you have?

- We have 19 buildings, we have 11 stores.

We have a big warehouse over in the rail yard of East Peoria.

We have Goodwill Commons for our program services, staff and administration.

We have five attended donation centers which are not stores.

It's just a place for people where they make it convenient to drop off.

And then one that we're very proud of is the general way Downing Home down on the south into Peoria.

- Yeah, I'm gonna get to that one because that is a cool, cool story.

But you're talking about really all of middle Illinois.

Is that fair?

I mean I know you're in Peoria, Galesburg, McComb, Pekin?

- Yeah our territory as legally defined by Goodwill's industries in Washington DC is really State Road 136 which is just north of Lincoln, all the way up to interstate 80.

- [Matt] Oh wow.

- Almost all the way over to the Quad Cities to McComb and the Mississippi River.

And then over not not quite towards Bloomington but there's kind of a weird cut out where it does include Rancho I think total counties as well over 30 in those communities that we're in.

- And so that's that how Goodwill works not only throughout the state, but throughout the country, they put them in, I guess- - Yeah legally defined territories- - [Matt] Okay.

- There was a lot of, you know, my guess is arm twisting territory grabbing back in the 20s 30s, all the way up to the 70s to define those territories.

- And how long's Goodwill been in business from?

- You know, the history of Goodwill that was started at the turn of the century in Boston, was around for 30 or 40 years where it took hold in Peoria.

And believe it or not in Peoria, we actually opened our doors and the first doors in downtown Peoria, back during the Great Depression.

- [Matt] Oh wow.

- Because people saw a need of getting goods that they no longer needed, that people couldn't afford to buy to the people that needed them.

And that's an amazing story, because who would have thought to open up a business and grow it during the Great Depression but the need was there.

And it's back since about 1932.

- I mean, so if you think about that, that's an amazing story.

Because if you think about that long ago, whoever had that vision and model so to speak, it's really that model today as the core piece of what you do, right?

- Right.

- And so if you, let's just go through a little process here.

So I've got three bags of clothes and some items, I dropped them off at the store.

And you're just elated because you've got stuff out of your house but Goodwill, not only thanks you, you put it to good use but you don't use everything, do you?

- No I, typical average in ratios we have one of those free bags that you donate, you know, majority is gonna tell us that a lot of it's gonna be apparel.

And people need to understand with apparel that that stains and rips and tears are still good because it has a second market.

Some of those will actually be salvaged into carpets.

But also the second most item that we get the choice short of right now is wares.

These are kitchen items, kitchen goods- - [Matt] Okay.

- Paintings, things like that, that we call wares.

Spoons, collector's items, we sell those at a very high rate.

But I'd say when you look at the ratios what people don't understand is there's an art of going through and doing the quality checks that we do that 40% of that makes it on the showroom floor of a store.

So 40% has value.

Now does all that 40% sell in a store?

No, there's a small percentage that doesn't.

So there's a six week rotation period that we have the pull it out, and then it goes into that second salvage market.

But what do we do with the other 60%?

And then you get into a huge recycling program that we have led by each door of those 11 locations I stated, but also going back to our East Peoria warehouse where we have employees that go through those and we have these big baling machines that will bale our apparel.

And we do it by the semi load that we've already been through.

So that market typically will go to Euston to the port and also Toronto for that secondhand sale.

So I always joke and say that, you know for hurricane goes through country X and people see that, the kids wearing a Bradley's shirt, there's a good chance that probably came from us.

- Wow, yeah so I don't think the average person and I knew some of that, but I really didn't know that so out of those three bags I used as an example, one and a half, or one and a half plus of those bags is not really used in the store.

- Right, so you have that 40 in the stores, the recycling now.

Everything that we have that we touch, we can't recycle.

So we have a great relationship with the community partner being PDC pure disposal company, but it's a small percentage of that, that has no value.

But we do a very good job of recycling our apparel, metals, cardboard, paper and a bunch of other things.

But those are typically the top four.

And it's in the tune of between four and 5 million pounds a year is what we recycle as value.

- And do you get, is that a revenue stream for you too?

- Yep, it's, for example, if you look at textiles on the stock exchange, it's right now I believe 17 cents a pound.

And we have a lot of pounds and the truckloads that we have it adds up.

So yeah, we generate revenue to help pay for the staff over at Carver logistics center.

- So you just throw out a number 5 million pounds times 17 cents do the math, interesting.

So then I'm kinda straying from my questions because I think this is an interesting piece of what you do because you do, Goodwill people just think of the stores.

There's much more we're gonna get to that in a second but you take the stuff you can use, you put it on the floor, is there, you must have to have a lot of with logistical processes and so on to get everything flowing the way you do, it's kind of a big business, isn't it?

- We in the backroom.

And that's where the barber hits the road.

That's where items are donated to that back door.

Because we have to make donations convenient.

People will donate to us for one reason and it's convenience, typically.

And we started the what's called AMI, the automated merchandise identifier in the backroom after a strategic plan two years ago.

We invested dollars in there and we actually used the computer and technology for pricing to be very, very competitive in that market.

But also with AMI, we have instilled it a training that we have to constantly get better at.

And it's called one touch which with our computer system we call two touch because the more we touch items in that back room, the price just goes on that for the cost.

And so I'd say those are the two biggest trainings we have is the AMI, automated merchandise identifier and the one touch philosophy which we are getting ready to get better at training based on a new strategic plan that we did because we have to as you as we always talk about, Matt.

We're nonprofit, but we have to run it like a business.

- You have to run it out like this.

- And learn that years ago, back prior my whole days that you think like a nonprofit, you could be in trouble.

And so we have all the metrics that we make decisions, the planning all that we're no different than than some of the larger companies.

But I think it's tougher on us looking at Sarbanes Oxley and those things that passed and 990, things that were held accountable to maintain that 501c3 compared to the non 501c3s.

- Yeah, and most people don't realize you still have to have your audit, federal audit- - [Don] Yeah.

- 401 k audit, you know, all those internet activities that are just like you said, a part of every business.

So you have I think you said 19 stores.

How many employees just do you have in those 19 stores?

- Well, we have 11 stores, the five attended donation centers, that's typically you know, where people drop off donations and where people shop.

That's the two biggest things that people know Goodwill for us.

Those two things worth 350 employees.

Because when you take a look at how many staff it takes to build a store, whether it's Galesburg, McComb here in Peoria, East Peoria, Washington, Pekin, wherever that store is, it takes a staff about 30 people, you know, to build a store.

- [Matt] Wow.

- And then you have we're an operation seven days a week, we only shut down really for basic holidays.

And so you have to have the ability and so we have a lot of full time people with benefits, but also part time people to fill those voids.

I personally think it's a great place for a young kid to start their first job, and also a place for people to work to have a career as well as those people that retire that still wanna work 20 hours.

It's a little mix of everything that we have when we look at those 350 employees.

- I think you mentioned career, I think a lot of people don't think of either nonprofit or a place like Goodwill as being a career.

But you know, when I go out and speak to a lot of young kids, you've done the same.

It is not a job, it is a career and it's something you can be proud of.

And you're giving back to the community because right now, Don, with COVID and everything that we've been beaten up with with the last 10 months, you're a needed needed business for a lot of people right now that are either out of work, need your stores and so on.

- Yeah.

- So Goodwill, when you think of it, we think of the stores.

But you know, I like your other services.

And you know, this is the fun part for me I wanna touch on.

So let's talk employment services first.

So explain what that means.

- We have an employment staff there are mainly at Goodwill Commons here in North Peoria by the Mccluggage Bridge.

And when people drive by the building, they can see the banners we put on the fence but also, you know not, so I'm gonna use some data, but I'll use 2020 data but also 2019 'cause 2020 data is really messed up.

But I'll go back a typical year for us for the amount of people we work with to help find jobs to do coaching, to do training, to do resume building, to do interviewing skills and many other things that we do.

2019 we worked with about 4000 people.

- [Matt] Wow!

- And we have business partnerships of people looking to hire.

It's not just about Goodwill.

It's about 500 business relationships that we have in that service area that we have that we actually do hiring events for and to get people hired.

So when you look at our employment services, we base it on what the outputs are but also the outcomes, you know, getting people hired, and making sure they stay hired.

That's the challenge.

And it's a different world today when you look at are people come into work happy.

- All right.

- Because if you look at all the things that you can instill in people to look at why are people leaving a job to go somewhere else, we've got to get better at doing that not just a Goodwill, but also with the other companies we work with.

So employment, we're probably one of the bigger employment services program in downstate Illinois.

- And that's pretty impressive and right now, with hearing and you see in the spotlight all the time the unemployment numbers and you see him up and down, but you know, we're starting to make a recovery.

But let's say I'm looking for a job, I can come to Goodwill, and you help facilitate that process.

And from all the way through, right?

- Yeah we will take a look at, you know, their goals, what they would like to be, we take a look at their skills and skill set they have and then sometimes it's a reality check to, you know, what they wanna do to the amount of pay to really what they're set for.

And we set that in motion and help build resumes off that.

And also the contacts we have, we start communicating back and forth.

But you know, with that 2020 has been was odd, because thank God, we're in 2021 now, right?

We put 2020 behind us, but it was by appointment only.

And so we saw the outputs drop a little bit but we're still hitting those outcome goals.

- [Matt] Interesting.

- That we set forth, because people do need to be hired, they do need to look at careers and what we said with your name your business forward, it's moving the community forward.

And our employment service staff did a very good job virtually.

In fact, we kinda lead the country in some of the things with our talented staff there with John Wagner and Lori Johnson moving to virtual because we couldn't meet face to face.

And we were very effective doing that and actually led some some conferences and presentations with other Goodwill's across the country because we were one of the first.

- That's pretty cool.

And with one of the hot topics all the time being behavioral health, mental health, being employed at a time like this makes you sleep at night.

And I think that's an important service.

So now, one of my favorite services, youth services.

So why don't you talk about that?

- We have a good guides youth mentoring program.

I remember when I first started Goodwill, I stood on the stage in Omaha and we'd won a National Award they have not given out that award since but good guides, we have a staff there that looks at mentors and mentorship.

And last time I looked at those numbers, we were in the 1890s.

With that we have other partners in that that help fund Harville United Way, and serve other funding entities to keep that staff solid and we recruit mentors, it's ongoing, but also look at inner city, it's more of an inner city program to look at adolescence, because there's a lot of mentor programs that are eight, nine, 10, 11.

We really wanted to challenge ourselves and pick that adolescent group up between 12, 13 all the way up to 18, 19.

And that programs has gone very well.

That data is very rich, we use a scientific approach to link the mentor with the child and it's ongoing.

But that program has has done very, very well.

- How do you vet the child to to the mentee or the mentor?

- It's kinda both because I think when you look at, there are certain tools we use to do that.

But if there's not a match, and the data tells us that don't force it.

- [Matt] Okay.

- You know, a lot of programs don't do that, we actually use certain tools to match that to make sure it works.

And we've had very healthy matches because of that.

- And so you talk data all the time.

You talk outcomes all of the time.

All that equals technology too and so you utilize to prove your point earlier about being a business, you utilize and have to stay ahead of the curve on technology to stay relevant in a sense, right?

- Right.

- And you do a pretty good job of that.

I've noticed that over the years.

You are a data rich guy, but you actually use the data.

But a lot of people have the data, they just don't know how to utilize it.

- [Don] Right.

- Right.

- It's kinda like having a strategic plan and never opening it up either - [Matt] Right.

- But- - Let's put the plan on the shelf and we'll just say we did it and checkbox it.

- [Don] Yeah.

- All right.

So veteran services, this is one I know you're very proud of.

Let's talk about the General Downing Home.

- General Downing Home is out on Olive street in southtown, Peoria, the building still looks brand new.

It's probably getting close to 18 years of age.

We did an addition on to that about three years ago.

And knock on wood, it's about it's 100% paid for.

But we use roundup dollars.

For example, when people are asked to round up to the store 30 cents, 40 cents here it adds up.

And we used a lot of that funding as well as got a naming name from the Hope Family here in Peoria, to name it after their brother who had Agent Orange from the Vietnam War, and he passed away from it.

So we we did the addition, we did the Donor Wall, and so on and we have 15 guys that live with us full time.

They all have a military background.

If they didn't live with us, there's a good chance they'd probably be on the streets of Peoria.

We work with Harbor, Illinois, United Way on that project with a continuum of care.

And so it's rare that we have openings.

And we have openings we years ago with the United Way set up the continuum of care that has all the data points.

So you know, going into a lesson instead of looking for him coming down the street and looking for him.

Who is next in line, and where are they at that has a military background.

And so we were honored to name and after General Downing years ago because he was kind of a soldier soldier.

- [Matt] Yes.

- And took care of his soldiers so I think it's a responsibility that we have as a community to help those veterans that need our help and support.

The average age, there's climbing.

Few of them leftover from the Vietnam era.

A lot of Desert Storm, but it's constant, you know, and it's been tough this year with COVID.

And now that we're in 2021, it's still there.

With the age of the guys and some of the health problems they have and COPD, that we have put it on lockdown, and we're waiting and pushing to get the vaccine down there to protect it because it's a different type of living.

They all come to one kitchen.

- Right.

- And it's more community living.

- Community living.

- And we each of the guys who has IP plan and bunjil personal plan that we we look at and work on but majority of our we are now in the upper 60s, 70s.

So we see that age climb each year.

- Very much needed service.

So I love this headline recently.

Goodwill of Central Illinois receives transformational gift.

they've received the gift from MacKenzie Scott.

Scott is the former wife of Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos.

She gifted a lot of money.

So in their divorce settlement, she got billions.

And she decided to start giving back.

You were one of only 384 agencies in the whole United States or maybe world, the United States that were gifted $5 million.

Is that correct?

- Yes.

- Wow, I tell you that was, when I heard this I smiled for hours for you.

Because I know how you are as a grant writer, I know how competitive you are as a former coach and athlete and so on.

But this is not chump change.

$5 million is a lot of money.

- It's amazing story, you know, and it goes back almost 12, 13 weeks ago when I was communicated by our handlers.

They had communicated with me and ended up being three different groups of handlers.

In one it was a vetting process.

And I think, you know what, it makes me proud of Goodwill to survive that vetting process because she did put in a pool 6490 nonprofits.

And so you know, people can say what they want, but the reason we got is because we do very good work.

They put line items on our 990, they ran ratios.

They did all the checks with our first team.

And that list went from nearly 7000 down to 100.

And then they looked at our organization, our board, our structure, they spent time on our website, they spent time researching me, our CFO, and that was a second group that vetted that out, and they were two groups formed out of that 801 that does a lot of good in the community.

And that's what people don't know about Goodwill and the program services we do is we do a lot of good work in the community.

That is what helped us you know, get over the top and get that and then we had a third team communicate with us.

But you know, we were born and raised in that time when it's too good to be true is typically too good to be true.

So, a lot of questions going back 12, you know, months ago, that really made an amazing story.

But we've done our homework, we did our due diligence, we work hard every day to put ourselves in that position.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- And I think this community should be proud of that.

- You know, Don to kind of wrap this up, I will tell you this, I've seen a lot of things in nonprofits over the years.

This is probably one of the most impressive things that I've seen.

And it really is a true testament to not just you all 300 plus of your employees, and I know you're proud of them.

I appreciate what you do.

Our community appreciates what you do, keep caring for our community.

I'm gonna have you back on because I've got a lot more questions, but thank you.

This has been "Business Forward".

I'm Matt George, and we'll see you next time.

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