Goodwill Industries of Central Oklahoma

PROJECT PURPOSE

Goodwill is requesting $75,000 to support Goodwill Career Pathway Institute and Job Connection Center in order to further enhance its extensive live in-person training, virtual reality training, and apprenticeship training programs to those who need help overcoming challenges to employment and can least afford the cost of these programs. These training programs provide assistance to those struggling with life challenges including ? Housing Insecurity ? Food Insecurity ? Behavioral Health ? Substance Abuse recovery ? Recovery from Human Trafficking ? Recovery from Domestic Violence and disabilities, past involvement in the criminal justice system, homelessness and a wide variety of other challenges to employment.

EVIDENCE

Goodwill was the recipient of United Way's $100,000 Wayfinder grant in 2021 to being the virtual reality forklift driver training program. The Wayfinder grant committee reviewed and vetted a significant number of grant applications and selected Goodwill to be the largest recipient of funding in 2021.

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

Low wage earners and the unemployed were significantly and negatively impacted by the pandemic. Goodwill assisted hundreds of these people with applying for unemployment benefits, providing on line training which reached tens of thousands, and then launched a Mobile Job Connection Center to reach out to those who could not find transportation to our brick/mortar Job Connection Center

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

Goodwill partners with other nonprofits in the collection of data on referrals to our training programs and Goodwill collects its own data on those entering and those completing the training, tracking job obtainment, job longevity and satisfaction with the training process.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

Able to continue operation without additional funding from the State of Oklahoma