At Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Wisconsin and Metropolitan Chicago, describing what we do can be summed up simply and broadly as Transforming Lives through the Power of Work. 
I’ve been fortunate to be part of Goodwill since 2010, jumping into the non-profit world after 14 years in Management Consulting. During that time, we have seen significant growth in our impact by bringing new innovative capabilities to the market. In tangible numbers, we achieved 1,410 entered employments (a measure we use to describe the number of jobs attained by those we serve) in 2009. In 2013, we achieved almost 5 times that amount, with 6,654 entered employments. Our number of individuals served has grown from approximately 15,000 in 2009 to over 60,000 in 2013. While those are big numbers, we have a lot more work ahead of us. We continue to strive on making an impact on two primary customers; the job seeker looking for skill building and/or a job, and businesses seeking to find, develop, and keep good employees. When these two customer needs are met, we then have an impact on the communities where we live, work, and play. We are doing this through a Workforce Development strategy that focuses on relevance in key industry sectors, maintains equal balance of our two primary customers, and driving integration and process improvement that adds value to our customers.
As this is my first blog entry, my goals are to Inform, Learn, and Challenge. I hope to inform you of the work we are doing at Goodwill to respond to the real challenges that exist within the labor market. I hope through regular writing I’ll learn new perspectives that I can apply personally and professionally, and hope you find key learnings to apply in your world. Finally, I hope to challenge myself and my audience to a broader perspective of the challenges and possibilities that we face with our workforce. I tend to gravitate toward being solution driven, collaborative, and positive, and look forward to your input along the way. I can be reached at by email at: dan.depies@goodwillsew.com or via Twitter @DanDepies
