Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona and Goodwill of the San Francisco Bay jointly announced today that they have activated a partnership agreement between the two organizations. These Goodwill organizations will work together as one team to bring best-practices in mission advancement and retail expertise to their respective regions. Combined, the organization will now be the largest Goodwill operation in the world.
“By partnering to combine our retail operational excellence in the thrift retail space, along with Goodwill’s sustainability and community mission services, together, we will amplify our impact in the communities we serve,” said Tim O’Neal, president and chief executive officer, Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona. “Most importantly, we partner to connect two organizations strongly driven by our common value of culture, teamwork, and a dedication to serving our communities. Combing their best-in-class social services and things they do around the mission, and our best-in-class retail made a lot of sense.”
The partnership with the Bay Area-based Goodwill will join the organizations under combined leadership led by O’Neal. Goodwill of the San Francisco Bay operates more than 30 stores and donation centers throughout six counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Solano encompassing 4,000 square miles of territory and 5.2 million residents — and employs nearly 900 team members. Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona, currently operates in the Phoenix-metro and Northern Arizona areas.
In 2020, the Phoenix-based Goodwill merged with Goodwill Industries of Monocacy Valley based in Maryland. Combined, Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona and Goodwill Industries of Monocacy Valley currently operate more than 120 Goodwill store and donation center locations and employ more than 5,000 team members across the two states.
“Our leadership, from our board of directors down to our C-suite, is Arizona-led,” O’Neal said of the new organization when asked about the leadership structure of the combined regions. “We’re certainly going to try to keep some very senior members who are specialized in their skills who live in the Bay Area.” The Phoenix leadership team intends to be present as well. O’Neal reiterated that GCNA’s retail division has experience managing territories far from Phoenix.
“We’re going to be spending a lot of time out there,” said O’Neal. “We’re already deploying 40 of our high-level retail folks to go and reset their stores using our technology. We have one of the best in-house-built technology tools for the thrift business, probably anywhere in the country. And we’re going to roll that out. We’re also going to roll out our Career Advisor, which is our social service platform, also built here in Arizona.”
Emphasizing that the organization will be led out of Arizona, and, while the Arizona teams will help reset the stores, add technology, and help build their mission piece of what they do, O’Neal said, “Anytime that we can grow our footprint, it gives us a stronger financial foundation and it allows us to learn. Different regions of the country teach us lessons about what’s coming to Arizona. Especially Arizona — because we have so many Californians moving to Arizona all the time, we’re going to have a leg up to say, ‘OK, we see what’s coming.’ And we can deal with it ahead of time so we’re not caught by these surprises.”
Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona and Goodwill of the San Francisco Bay are two of more than 150 community-based independent Goodwill organizations in the United States and Canada, with service territories defined by Goodwill Industries International, Inc.
This action by the Goodwill organizations comes at a time when government funding for not-for-profits has dwindled dramatically. O’Neal, speaking from his 35 years’ experience, related, “I remember when government funding around social service programs was abundant. And now, it’s almost hard to make any government program really work. And if you do take grants or government funding, it’s limited. And so, you start serving hundreds of people and a grant runs out — what do you do with those hundreds of people when money no longer comes in?
“That’s why the Goodwill model of generating revenues from our thrift stores through the donations from the public really allows us to be self-sustaining.” Observing that many not-for-profits will likely disappear over the next 20 years, O’Neal said, “We didn’t want that to happen with Goodwill. Consolidation like this gives a road map of how others can see consolidation and keeping their mission strong.”
Photo: Tim O’Neal, President & CEO of Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona.
