The Business of Giving

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You're listening to locally produced programming created in KU NV studios on public radio K, u and v 91.5. You're listening to

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special programming sponsored by the cars marketing Chamber of Commerce. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents, the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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People live in the whole world addicted to the drama Hello everyone and welcome to the business of giving podcast. My name is Guy Dawson and I am the founder and executive director of the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. And the business of giving show is a vehicle of the cross marketing Chamber of Commerce to bring businesses and nonprofit organizations together to show the impact that both have on the community and learn more information about what we do at the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce, we can be reached at cause marketing chamber.com There are so many synergistic relationships that exist between the for profit and nonprofit businesses and we here at the business of giving podcast are all about showcasing that, showing how both of these pillars of the community can work together for the betterment of our community. This valuable show is made possible through the generosity of our series sponsor solar up an energy solution and conservation company specializing in solar and battery storage systems, including solar panels. To learn more about them, visit Seoul up.com. And we're really looking forward to having Steve Amelie from Seoul up he will be in the studio very soon, along with a nonprofit organization that he is extremely passionate about the Nevada Conservation League really looking forward to that upcoming show. Stay tuned for more details about it. And as always, the cause marketing coach Maria Perez is here as my co hostess with the most is how are you Maria?

Unknown Speaker 2:20
I'm great. How are you doing today? Guy?

Unknown Speaker 2:23
I am great. I get more excited about this show and causes and business every single day. Do you know? You know how I feel right?

Unknown Speaker 2:34
Yep, yep, let it's an exciting. It's an exciting topic. And today's today's show is really going to highlight and amplify and underscore the power of collaboration.

Unknown Speaker 2:45
Yes, we have a nonprofit organization that many of you are familiar with a representative from that nonprofit organization that will be a part of the show. Maria, would you like to make the introduction?

Unknown Speaker 2:58
Absolutely. I would like to introduce Brian Fukuzawa. And he is the vice president of mission programs to our show today. I love that title. Brian, can you tell us a little bit about your role in the organization first and then about the mission and vision? Yeah, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 3:17
Thank you very much for having me super excited to be able to kind of share what goodwill of Southern Nevada does. So my role is really to provide support so that all of our mission services team can can really do what they want to do to help us bring the mission to the community. So our mission is, is really to help people get into roles where we're eliminating the or at least reducing the impact that poverty has on our community by helping people get into jobs and helping them get into these thriving careers. Where really, they're in a position where they're enjoying life. They're making money, they're able to to save money and do the things that they want to do to have this really thriving life for them and their family. So my job is really just designed to make sure that I can help our career coaches, our staff in the mission services team and everybody associated with it to be able to do their jobs to really reach the community.

Unknown Speaker 4:10
And can you tell us a little bit about your just a high level view overview of your initiatives? So to frame it up, because people know goodwill, the thrift stores? And they may not know much more than that. So that frame up for us?

Unknown Speaker 4:25
Yeah, that's absolutely right. And you know, it's great that we have this brand identity and this name recognition with our goodwill retail stores and donations and thrift store shopping, which is absolutely great. But a lot of people aren't familiar with what we do with the money that we generate. So the money that we generate, we're a nonprofit, meaning that we want to put it back into the community to help people with really eliminating any barrier that they have to employment. So the cool thing is that if somebody has really any kind of barrier, our job is to help them identify the barrier, help them either reduce or get rid of that barrier so that they can get into the career the job that they want to get into. So So it's really, it's kind of a high level understanding of what we do is we have the ability to help people with those initial costs of employment. So maybe somebody gets a letter of intent hire to start working somewhere. Well, we, you know, in Las Vegas, we know that it often takes money to be able to even start working. So things like transportation, uniforms, work, hard work, clothing, things like that, we can help them eliminate that barrier by just visiting us so that we can figure out what we can do by providing those services to them. We also have the ability to pay for things like training expenses, so we can pay for different trainings to get people certified and to get them licensed to be able to even be eligible for the types of jobs that they want to get into. So there's a ton of services, a ton of details that we can help people with. But the big tagline is, if you if anybody has a barrier to employment, come talk to us so that we can help figure out ways to help you remove that barrier.

Unknown Speaker 5:50
And the longevity of how long the international organization has been around, Brian, I think is so critical for the success that you continue to enjoy. I know you were telling me, this organization has been around since 1902. As an international inherent Vegas, you've been around since 1975. Of course, very well known for the brand in terms of the thrift stores, but just keeping the business going for that length of time keeping yourself exposed to the community for that long must be really helpful as you're really trying to promote the bigger mission that Maria was talking about a second ago. Yeah, definitely,

Unknown Speaker 6:28
we are gearing up to celebrate our 50 year anniversary, which is really awesome. We've learned a lot of lessons along the way. But we're in a position now where we can really make sure that we're getting our services out there so that everybody is aware of what we can do. Because the worst thing is, we don't want people to be able to just be in a situation where they feel like there's no way out or they don't have hope. We can provide that hope we can provide services to really eliminate almost every barrier that somebody may have that's preventing them from pursuing their dreams, and what what better feeling is there to be a part of something that's helping people get into their dream job. And to get into a situation where they're stable and independent and self sufficient. It's, it's really awesome to be able to, to be a part of this organization.

Unknown Speaker 7:12
Yeah, reducing the barriers to self sufficiency. We talked about that recently with Lynette Rivera who works with homeless youth, to get them to really understand that there is a way out. And so she talked a little bit about their outreach, and messaging. How do you how do you get your message out? And and who? Can you sort of also help us understand who you serve? Anybody? Is it homeless people?

Unknown Speaker 7:41
Yeah, that's a great question. Ultimately, we can pretty much help anybody who's looking for a job in any capacity. So it can be people that have very difficult barriers to overcome, it can be people who are just looking for connections to be able to get into a different job, it can be people who are looking to upskill, we have the we don't necessarily have the capability of providing some services internally. But we have a lot of connections with other community partnerships, where we can help people with things like childcare expenses as they're going through training, or as they're starting work, so that they can focus on their job, we can help with transportation assistance, we can help with helping people find housing options, we can help with so many different things that ultimately we want to provide this holistic approach to make sure that we're not just helping somebody get into a job, we want to help them get into a career, and to make sure that we've taken care of kind of those hierarchy of needs, so that they're going to be self sufficient, and able to actually keep that job to.

Unknown Speaker 8:35
Yeah, I've always thought that the goodwill is a great example of, of what nonprofit organizations really should represent. And that is providing these valuable resources for the community. A lot of people may not understand how important it is for an organization like Goodwill to exist, because the government can't cover all of these services, right? And individual. People need lots of things and having a strong organization like this that's lasted for a long time. And it's providing these communities, providing the community with these types of services is so valuable and underrated.

Unknown Speaker 9:16
Yeah, absolutely. And everything that we offer is free of charge. So we no matter what somebody is looking for, we want to make sure that we're providing the services free of charge so that we are that staple in the community, to connect people with the resources that they need to provide them with the resources that they need and doing everything we can. One of the you know, the great thing is that we have career centers as well where people can just show up it maybe they don't even know what their barriers are. They just know that they're not getting into the job that they want to get into. Well, that's perfect. We've we come equipped with career coaches who are very knowledgeable who can help people kind of understand what barriers exist and help them kind of overcome those barriers to get into those roles.

Unknown Speaker 9:54
Amazing, I had no idea. I mean, this is really this is This is so enlightening to understand that people can just come in plug in and have a coach a career coach. That's fantastic. And where are these centers located? And how many are there?

Unknown Speaker 10:12
Yeah. So my goal is to have them all over everywhere we can as it as it is right now we have one conveniently right up the street from UNLV, inside of the boulevard mall on Maryland Parkway in twain. That one is available Monday through Thursday from nine until five, and then on Fridays, from nine until noon. And an individual can literally walk in there and say that they want to meet with a career coach, and they can meet with a career coach on the spot to kind of develop a plan and a game plan to understand what we can do to help that person. And then we also have one inside of our rainbow store on Rainbow and Alta and St. Ours for that.

Unknown Speaker 10:48
Okay, and people just show up, there's no charge, no fee. They don't need an appointment, they just come and come and have a chat.

Unknown Speaker 10:56
Absolutely. They don't have to show up really with anything. We will discuss individually what we can do for that for anybody who shows up. There are some programs, of course that require certain documentation. But that's stuff that we can discuss as we start to develop the plan and figure out what people need to be able to, to really start reaching their goals. But that's what the career coaches are for. We have a computer bank there where people can access the internet, they can apply for jobs, they can get help with their resume. We have a printer, copier, scanner, telephone, and it's all open to the public free of charge. And it's really just designed to make sure that people have access to the things that they need to be able to find find employment. Brian, also

Unknown Speaker 11:33
you also have Excuse me, guys go. Oh, go ahead, Maria. Well, I noticed that you serve special populations as well. Can you speak to your veterans and veteran services and individuals with disability services?

Unknown Speaker 11:48
Yeah, definitely. So we have veteran career coaches, who are veterans and spouses of veterans themselves. So they're able to address specific needs that some people may need coming out of the military to be able to transition from their their military life to civilian life. But we also see a lot of spouses of veterans and active duty service members who sometimes are displaced where they're going from base to base. And they may be coming to a new state that requires new certifications and licensing a whole new set of skills that maybe they didn't develop, or that maybe they need to transfer over to Nevada, we can help them with finding employment, to really make sure that they are able to be stabilized as well, as they're going from base to base or location to location. And then a lot. So a lot of those services are really designed to make sure that we're helping people to transition and then just to be as stable as possible. But our disabilities programs actually won the Las Vegas review Journal's best of Las Vegas Special Needs award for the last two years consecutively. So we're very proud of the work that we do to help individuals with disabilities at various levels to experience the world of work to be able to, you know, see the dignity of earning a paycheck. And then in some cases, to be able to go off and find competitive employment so that they can contribute in the ways that they want to contribute. So very proud of all the work we do for special populations, and just making sure that we can really help as many people as we can.

Unknown Speaker 13:17
And Brian, you're a long term employee was good. share with the audience how long you've worked with them, and why do you continue to pursue this mission?

Unknown Speaker 13:27
So yeah, I've been with goodwill, next month will be my 12 year anniversary. And it's it's one of those things that I bought into the mission immediately when I joined goodwill. Just being able to go into a job where I'm helping people get into a better situation is so satisfying, and so rewarding that I've never really dread going into work every day. There's there's tasks, of course that I don't enjoy doing all the time. But I know that everything that I do is leading to at least one person, or at least one family's lives being better. So it's it's a great organization to be a part of.

Unknown Speaker 14:01
Yeah, and yeah, I got married recently with someone who was also an

Unknown Speaker 14:05
I did absolutely, yeah, so I met my wife at Goodwill. We got married a couple of weeks ago, and she is in the human resources department. So I owe goodwill a lot. And I'm just I'm happy to be a part of it for sure.

Unknown Speaker 14:17
And Maria talks so much about I want to turn this over to you really quickly and kind of setting you up Maria, but so much of her emphasis is on really walking the walk as well as talking the talk. You know, Maria, do you have a question related to that? I mean, Goodwill certainly is an organization that has a pretty good understanding of that.

Unknown Speaker 14:44
You know, I really believe that this idea of walking the walk and talking the talk, in terms of cause of social issues in this in this time, you have to be genuine so I have to believe that your corporate partners can genuinely plug into your mission, plug into this idea of reducing barriers and helping with transitions and increasing stabilization. And ultimately, I mean, that's, that's, those are the customers that they serve. And they can, you know, if they're employed and thriving, and, you know, consuming, you know, there's this alignment there, do you have corporate partners that you work with in that regard?

Unknown Speaker 15:29
Absolutely. I think collaboration is the name of the game we are, although we're a large organization, there, we can't do everything, we can't be the experts in every single thing that people need to be able to help them get stabilized. So we rely on our partnerships to be able to make sure that we can offer those services, we, we are always open to collaborating with anybody who's in alignment with our mission in whatever capacity we can. So the best thing to do if anybody is interested is they can visit our website at Goodwill org, or I'm sorry, Goodwill Vegas dot o RG or they can call even just call one of our career centers at 702-214-2025. And we can connect with whoever we need to connect with to make sure that we can continue to collaborate, but there's things that we that we would love to be able to offer in house. And if we can't do it, we are I feel we are obligated to, for our participants in our customers to go out and find those collaborations to make it to where we're not sending people all around town or all around wherever you're calling places. We want to know that if somebody has a barrier has a need, we know who to contact so that we can help that person eliminate that barrier. If we can't do it internally,

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just tuned in, you're listening to the business of giving podcast at 91.5k u n v jazz and more. And this show is sponsored by the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. We are also sponsored by solar up solar up and its channel partners are providing complimentary solar to local charities supporting for hope, Link transitional housing properties, solar to feed pets of the homeless Volunteers of America, an opportunity village, their founder sits on the board of Nevada Conservation League, again, a nonprofit that we're going to have in the studio very soon. All right, back over to you, Maria.

Unknown Speaker 17:22
Yeah, I just wanted to ask Brian, you know, these public private partnerships and collaborations, I'm sure they run the gamut from philanthropy to corporate partnering to sponsorship, can you can you let our listeners know some of the programs and needs that you might have deficit in perhaps, perhaps that they could support?

Unknown Speaker 17:41
Sure. So just, you know, coming to the forefront of my mind, we just received some funding from the United Way who are providing just really to encourage us to continue to do what we're doing. So we're really happy that they're able to also see the mission and kind of buy into that as well. One of the partnerships that I've kind of referenced a couple of times here loosely with especially things like childcare assistance, we partner with the Las Vegas Urban League, to make sure if somebody has that barrier where they have children where that maybe they can't afford childcare expenses, or they don't know where to look, we can partner with them. So a lot of our participants are preferred over there so that they can focus on, on on the training on employment and things that are hopefully in alignment with what their career goals are, so that they don't have to worry about those barriers. But we also have corporate volunteers that come in and provide some, they provide some valuable assistance with some of the tasks that we offer, both at the corporate office and within our retail stores and everywhere in between. But I think what really benefits us mainly from those corporate volunteers is that they're exposed to what we do at Goodwill, and they get a greater understanding of the mission and the vision. And they can kind of see the impact that we make, they can see some of our success stories, we can talk to them a little bit more, and then they can spread that message. But we like I said before, we're willing to partner with anybody who's really in alignment with our mission, we don't really view them as competitors, because we can benefit each other. And ultimately, if it's helping people that with with employment and with their career goals, than we want to be a part of whatever collaboration we can be a part of.

Unknown Speaker 19:18
One of our missions as a chamber of commerce, Brian is educating small nonprofit organizations on how they can use tactics to make themselves more successful and to grow so that they can offer their services to more people. And when you were talking a second ago about these partnerships that you have with other nonprofits, and the value of that that's something that we're so part of our educational process is getting nonprofits that don't have the big names to understand that these partnerships that they can create with other people that they are in alignment with in the nonprofit world can be so valuable as you had mentioned, you talked about the Urban League as well as Is the United Way large, large nonprofit organizations that you guys have great relationships with?

Unknown Speaker 20:07
Absolutely. And there are a ton of different workforce development organizations within our community. We're all working for the same purpose that we love collaborating with them to whether they're a federally funded, state funded, privately funded, well, however, however they operate, like, you know, anybody who really can align with us, we absolutely want to be a part of them.

Unknown Speaker 20:25
Anything else? Maria, you want to talk about related to partnerships, or I know, you've got a million questions as I do, again, when you get a chance to talk to a representative from a nonprofit that's been around for as long as as goodwill in the history, and it's, I'm sure you've got more to ask.

Unknown Speaker 20:44
I could talk about their work all day long. Absolutely. I think I think I think I think what's really amazing to hear is that this is really an ecosystem that's functional in our community, I just don't see a downside, you know, reducing barriers, and encouraging volunteerism, and workforce development support all being there. I mean, it really, you really are a great example of nonprofit success story. Well, we

Unknown Speaker 21:21
certainly appreciate that. And one of the, the initiatives that I kind of discussed earlier, but I don't think it was on air is we have what we call our train to hire or training sprint opportunities for individuals as well, where this it's kind of a not necessarily a newer way of approaching it. But it's a smarter way of approaching workforce development, in my opinion, where we go to the employers first and say, What are you looking for, when you when we look for it at new candidates, what kind of skill sets do they need, what kind of certifications, what kind of trainings, so we get those employers buy in, and they help us kind of create the training programs that we house internally, we control it from start to finish, from the time that we enroll people all the way up to the time that they're employed with it with that employer. And this is kind of the newer initiative that we've been, we've been aggressively going after. So we do a lot of like certified nursing assistant trainings, a lot of medical assistant trainings, we've done some information technology trainings, we're hoping to expand it into additional trainings like that, to where we're really providing this this paycheck within 100 days for our community members and trying to reduce every barrier in between to make sure that they're really successful in a thriving kind of environment and a thriving career for something that is desperately needed in the Las Vegas Valley. So we're really approaching the the need from the employers at this point, so that we're kind of, you know, growing with the trends and making sure that we're where you continue to remain as relevant as possible.

Unknown Speaker 22:46
Wow, that's powerful. I, I'm going to I'm going to overstep my bounds and say, Guys, this gentleman needs to come and speak to some of our members.

Unknown Speaker 22:56
I'm all for it any any opportunity, I have to explain what goodwill does are, I will fully take advantage of that, because it really shouldn't be intimidating. I would love for everybody, you know, involved to be to be more knowledgeable and for us to figure out ways where we can work together. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 23:13
Yeah, I mean, you have this branding tool, the stores themselves, we haven't even talked about, yeah, products that you sell out of your branding tool, which is these discounted clothes, I mean, that in itself is almost an entire show, right? Just the value that you're creating in the community, with, with clothes selling of different, not just clothes off types of items that you sell in the stores.

Unknown Speaker 23:38
And one of the things that people don't really realize is that we're one of the largest recyclers in Nevada, so almost nothing goes to waste, we have a very, very effective way of pricing items, getting them at a discount to people who are looking to shop for it for whatever we receive His donations, or that we purchase. And then if they don't sell, they progressively lower in price until we get to a point where they're sold by the pound. And then after that they go to salvage buyers and we can prevent those items from going into landfill. So that's like you said, it's a whole nother show that we could probably talk about that whole process, but that's one of the things that it's kind of not really thought of when you think of goodwill is just the impact that we have on the environment and the impact that we have on our landfills and just kind of preventing that stuff from just being trashed that's that's put into somewhere where as opposed to that we can recycle it we can put it to good use and we can just keep that cycle of giving going.

Unknown Speaker 24:31
Yeah, what a perspective that is right Maria just it's so many areas goodwill is having an impact on communities all over the world.

Unknown Speaker 24:43
Well, you know, I think about it just came to mind when you were talking about getting employers buy in at you know, in addition to your, your, your footprint being I was completely unaware that you do that, but you think about at coming out of the pandemic So many small businesses, not having staff not not being able to find people. I think that it's fantastic that, you know, a small restaurant owner can't get waitstaff that all of these things can be resolved through some of your programs and initiatives. It's just amazing.

Unknown Speaker 25:20
Yeah, it's it's absolutely one of those things like you talked about a lot of these businesses that they're, they're having trouble getting people on board, because they may need different work cards, they may need a uniform, they may be don't show up to their first day of work, because they don't have a way to get there. Literally, all they have to do is to have that participant contact one of our career centers, because we can probably issue vouchers to them, usually within about 30 minutes for them to be able to have the funding to be able to afford all those things. We have bus passes, gas cards, help them transport themselves back and forth. We have partnerships with tons of different vendors around town to make sure that we can eliminate those barriers so that when somebody gets a job, they can actually start it and not have to worry about all those expenses just to be able to start working.

Unknown Speaker 26:04
Yeah, it's just such a win win. It's just such a win win all the way around. I mean, gosh, just being aligned with you has a significant implement implications for businesses as caused as cause marketing partners. So that question,

Unknown Speaker 26:18
yeah, I hope so. And I look, I look forward to continuing to collaborate and to figure out ways that we can all work together because we're all in it to help the community. And that's what it's all about, like Goodwill

Unknown Speaker 26:27
does is so much in alignment with what we're doing it to cause marketing Chamber of Commerce, and when Maria and I with this radio show, Brian, which is to truly be a resource for the betterment of the community. And, again, we just greatly appreciate you stopping by and being a part of our show today. And we want to give our listeners an opportunity to reach out to goodwill to take advantage of the vast resources as we learned over about the last half hour that are available to people.

Unknown Speaker 26:55
Yeah, and I am very appreciative of you inviting me on to this. I know I failed to mention a ton of different things. But I encourage everybody to look at our website, Goodwill Vegas dot o RG and you'll start to see some things that will pop up about events and different different hiring events that we have where employers can come in. And we host hiring events where we get candidates to them and help them with the the hiring costs and all that stuff. And then we also have a resource fair that will be coming up where if people just need basic necessity, resources, food, things like that, look at our website for the dates and all the details of it. But those kinds of things are constantly popping up on our website. So I encourage everybody to explore it and just to to see you know, if there's anything that's needed, you can reach out to us and we'll figure out what we can do to help.

Unknown Speaker 27:39
Any final thoughts about Goodwill. Maria

Unknown Speaker 27:43
I'm in love No, I just I just think that these are things that are endemic in in the community, and it doesn't matter who you are, I mean, you could be an executive and lose your job and and have a shortfall so it's just fabulous to know that we actually have this in in Las Vegas. Fantastic. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 28:03
I appreciate that. For sure. We I read a statistic that most people are one paycheck away from being homeless. So it's one of those things that if we can help people understand that it doesn't have to be that way and we can help them build that savings that nest egg or if they're in that situation help them get out of that situation. We just we want to be there to provide that that assistance. So I appreciate you being letting me be on here to kind of talk about what we do.

Unknown Speaker 28:27
Yeah, thank you for being a part of the show today Brian and Maria as we near the end of the show, how can you be reached so that people out there can learn more about how to make you are a resource for their success as a business or a nonprofit?

Unknown Speaker 28:42
Sure if you want to discuss cause marketing strategy with me, cause coach Maria You can reach me at Maria at cause marketing consultant.com And we can have a chat

Unknown Speaker 28:56
excellent excellent guests that you booked as always today Maria and for more information about the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce We can be reached at cause marketing chamber.com The business of giving podcast was brought to you by soul lips, underwriting of our series, please follow us on our social sites at LinkedIn at Instagram, Ellen Facebook and we recently we also set up a tick tock account really excited about that. Thank you again for tuning in to the business of giving podcast and always remember to give and do business for good. Look forward to seeing you soon.

Unknown Speaker 29:55
Feel the weight of the world on my shoulder as I'm getting older you're

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