Goodwill Dallas was founded in 1923 following the start of the first Goodwill Industry that was established in 1905 in Massachusetts by Methodist minister Dr. Edgar J. Helms. As Dr. Helms famously said in 1941 towards the end of his tenure, “Friends of Goodwill, be dissatisfied with your work until every…unfortunate person in your community has an opportunity to develop to their fullest usefulness and enjoy a maximum of abundant living.”

Our mission at Goodwill Dallas is changing jobs, one job at a time. We exist to help people with barriers to employment build skills, find jobs, and grow their careers so that they can reach their full potential and experience lives filled with purpose, accomplishment, and self-sufficiency.

There are two main types of barriers that we serve:

1. Individuals who are emerging from crisis, including homelessness, addiction, recent incarceration, poverty or lack of education or skills to succeed in workforce.
2. Individuals with disabilities, including physical, intellectual, and/or developmental.

We help improve the lives of those we serve in two primary ways:

1. Our mission-integrated Donated Goods Retail program provides employment by offering work through the recycling and reselling of material donations throughout 18 stores in our 8-county territory of north Texas, while keeping millions of pounds of reusable and unusable items out of our landfills. Every dollar that is generated from our retail stores is invested back into this program and our Workforce Development programs to create additional employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities and other barriers to employment.
2. Our Workforce Development programs help individuals build skills, find jobs, and grow their careers. Goodwill has mobile career sites throughout our eight counties to provide assessment, education, job training, coaching and career placement to our clients. Goodwill also provides employment and skill training to individuals with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities through our ISS (Individualized Skills and Socialization) training program.