Transcription of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt for the show Growing Goodwill #232
Lisa: My next guest is an individual that Maine Magazine has known about for quite some time. Her name has been floating around there, someone that we’d like to talk to. It’s my good fortune as the host of Love Maine Radio to actually get to speak with her first. This is Anna Eleanor Roosevelt who is known as Ann. She’s the President and CEO of Goodwill Industries in Northern New England, a not-for-profit social enterprise with over 2,000 employees serving Maine, New Hampshire and Northern Vermont. Goodwill operates diverse retail, healthcare and workforce services that help individuals and families find stability through work while extending a hundred year practice of letting nothing go to waste. Thanks so much for coming in today.
Ann: Thank you. It’s great to be here.
Lisa: Ann, you have a very interesting background. You have an interesting educational background, an interesting employment background, interesting family background. There’s lots of good stuff to talk about here but first, I want to talk about Goodwill and why you went from Goodwill after being at The Boeing Company in Chicago where you were the Vice President of Global Corporate Citizenship. Why did you decide to do that?
Ann: There is a little story there as there is in life. I retired from the Boeing Company and was set on moving to Maine to be near my grandchildren. The search firm, who was in charge of the Goodwill search, happened to be at a gathering with where my brother was. She said, “Do you know anybody who’d like to move to Maine?” He said, “Yeah, I do.” I was introduced to the search and came out and talked with the board and talked with the senior team. While I hadn’t really planned on having a job, I was just so attracted to the opportunity once I got here and was talking to the people who were doing this work at Goodwill. It has proven to be everything and more than I thought it would be.
Lisa: I was impressed when I went to do some more research on Goodwill because I’ve been donating to Goodwill for years.
Ann: Thank you.
Lisa: I have bought things at the Goodwill stores. I’ve seen really the expansion, really nice facilities, the drop-off places but I had no idea that there were so many other things that Goodwill was involved in.
Ann: I sometimes think we are the first social enterprise because we’re over 100 years old. Here in Maine, we’re over 80 years old but the Goodwill concept of having a business for a social purpose started a hundred years ago when a minister at the Church of All Nations in Boston in the settlements there saw immigrants who were hungry and cold and they didn’t have good housing and no one would hire them. They had no way to support their families. They were in a terrible place. He wanted to help. He went up to Beacon Hill with a burlap bag and a horse and buggy and asked for donations. Then, he gave those donations out of their generosity to the people who didn’t have much but it didn’t solve their problem.
When he understood that, he started a business that created jobs of collecting clothes and household items, sorting them, repairing them and then reselling them creating jobs all along the way. That is a social enterprise. That’s been the model for all Goodwills even though every Goodwill is an independent organization. That business model, serving a social purpose, is what drives us here at Northern New England.
The revenue from our stores which we try to make a really pleasant environment for our workers as well as for our shoppers, that revenue goes to support our workforce services that are the core of the philosophy behind Goodwill which is that if you have a job, you have a means of supporting not only yourself but your family and your family has the means to be a member of their community. The community then grows and flourishes and becomes sustainable. That’s the virtuous circle that we employ.
We have, over the years, expanded the work that we do including into the healthcare arena where we do really wonderful work in neuro-rehabilitation for persons with acquired brain injury. That work is expanding as we recognize brain injury more and more as a science in that growth. We also have a network of wonderful homes, safe and loving homes for persons with severe disabilities who can’t be at home with their families. We provide wonderful living arrangements for them so that they can develop as much as they can. Some of them even go out to work from their homes. It allows their families to be able to work themselves instead of staying home to care for a person who needs a lot of care. We bring that professional and loving touch to their lives.
We also have day services for persons with disabilities, again, focused on helping them to live their fullest life which is focused on community. We don’t just roll them away somewhere and keep them occupied for a day. They are out in the community being helpful. They do projects in the community. They also have fun in the community. They also take care of their own personal needs in the community. They go shopping. They do their grocery shopping and keep themselves on task and learn how to be a part of the community. We have a wide variety of activities that are supported and from the beginning, have been supported by the revenue from our retail stores.
Lisa: From what I understand, you also do work with veterans.
Ann: We do.
Lisa: Also, you help people to get involved with farming.
Ann: Yes. The farming program that you’re talking about is called AgrAbility. It is a partnership with the University of Maine Extension. It’s funded by the Department of Agriculture. It is for farmers or people who want to farm who have been disabled perhaps in an accident or some other way that has made them have adaptive problems in their profession as farmers. We work with them to figure out what they need to be able to do in the job of farming. If it’s adaptive technology, prosthesis, learning new skills, learning different ways of operating machinery or doing other farm chores.
We do help about 400 people across the state in various ways to participate in agriculture, which is one of our state’s real claims to fame. A lot of those farmers are organic farmers which, again, I think is becoming a brand for the State of Maine. Farming is, working with the earth is often soothing for persons with disabilities. It’s very tactile and they know where they are. It’s a very good profession. If they have a sense for it, we can help them reach that goal.
Our veterans, we’ve always helped veterans in various ways but we had a new employee who joined the organization about the same time that I did who is a vet herself. She really brought to our attention that we could be a little more focused on the needs of our veterans because that has grown obviously over the last decade, almost 20 years. We did start really focusing on a veterans’ fund where we focused resources and we act as advocates on behalf of veterans who need just that little bit of help to get them along the way. Our veterans are very purposeful people. They want to drive their own lives but they face a lot of challenges when they come back from combat, some of them, physical, some of them, emotional or mental.
While the VA might help them with the clinical side of that, we can help them if there just is enough money this month to go to the dentist and they’ve got a tooth that needs to be taken care of. We can help them with that or if they need a new pair of glasses and they just don’t have that money, we can help them. That then helps them move along. We also are seeing a lot of our veterans in our neuro-rehab clinic with the acquired brain injury. Again, our goal is to help them reach the goals that they have for their lives and understand themselves in their capacity and their capabilities. We’re just honored to help them reach those goals.
Lisa: As you’re talking, I’m thinking about the many patients that I’ve had over the years for whom getting past the point of illness or getting past the point of traumatic brain injury or whatever it is that has caused someone to be incapacitated for some period of time or perhaps for always, that’s not enough. For people that I deal with, it’s fine to not be sick anymore or it’s fine to get past your acute brain injury but there’s something bigger. There’s something bigger about living one’s life, about actually having something meaningful to show up and do every day, about having a community to work with.
Ann: Absolutely. That notion about community is really important that often, when there’s been an acquired brain injury, they lose the community that they had and don’t really know how to get a community again. That’s one of the big areas of focus for our clients, to help them build that supportive network of not just from a clinical standpoint but from an understanding community, neighborliness kind of way that you and I know. It’s so important to our being able to function independently.
Lisa: It’s interesting to hear you talk about this too because in my clinical practice, I work with, and we have a very good clinical practice, a very good medical practice, and we work with teams of people that try to help with social issues but I’m not sure that anybody has ever said to me, “Oh, maybe you should look into Goodwill,” which seems like a no-brainer. I’m a doctor. I can help people with some of their clinical stuff. I can’t help them necessarily with that next step but it sounds like that’s what you’re doing. Now, I’m wondering why I didn’t know more about this before I came in to talk to you.
Ann: It may be a capacity issue. We are a not-for-profit. We operate with very thin margin. We move ahead as we can. We are finding that there is more need than we often have capacity. We work very hard to raise more revenue. That’s a role of the stores and our other businesses and we fundraise. We try to raise that money so that we can reach more people. We do get referrals from doctors and from hospitals but again, it may just be a capacity issue. We have two clinics, one here in Portland and one in Lewiston called WestSide in Lewiston and Bayside here in Portland. We would welcome any referral you would like to send us and we will do everything we can to help them reach their goals.
Lisa: Someone who works here at the magazines who suffered a stroke in his 50s is going to neuro-rehabilitation and getting some occupational therapy, Bruce Kast. I know he won’t mind me using his name because it’s been quite a journey for him. He’s so grateful for the work that he has done made possible by Goodwill. This is something that he never thought would happen to him. He’s been working with the Brand Company and Maine Magazine in 75 Market Street for 10 years. To have this happen to him so acutely and without any particular risk factors and know on the other side that there are people who can help him with this has been such a life saver for him.
Ann: He said to me, he said, “I had no idea that Goodwill did that. I just thought it was stores.” We’re really, really happy to have him be part of our family. We’re very happy that he’s doing so well. We’re glad that he has a broader view of Goodwill because that is one of the things that’s a challenge for us. We operate our business to raise the revenue but we’re not big self-promoters because we’re just busy doing the work. We also do a lot of our work in partnership with other organizations. We’re all there just working hard but we’re very happy to get people acquainted with what it is that we do so that we can help them. If we can’t help them, we try to connect them with who can.
One of our important programs is called Job Connection. It is a new approach to workforce development. For years and years, we’ve done workforce services that is place based in an office and we offer help to people who have challenges getting a job. We are the contractor for instance for WIA federal funds to help people find jobs but what we were noticing is that people who have challenges in their life, they don’t just have one challenge. If they’re without a job and they get a job, there are probably other things that are problematic in their lives. The question is if you just help them find the job, are they going to be successful in that job? What do they need to help them really find success? They probably need more support and attention beyond that first day on the new job to make sure that they can manage having a steady job, manage that responsibility.
We all know sometimes, you get up and you don’t feel like going to work. Instead of saying, “Well, I’m not going to go to work,” if you have support to retrain yourself and say, “Yes, I am going to go to work because it’s important and it’s how I build my reputation as a reliable worker,” then you’re going to be more successful. If you have a bad situation at home, if you are okay on the job but then you go home to an abusive situation or illness that’s beyond your capacity to deal with it or other elements of poverty, you’re going to have trouble holding that job and keeping it.
We developed this notion of Job Connection which is a team approach that works with these individuals on a one-on-one basis. This team helps them sort out what all their challenges are and deal with them. When they’re ready to get a job, this team stays with that person until they are sure and we are sure that they can be successful in that job. That’s a new approach. We had never done that before and we just started that. It’s really because we need to be committed to one another. If we really see the overall result of people being useful citizens and stable community participants, we have to help each other. You and I know, maybe we’ve got family or friends that can help us out when something goes wrong in our lives but there are a lot of people who don’t have that. We have to step up and offer ourselves to help people that don’t have that support so that they can find that fulfilling place of being on their own, stable and contributing to their community.
Lisa: This reminds me of a conversation that I had with a gentleman who had been homeless for a while. He had been working with Preble Street. He said that when you’re homeless, your goal is to find a home. You don’t often think beyond once you find a home what that’s going to look like. What you’re describing is that, is that like what is the next step behind? What’s now I need a job? Then, to keep a job, what do you need to orchestrate in order to make that possible. It sounds like it’s recreating a culture that somebody can thrive in really.
Ann: Exactly. I think that’s a really great way to put it. We work with Preble Street a lot and one of our partners is the Portland Housing Authority. We recognize all of those social determinants of health, housing. Do you have safe housing? What is your environment like? It’s not just only about your physical health. It’s also about the surrounding life that you lead. We seek out those partners that do the parts that we don’t do. Except for our group homes, we don’t do housing so we partnered with them. Then, we bring in the workforce services. If somebody has an addiction problem, we don’t do addiction counseling but we have partners who do. It’s how you can tell that a community is strong is if these pockets of goodness are working together and talking together to achieve the goals, the outcome that everybody wants for the place that they live. That’s what we work on.
Lisa: It strikes me that they have brought in, at Goodwill, someone with not only a great work background. They also brought in a person who has a great educational background. You have a bachelor’s degree from Stanford and a master of science from University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. They wanted somebody who could help tackle these problems who actually had all the stuff. They weren’t going to bring in somebody who didn’t know how to get stuff done and didn’t have the smarts.
Ann: I would hope I would have some talents to bring to the picture but I will say that when I came to interview and talk with the senior team, I was just pulled over at how good they were. That was extremely encouraging because I knew I’m becoming into strength and we could go from strength to better. In fact, that’s what happened. After a period of getting to know everybody and seeing how it was, we literally sat down together and said, “Are we reaching the goals that we know we want to reach? Is the way we’re doing things the right way?” The wonderful openness and creativity that has led to a lot of change in our organization all focused toward moving us to doing better what we have done for many years. I came into a very talented group. I’m honored to be a part of them.
Lisa: You also have some genetic good fortune, I believe. If anyone was listening, your name is Anna Eleanor Roosevelt and I don’t think there’s a mistake there. It’s not a coincidence. You do have this family that was very socially aware. Tell me a little bit about that.
Ann: That is what how I grew up. I grew up with grandparents who everybody knew maybe almost better than I knew then in a way. My grandfather did die before I was born but I knew my grandmother. I knew that she was a person who was active around the world and was doing things that helped people. My mother who was a child of the depression and married my father in the early ‘40s filled in the back story to why this woman, Eleanor Roosevelt, was someone to be truly admired and what our legacy as a family was which even before my grandparents were politically active, they were active in their communities and how much that means to simply being who we are.
I would say that those two women are really the influencers in my life. They taught me to think and to understand my responsibility in a way that doesn’t feel like a burden but rather like being. It’s just the way it is. You step into it. I guess that prepared me for a diverse career. I was fortunate to have a very good education, a liberal education when I was an art major which you wouldn’t think would necessarily prepare me for what I’m doing now or what I even, much of what I’ve done throughout my life but it prepared me to ask questions and to think about what’s the goal, what’s the final outcome. That’s what I learned as I matured was what are we trying to get to and what role can I play, what do I bring to the party here and don’t try to be somebody I’m not but know what I can bring and then see how that fits.
Lisa: Ann, how can people find out about Goodwill, the programs that you’re doing and how they might actually donate or support your organization?
Ann: We have a great website that tells you lots of information at goodwillnne.org, O-R-G. They can certainly always call us at our number here in Portland, 207-774-6323. We appreciate so much, every donation. They are our life blood and we appreciate all of our shoppers. We appreciate all of our clients as well. They teach us every day.
Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Anna Eleanor Roosevelt known as Ann. She is the President and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Northern New England. Thank you so much for coming in and having this conversation with me today and for the good work that you and the people of Goodwill are doing.
Ann: Thank you so much for having me.