CEO's You Should Know x Goodwill Industries of the Chesapeake, Inc.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
iHeartMedia Presents CEOs you should know. I am John Denkel,
founder and CEO of Dinkle Business Development and former president
and publisher of the Baltimore Business Journal Business iHeartRadio CEOs
you should know, And I'm here today with Lisa Rosniak,
President and CEO of Goodwill Industries of the Chessbeak. Welcome Laison,
thanks for being here.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Thank you for having me time.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, looking forward to our conversation and catching up. So
I thought we begin by getting to know you and
your organization a little bit. So for those who may
not be familiar, could you tell us about Goodwill Industries
of the Chessbeak.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Sure, Goodwill is one of one hundred and fifty three
Goodwills across the country. We're all separately operated, we have
separate boards, we have different staff in every region. The
reason is because each of us are focused on whatever
our communities need. Then that varies obviously across the country,
whether you're in a rural or urban region. We have

(01:02):
the area is Baltimore Metropolitan Region and the Lower Eastern Shore.
We have thirty three retail stores. I think most people
know that they bring their gently used items to one
of our stores or donation sites. We sell it in
our store, and if it doesn't tell in our store,
we send it to our outlet where it's sold for

(01:25):
our pennies on the pound, and then if it's not
sold in the outlet, we sell it for salvage such
as rags and you know other uses downstreams. And all
the funding that's generated from our retail stores fund our mission.
Our mission is to help people become independent and self
sufficient through employment and education and training, and our vision

(01:50):
is to help end poverty in Baltimore. We serve people
who are just coming out of the prison system, people
with disabilities, people who are coming off of public assistance,
really anyone who has had any barrier to employment or
you know, just they need some assistants getting linked to

(02:11):
the job market and haven't haven't been in the job
market for a while, so we help them get their
resume ready. We have case managers who do a lot
of pre work before we'll put you in a skills
training program or into our school, which we'll get to
in a minute, but really help people kind of do
a life mapping of you know, what they want to

(02:32):
do when they grow up, what kind of skills they
have in their portfolio already. We also do a lot
of case management, so if people are student in secure
or housing insecure, or they need mental health counseling, they
need domestic violence assistance, we are here to help link
people to other resources in the community to help them,

(02:55):
you know, map out what their plans are going to
be and make them be as successful as possible before
they go into one of our training programs.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
That's fantastic, Thank you so much for that. Over you
and yeah, can tell us a little bit more, maybe
you get a little more in depth about the programming
you're offering your community, especially as it pertains to the
workforce development stuff and the education services like your adult
high school program and things like that, if you wouldn't mind,
coure so.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Our Excess Center is our adult high school here in
Baltimore City, and it's probably my proudest achievement in my
entire career. It took me ten years to get the
legislation through to operate an adult and then I had
to get funding, so it's taken a long time. It's
been been my hobby, i guess, but it definitely have

(03:45):
well worth it. We are helping people who are over
twenty one who for whatever reasons dropped out of high school,
you know, if they just made the wrong decision or
they had other issues and they couldn't finish. They can
come through our program and within two years we will
ensure that they have enough credits to graduate with a
Maryland High School diploma. And part of that is that,

(04:08):
you know, it doesn't matter how many credits you need,
so you could need uh six credits or twenty and
we're going to work with you. You know, we have
classes in English and math, English is a second language, geography,
civic leadership, all these courses that we remember from you know,
years ago when we were all in high school. We

(04:28):
teach all of that at our school and it's really
become quite a family environment. The cohorts that that form
are very cohesive. We are doing lots of things with them.
Our field trips have included, you know, going to museums,
and you know, some of the folks that we you know,
serve are really disadvantaged and they've never been out to

(04:53):
experience a lot of the things that we're you know,
giving them an opportunity to see. So it's really enriching
for for them. Combined with the education and then once
they are either finished with their school programming or they
can go enroll in one of our skills training programs,
and we offer certified nursing assistant training in healthcare pharmacy tech.

(05:18):
Also in healthcare, we work with a We have a
six month intensive building Trade certification program. We do flagger courses.
That's you know, the people that are out directing traffic
when there's our construction and we have lots of that Baltimore,
as you know. And then we also do some serve

(05:40):
safe training, which is in the food and hospitality industries.
And then we have our contract division, which provides job
training and employment at the same time for people with
severe disabilities. In all of this, we have childcare centers
that we operate at our self center. We have a

(06:00):
drop in daycare center which is operated by the Maryland
Family Network or funded to the Around Family Network. We
operate them, and we have now added three other centers
to our lineup. So we're running for really head start
programs in Baltimore City.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
That's fantastic, Well, and I didn't realize that you went
so far on the training programs and certifications and things
like that. That's fantastic it is. Now is your high
school a high school program? Is that funded through your
retail stores as well? Or is that you are you
also getting you know, grants and government funding to help

(06:43):
with that.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
It's been mixed. We're braiding the funding. We have some
state funding, we have some federal funding that's going to end,
but also some foundations have supported us, and of course
goodwill at funding it also.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
That's great, that's great. I appreciate you sharing all that.
Another thing that you all are really getting into or
looking at towards the future is even more sustainability. I mean,
you're your your organization is kind of founded on you know, sustainability.
But could you talk a little bit about, you know,
what you're thinking of for the future of that.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah. So we we've been you know, probably the oldest
recycler on the planet, you know, from nineteen oh too.
We've been taking items and early when we started we
were actually refurbishing items and so we don't do that
so much anymore, just for you know, such a Burroway

(07:41):
society now. But we take items and you know, try
to resell them if they're in good shape, you know,
no reps, tears, stains, coals and sell them and are
start and give them a second life. And you know,
last year we saw approximately three point seven million pounds
of donations or sold in oursurs. So it's a lot

(08:02):
of donations. But one of the things that we've been
looking at is the things that don't sell in our
store that we can't repurpose or haven't been able to
to this point. In twenty twenty two, we began a
partnership with Trucks that makes outdoor decking products. They take
all of the plastic bags, seeing the plastic bags garbage

(08:24):
bags that people donate their stuff in like clothes. We
take those plastic bags and we sell them to trucks,
and Trucks melts that plastic down and uses it in
their decking material. So that's that was our first foray into,

(08:44):
you know, recycling and repurposing. And then we in the
last two years have bought a class recycling machine and
it's hard to describe, but it's on our website. But
it takes glass, you know, broken and what have you,
and it takes all of the hard edges off of

(09:05):
the glass itself and then it pulverizes it and make
up sand and you can make different you knows, of
sand or call it as it's called. You know, some
people you can go into Michael's and do crafts and
you can buy glass, you know, colored glass, same kind
of thing you see them in aquariums. So we can
make that or we can make sand, depending on what

(09:27):
kind of screen we have in our machine. And uh
so we are now making our sand available to a
company that is repurposing that and using it for construction. Wow,
it's to reduce that is reduce all that that was,
you know previously going into the landfill, you know, because
we didn't have a purpose for it. But now we're

(09:49):
in this business of you know, recycling and repurposing stuff
that we normally had to pay for to get rid of.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, that's really cool. That's really cool. Thanks. I appreciate
you talking about that. Are there any other programmatic things
that you'd like to talk about in regard to good Will?

Speaker 2 (10:09):
I think you know the other thing I'll just speak
on more of the destainability initiatives. We are in the
process of studying how to break down textiles by fabric.
So a lot of the clothing that doesn't sell in
our outlet or is it for savage. There is a
market for cotton, and there's a market for polyester because

(10:33):
there are legislation. There's legislation all over the country, California,
I think New York is going to be next that
are requiring textile manufacturers to use a certain percentage of
their raw materials to be recycled material. And so we're
looking at machinery that we're able to identify the fabric

(10:53):
type and then sort it. And Europe is farther ahead
of the United States in this regard. I think they
have machinery that does all this very expensive, but we're
trying to figure out their ways that we can you know,
partial parts of it and use it in the United
States and find those the garment manufacturers who who wish

(11:15):
to repurpose that material.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
That's really cool. Yeah, and I imagine you know nationwide. Wow,
what a huge opportunity. Uh, if you're able to you know,
scale that, that's pretty neat, that's pretty wild. I know
you talked about the funding piece. Did you talk about
any impacts that you had with the cuts and funding
from from the state and federal level.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
We have not seen any cuts to our programs. We
have you know, not been impacted whatsoe our so far?
Hopefully we'll say that way.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, that's good to hear. Yeah, that's good to hear.
How about the business community, how can they support your efforts?

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Oh? Wow, the business they can help us out by
holding donations drives. We always need donations. That is the
lifeblood of our business. It all starts with the public,
you know, generous donations that we then sell that provides
funding to support our programs. So donations are really that's

(12:21):
really the lifeblood of our whole operation. So definitely donation drives.
Definitely holding giving us space in our buildings. If they
have a building, they can give us some space. We
can put you know, containers in and collect donations and
come fix them up. Of course, sponsoring events that we have.

(12:42):
We have a big graduation every year in the fall
for our Excel Center graduates and workforce development graduates. And
then we also feed about three thousand people at the
Baltimore Convention Center the day before Thanksgiving every year. We've
been doing that for sixty five years and it's been fabulous.
We have over three hundred and fifty volunteers. A lot

(13:05):
in the business community and give their employees off that
day to come and help support the community.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
That's excellent. Yeah, And I was going to ask you
do you have any events coming up?

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah, So we have our graduations on September nineteenth at
University of Baltimore and then our Thanksgiving dinner and the
career fairs at the Baltimore Commition Center.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Great. Great, thank you. So I'll switch gears a little bit.
I'd like to talk about leadership on the show. Could
you talk to us or how would you describe your
leadership style?

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Well, I think my team would say serve Leadorship is certainly,
you know, a big part of our whole organization, and
our values drive a lot of how we operate in
our company. Know it's and working in a nonprofit you
have to wear a lot of hats, and no day

(14:06):
is the same. You're looking at different challenges every day,
whether it's you know, in the retail side on the
mission side. So we're always bouncing between tasks and projects
that we're working on. But I think that would probably
be my my preferred file, and certainly just getting out

(14:31):
of my folks way when they have projects or ideas
that they want to try, because I don't believe that
I've ever heard of a bad idea that I didn't
want to try at least or give a shot to
do it. But I think that my team is uh
the same way. I mean, we have a great team
of executives, and it's we drive all the way down

(14:55):
to our frontline staff how important their job is and
making our mission the focal point of you know why
we all come to work every day.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, it's it all goes down to hiring the right
the right people under under you, and and them hiring
the right people under them allows you to be able
to go and not live in the day to day
and be more visionary like yourself and and you know,
look at the you know, what's the future and sustainability

(15:26):
and education all those other you know kind of larger
programs that you're working on. So that's great. I appreciate
you sharing all that. I do want to ask you
to you know, resilience, you know, seems to be kind
of the buzzword these days. You know, what what does
resilience mean to you? And how do you demonstrate that
leading your team?

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Now? Certainly resilience is required as well as the sense
to hear, because it's just not easy writing nonprofit it's
just there's lots of challenges. But I think, you know,
the Excel Center is probably you know, a great example
of you know, resilience because it took us, you know,
so long for us to get the legislation passed and

(16:06):
then try funding, and we just never gave up. You know.
I still my knees have bruises and scars from begging
for for folks that listen to me and and and
you know, to really hear me out of why this
Excel Center was such a good model for for Baltimore.
And there there are Excel Centers across the entire country

(16:27):
now in twelve states, and they are proven models that
you know, have data that support how effective our program is.
And so you know, that has been a labor of love.
And you know, I think it's important that you see
and their stafsies that you're not willing to just throw
in the towel just because someone tells you no.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah, that's great advice. Any advice that you would give
your fellow you know, nonprofit leaders during this this time.
I know a lot of you know, your probably friends
and colleagues out there, you know, are getting you know, cuts,
whether it's from foundations or from the state federal governments,
like any any advice you might give them.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
You know, I just got back from M I. T
and some of my colleagues that Goodwill and good Will
Industries International, which is our membership organization, arranged for a
week for us to learn AI. And so I think
most of us are probably not real tech savvy, but

(17:36):
we learned so much. And I think leaning into technology
has got to be a requirement for a nonprofit because
we learned how to you know, take data, huge spreadsheets,
dump them into AI programs and it can do analysis
just like you know, two seconds, and I can prompts

(17:56):
you to for other questions the chat GPT program where
you can you know, I'll probably never write another speech
in my life, in my career. I don't need to
because now just put bullet points in and AI will
write me a speech. And the more you do it,
the more it learns your your voice and how you
say things, and you know, for your audiences. It's just amazing.

(18:18):
And even you know, in our course, we learned how
to create advertisements, you know it jingles and wrote poems
for us. And you know, I don't think that there
is anything that AI can't do. Of course, you can't
give up on the human element on it. But I
think for you know, other leaders, there's just so much
time saving capabilities with AI. You just have to go

(18:41):
back and double check it for you know, accuracy, But
it's really quite incredible.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah, that's good advice. I think there's you know, from
the for profits to the nonprofit world. I think a
lot of uh, you know, business ownergency is are trying
to figure that out and where AI and jen Ai
can kind of fit into their model than it does
seem you know, definitely from the content side and you know,
the creative side of things. But to your point, I've

(19:07):
been talking to a lot of folks recently about the
data side and the ability to you know, like you said, uh,
dump a bunch of data into you know, whatever platform
you're using and be able to you know, for it
to be able to decipher that and give you the
information they need to make a decision. So it seems

(19:29):
like I'm hearing a lot about that yet. But also
there's a lot of I don't say skepticism, but more
just how is it going to fit into our model
kind of thing? And I guess as this it's more
and more mature, and people start using it more, you know,
we'll see a lot more useless for it.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
I'm sure, yeah, I think so you have to be
careful that it's a little kind of scary that it
can learn your voice and record it and then it's
out there in a way, and that's a little scary.
But I think it's fears subside over time that just

(20:04):
you have to monitor it. It's just amazing. You can
take volumes of you know, reading or articles also that
that can summarize it, which you know, how many hours
you know that used to take it. I mean when
I was younger, we used to catch go as the
actual library and use the Dewey decimal system to find
resources and not look or we are. It's kind of amazing.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, that is pretty crazy when you think about the
how how much it has advanced, and just even in
a short amount of time. I can't imagine, like just
five years from now, what that's going to look like.
I mean, it's it's going to be it's going to
be doing things that we probably can't even think about
like right now, or maybe don't want to think about.
But that's really good advice. What what gets you excited

(20:46):
about the future of the will industries of the.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Chess peak, Well, I think seeing on the same vein
as uh, we're talking about technology. I think that we
can teach people that we work with how to use
a to make their lives simpler. We work with a
lot of single moms, single dads and don't have a
lot of resources. And this is really interesting. But you know,

(21:09):
you think every day life mapping, you know, or making
plans or you know, figuring out the best way to
do something. I learned that you can take a picture
of your pantry and it will come up with recipes
with what you are. What it takes the picture of.
I mean, that's my and so if I have if

(21:31):
I have three children that are screaming that they want
something to eat for dinner, and I'm in they're going, oh,
I don't know what I can make. Now there's a
progress and I think it's really life changing for people
who just may not have ever thought that there are
resources out there for this kind of stuff or making
their lives simpler. And that's all we want to do.

(21:52):
That's what's going to help people get their their leg
up out of out of poverty. You know, into jobs
and using all this to their advantage.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
So I guess, you know, to wrap things up, is
there anything else you'd like our listeners know about you
and goodwill industries of the chest Peak.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
I think that we've hit everything. I would just you know, again,
encourage donations, lots to find your in years goodwill. Even
if you're listening to this podcast and you're in another territory,
your goodwill is helping people in your community get jobs
and get training everywhere across the country. And so I
think that we're probably the most impactful, one of the

(22:31):
most impactful nonprofits. I'm a little biased, but I think
that you know, we're changing people's lives every single day,
and it doesn't really matter. You know, if you're a
conservative or you're a liberal, it doesn't matter. We're helping people,
you know, enrich their lives at the same time they're
getting jobs, they're paying taxes, So it doesn't matter which

(22:51):
side of the all you're on. We are completely apolitical
and all we want is to help people in our communities,
our neighbors that are you know, in times when we're
seeing the economy and it go up and down and
there's a lot of uncertainty. I think Goodwill is making
the difference in our communities across the country.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, thank you. And lastly, tell us how to find
more information about Goodwill Industries of the Chessbeak.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
So you can go to our website it's Goodwill Tess
c h ees dot org and on there you can
find everything from where to donate, to where our stores
are and how many people are serving and our whole
impact on opportunity.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Leise. I really appreciate
you taking the time to do the interview today. It's
great catching up with you and learning, you know, more
of some of the newer things you are up to
these days and Goodwill Industries of the Chessbeak. So thank you,
thank you so much, appreciate your time.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Thanks for having me John take Carry's

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Bus has been iHeartMedia CEOs you should know