20 Dec A Christmas Gift

It was a Christmas gift, a joyful surprise, a random act of kindness. When representatives of a Mt. Juliet church walked unannounced into that town’s Goodwill store on Friday, they chose an employee with a big smile and a sweet personality and handed her $100 in cash. She gratefully accepted.

No one — not the employee, not the church members nor the store’s unsuspecting management, had anything but the best intentions in that moment. But there was a problem.

The employee had signed an honesty policy saying she would not accept gifts of cash or donated goods while on the clock. It is a policy that all Goodwill of Middle Tennessee’s employees for many years have agreed to follow, and there’s a great reason for it.

Goodwill is a not-for-profit that provides employment and training opportunities to thousands of Tennesseans, including those who have disabilities and others having trouble finding and keeping jobs, through the sale of donated goods. In essence, it is a charity made possible – day in and day out – through random, generous gifts from the community.

It is of the utmost importance to Goodwill that we remain good stewards of the donations we receive and that we maintain the trust of our donors and shoppers. Our unique business model demands that our employees follow a strict code of ethics, particularly with regard to the acceptance and stewardship of donations. A single inappropriate act by any one of our thousands of employees could betray that trust and have harmful consequences for the rest, not to mention endangering the much-needed services we provide the community.

But what occurred in our Mt. Juliet store Friday was not the sort of scenario this policy was intended to prevent. Had Goodwill’s management team known in advance about about the gift, they could have suggested that church members give it to the employee after hours. They would have been excited for her and might have even helped plan the surprise, knowing how much it would mean to her.

Instead, supervisors were caught off-guard and reminded the employee of the policy, and gave her the choice of returning the gift to the church or donating it to Goodwill. The situation could have been handled much better. The employee chose to keep the gift and walk away from her job.

A few hours later, the church’s pastor wrote a description of what had happened on social media, and it went viral.

On Saturday morning, Goodwill reached out to the employee and offered to allow her to keep the gift and return to work. The employee has told us she will consider the offer.

Goodwill’s President and CEO Matthew Bourlakas called the church’s pastor. He explained the importance of the policy in maintaining trust with the community and expressed regret about its strict interpretation in this instance. He told the pastor that every effort had been made to set the matter right with the employee. The pastor indicated that he understood the policy and that it was not his intent to hurt the charity’s reputation.

But the pastor’s social media post, and hundreds of comments voicing negative responses to the incident, remain online.

And so we wanted to tell you our story, how deeply we wish we had known about the church’s gift in advance and had responded differently. It was a gift of kindness, after all, and Goodwill employees — from donation attendants to truck drivers to the CEO — understand the power of that gift. We see it reflected every day in the faces of our co-workers.

We see it in the former prisoners who find jobs with Goodwill when no one else will hire them. We see it in recovering drug addicts who regain their self-respect through the power of work. We see it in those who are blind or deaf or wheelchair-bound or who have learning disabilities, all of whom lead normal lives of quiet dignity with the help of Goodwill.

And we see it in our neighbors across middle and west Tennessee — 26,000 of whom got assistance at Goodwill’s Career Solutions Centers this year and 8,600 of whom landed jobs.

All of this starts with the generosity of our donors and shoppers and is maintained through their trust in Goodwill. We will take this opportunity to review our policies and procedures. We thank our donors for their continuing support of Goodwill’s mission.

We wish you all a Happy Holidays.

For more detailed information regarding Goodwill’s financial well-being please refer to our 2013 990 Form for our latest financial summary.