Goodwills mission is to provide employment services to individuals with a disability or disadvantaging conditions to achieve their highest level of personal, social and economic independence.

• Founded in 1902 by Edgar Helms, a Boston Methodist minister.
• He gathered discarded items (household, clothing) from his friends.
• Helms hired people in need to fix donated items for resale; these were people considered unemployable because of mental and physical conditions.
• Helms believed strongly in jobs as a way to help people out of poverty; the Goodwill motto: A hand up, not a handout was coined and serves as a core value of Goodwill ever since.
• Goodwill represents the first model of urban outreach ministry and social innovation, as relevant today as when it was founded more than 100 years ago.