My summer project was to work at Goodwill of New York and New Jersey, on behalf of social enterprise consulting firm Inspiring Capital, to help Goodwill NYNJ optimize its sorting and grading process for goods that cannot be sold in retails stores.

Goodwill’s mission is to empower individuals with disabilities and other barriers to employment to gain independence through the power of work. The organization operates approximately 37 retail stores and 2 warehouses in the greater NY/NJ metro area. These retail operations provide critical employment and training opportunities as well as revenue to fund the job training mission services it provides to the local community. By helping to optimize the sorting and grading process, I hoped to help Goodwill realize more value per pound of donated goods; reduce operational inefficiencies; reduce the amount of material that goes to landfill; and improve employee job training and opportunities.

Many of the skills I have learned in my operations and economics courses were crucial to my success in the project. During the first part of my project, I spent a lot of time observing the operations in the warehouse and stores and speaking with the employees who sort goods in order to map out the process and think about areas for improvement. I felt that the way I learned to think about and analyze processes in my Operations Management and Operations Strategy courses was crucial to my success.

Additionally, my project really illuminated to me how important soft skills, leadership, and good training are to success in business and social enterprise. Many of the topics we discussed in Lead and Organizational Change about good leadership, stakeholder engagement, and change management proved critical for the way I approached my project and the recommendations I made.

One major challenge I faced was getting up to speed on retail business and the salvage clothing industry, as I had zero experience in both these areas prior to the internship. Luckily, my supervisors were aware of this and made every attempt to set me up with the right resources so that I could get up to speed quickly and make an impact.

Another challenge I faced initially was the broad scope of the project, which felt overwhelming at the start of the summer. I shared my concerns with my supervisors early on and advised that I would probably be able to have a bigger impact by focusing only on one category of goods, at least initially. This meant that I ended up focusing my project almost exclusively on the sorting process for the shoes category.

My summer experience at Inspiring Capital and Goodwill NYNJ was extremely valuable and informative. Going into the summer, I had many goals including gaining experience in consulting; expanding my understanding of the careers available to business professionals in the social enterprise space; and putting my quantitative skills to use in a way that can benefit society. I feel that I successfully accomplished all of these goals. The weekly trainings I attended with my cohort of Inspiring Capital MBA Fellows were extremely informative and inspiring and expanded my knowledge of business-related careers in the social enterprise space.

My project at Goodwill provided an amazing opportunity for me to learn about an entirely new industry and gain insights into some of the major challenges that revenue-earning non-profits face. I feel that I gained valuable experience with stakeholder management, operations analysis, and organizational change that will help me regardless of the professional path I take.