Episode 87: Goodwill, Google, WorkingNation, Accenture - How They Are Pivoting Societal Norms

Kara Gooch, Engagement & Career Coach for active Apprentices with her dream company, Accenture, participated in Goodwill’s Rising Together training program. After completion, she was offered a role within Accenture.

Accenture is a partner of Goodwill’s Rising Together initiative, which connects people, particularly those from populations that have been historically marginalized, with a wide range of resources, including skills training, transportation and internet access to support entrance into and longevity in the workforce. As a Goodwill partner, Accenture expands its Skills to Succeed services for youth and young adults, which provides skills training and resources to help them navigate their careers. The program also uses immersive virtual reality training to help people impacted by the criminal justice system learn to tell their stories on a personal level to interviewers and other people in their lives.

Accenture recognize the important role professional apprenticeship can play in closing the skills gap in North America and increasing access to digital economy careers. It believes that apprenticeship programs create new career pathways for previously untapped talent and re-skill those whose jobs have been – or will be – disrupted by technology.

The Apprenticeship Program at Accenture is an earn-and-learn model with benefits that provides a pathway to a full-time role with Accenture after a typically 12-month-long apprenticeship—a role with career opportunities for continued growth. Since launching the Accenture North America apprenticeship program in 2016, it has onboarded more than 2,000 apprentices.

WorkingNation, a nonprofit media company focussed on the future of work, has released a short documentary film called "Glory in Overcoming."

It focuses on three women ofcolor, all single mothers, who completed a skills-training program called the Goodwill Digital Career Accelerator.  Kara Gooch, one of the women, had three daughtersunder age four and was getting divorced when she entered the training program she says changed her family's lives.  The two other women, Chelsea Rucker and ShaheeraAlnatshia, also overcame significant obstacles before pivoting and finding tech careers.--Most people associate Goodwill with donation centers and thrift stores.  

The Goodwill Digital Career Accelerator is a training program designed in partnership with Google and with more than $29 million in funding and grants from Google.org.  Since 2017, Goodwill says more than 1.5 million people have upgraded their digital and tech skills throughthis and its other training programs, and that more than 350,000 U.S. workers have landed jobs (both in the tech industry and in "non-tech" industries where tech skills are in demand.)