Goodwill of Central & Southern Indiana and Goodwill Industries of Central Illinois have agreed to merge.
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By Alex Brown, Inside INdiana Business
Indianapolis-based Goodwill of Central & Southern Indiana and Goodwill Industries of Central Illinois have agreed to merge, the organizations have announced.
The combined nonprofit will operate in 40 Indiana counties and 21 central Illinois counties, serving tens of thousands of people.
The current CEO of Goodwill of Central & Southern Indiana, Kent Kramer, is set to lead the combined organization and said the idea to merge stems from the impending retirement of Goodwill Industries of Central Illinois CEO Don Johnson.
“They had a couple of options: go hire another CEO or look at this opportunity to merge, which Don brought to his board and I brought to our board here locally,” Kramer told Inside INdiana Business. “It made sense to both of them that collectively, we can have more impact in Illinois and in Indiana.”
The merger has been approved by the boards of both Goodwill organizations. Kramer said the organizations hope to complete the merger in July. Johnson plans to retire in August, but will remain as a consultant to assist with the transition, the organizations said.
A decision on how the combined nonprofit will be identified has not yet been made. Kramer noted that will be decided with the help of Goodwill Industries International.
Throughout its footprint, Goodwill of Central & Southern Indiana operates more than 75 retail locations, as well as contract manufacturing services, charter schools for adults and youth, a maternal-child health program and a child care center.
Goodwill Industries of Central Illinois operates 10 retail locations and offers career and youth services, including and employment program for the neurodiverse.
Kramer said Johnson has long admired the Indiana organization’s work over the years and wanted to bring some of its success to Illinois. Conversely, Kramer said he wants to expand upon the Illinois organization’s focus on support for veterans.
Goodwill Industries of Central Illinois, based in Peoria, operates a 15-room veterans’ home in addition to its veteran support services.
“That focus (is) just something that we have identified as a need, and especially in the housing area,” Kramer said. “Goodwill is a very large referral to multiple housing programs here in central and southern Indiana, and we’ve been wanting to figure out how we can amplify our efforts from a housing perspective, and how they operate in central Illinois is really going to help us understand that and hopefully grow those efforts here as well.”
A merger of this type is nothing new for Kramer, who joined the organization in 2002 and became CEO in 2015. Kramer led the 2017 combination of the central Indiana Goodwill with the southern Indiana Goodwill in Clarksville that formed Goodwill of Central & Southern Indiana.
The Indiana Goodwill organization employs about 5,200 people, while the Illinois organization has about 400 employees. While the groups did not detail any plans that would negatively affect existing employees, Kramer said he sees lots of opportunities for growth.
“Our long-term goals would be to learn and apply best practices from both organizations to both Indiana and Illinois [and] ultimately create a culture that is one Goodwill and that we are a collective,” he said.
