Goodwill to All
- Jonathan Palance
- Oct 6, 2023
- 4 min read
Most people see a Goodwill and think "thrift store." Fair — there's one in just about every town. But when Goodwill Industries of Upstate/Midlands South Carolina brought us in to make a testimonial film, the assignment was to show what the stores actually fund: a sprawling workforce nonprofit that puts people into real, sustainable jobs. That story is harder to tell on a sign in a parking lot. So we made a video for it.
Wait — What Does Goodwill Actually Do?
Quick crash course, because this is the part most people don't know. Goodwill is a nonprofit. The thrift stores are the funding engine. The mission is workforce development — job training, career coaching, certifications, hiring events, and direct placement — aimed at people who are facing real barriers to employment. That can mean folks who are returning to the workforce after time away, people with disabilities, veterans, single parents, seniors, formerly incarcerated individuals, anyone the traditional job market has a hard time meeting where they are.
And Goodwill of Upstate/Midlands SC is, by national standards, very good at it. Top five out of 151 Goodwill organizations in the country for employment placements, with a new Career Pathways Resource and Opportunity Center right here in Columbia.
The Impact, In Numbers
We pulled these from the Goodwill SC 2023/2024 annual report. They're worth slowing down for:
90+ cents of every dollar Goodwill SC spends funds the mission directly — not overhead, not marketing, not executive comp.
14,597 employment services accessed in a single year across the Upstate and Midlands.
97% of training program participants are placed into competitive employment.
95% of enrollees earn an industry-specific certification — and 90% earn one by the time they complete the program.
$16.16 average hourly wage at placement. Real jobs, real money.
5th out of 151 Goodwill organizations nationally for placements into employment.
$118M+ in local economic impact, plus 45M+ pounds of goods diverted from landfills.
Goodwill is, depending on how you look at it, one of the largest workforce development organizations in the country and a quietly massive recycling operation. Both at the same time. Both funded by people dropping off old sweaters.
Why We Built This as a Testimonial
When the work is this human, the film has to be too. A stat sheet can prove Goodwill works. It can't make you feel why it matters. So we built the piece around real people — people who'd been through the training programs, people who'd found work because of them, staff who'd watched it happen. No script. No marketing talking points. Just "tell us what your life looks like now and how you got here."
The thing about testimonial-style video is that you can't fake it. You can stage anything else in a video — the lighting, the music, the pacing, the wardrobe. You cannot stage somebody talking about the day they got the job that changed their family's life. Genuine gratitude and self-worth flow from these people when they get to talk about that stuff.
Why Testimonial Video Is a Good Idea for Nonprofits
If you run or work with a nonprofit, here's the case for putting real budget into a testimonial-style film. The data is unusually strong on this:
Donors who watch a fundraising video are 48% more likely to give than those who don't (Here Now Film).
Emotional storytelling videos lift donations by 38% on average (Here Now Film).
Nonprofits using video generate 54% more leads than those without (Here Now Film).
Nonprofits earn roughly $7 in attributable return for every $1 spent on video marketing (Here Now Film).
64% of nonprofits with formal donor-engagement strategies use storytelling as the engine — and storytelling-led campaigns can double campaign revenue versus stat-led ones (NonProfit PRO).
Translation: a good testimonial film is one of the highest-leverage assets a nonprofit can commission. It works on your homepage, in your annual appeal, in grant applications, on event night, on social, and at board meetings. One shoot, a year of use, real measurable lift in giving.
What This Means for Other Nonprofits
Most nonprofits have an instinct that they should talk about the people they serve, but the discomfort of "do we look like we're using them for marketing" sometimes wins out. A well-made testimonial piece solves that problem on purpose. You're not putting words in anyone's mouth. You're handing someone a microphone, asking them what their story is, and getting out of the way. The dignity of that is the whole point — and the audience can tell.
Big thanks to Goodwill Industries of Upstate/Midlands South Carolina for trusting us with this one, and to every person who said yes to being on camera. If you run a nonprofit in the Midlands and you've been thinking about a testimonial film, impact piece, or mission story, we'd love to talk. The story is already there. We just help you tell it. #GoodwillSC #GoodwillIndustries #GoodwillToAll #NonprofitMarketing #TestimonialVideo #BrandFilm #MissionStorytelling#WorkforceDevelopment #ColumbiaSC #SodaCity #SodaCityFilms #VideoProduction #SouthCarolina #MidlandsSC #DignityOfWork
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