Home Runs and Strikeouts in a Social Enterprise A Leadership Memoir

Starting out young and inexperienced, but with entrepreneurial inclinations and a desire to create opportunities for others who were less fortunate to improve their lives, Jim McClelland led Goodwill Industries in central Indiana for 41 years. During those four decades, the Indianapolis-based organization grew and evolved into a large, diversified social enterprise that employed over 3,000 people, two-thirds of them with barriers such as a significant disability, felony record, or lack of a high school diploma.

In addition, Goodwill operated 12 public charter high schools designed for adults who lacked a diploma, offered a nurse home visitation program for first-time moms in low income households, and linked employment, education, health, and other services in a whole-person, often whole-family approach for greater lasting impact.

As he approached retirement in 2015, Jim identified 104 significant initiatives the organization had undertaken during his career, and he classified them in baseball terms. There were 10 home runs – eight with bases loaded, 18 strikeouts, a lot of singles, and a few doubles. But the impact of those eight grand slam home runs far exceeded the net cumulative impact of all the other initiatives.

In this book Jim describes much of what worked, some of the initiatives that didn't, and leadership lessons he learned as both he and the organization grew. He also describes how the organization adapted to dramatic changes in the economy, demographics, technology, competition, laws and regulations, and to some geopolitical shocks during his career.

Material in this book will be of particular interest to leaders and aspiring leaders of for-profit and not-for-profit social enterprises, and much of it is applicable in other businesses as well.

In 2015 Jim McClelland concluded a 45-year career as an executive with Goodwill Industries. Forty-one of those years were as CEO of one of the largest and most diversified Goodwill organizations in the country, based in Indianapolis. Following his Goodwill career, he served three years as Executive Director for Drug Prevention, Treatment, and Enforcement for the State of Indiana.

After earning a bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech, Jim lived in Washington D.C. in the late 1960s. While there, he had several volunteer experiences, all of them connected with the church he attended, that prompted him to seek a way to use his IE skills in a service organization. That search led to his joining Goodwill Industries in Houston in 1970. Three years later he was named President and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana, based in Indianapolis. Over the next 41 years the organization experienced substantial growth - from 558 to 3,300 employees, two-thirds of whom had limited options because of disability, felony record, or lack of a high school diploma. Annual revenues increased from $3 million to $130 million. All of that growth was organic; no mergers or acquisitions had been involved.

Far more important than the growth, though, was how the organization evolved to increase its impact in the lives of people and communities.

During the last decade of Jim's career, Goodwill became heavily involved in efforts to raise education attainment levels and reduce multigenerational poverty. In 2010 the organization created a unique diploma-granting high school, The Excel Center, designed for older youth and adults who had previously dropped out. Responding to strong demand, Goodwill opened nine more Excel Centers in Indiana before Jim retired and began licensing the model to organizations in other states. By 2020 there were 31 Excel Centers across five states and the District of Columbia.

In 2011 Goodwill began implementing Nurse-Family Partnership, a home visitation program for first-time mothers in low income households, and developed a means of linking health, education, and employment services to help individuals and families move out of poverty. Jim views this kind of holistic, often whole family approach to serving people as a key to substantially reducing multigenerational poverty and other related social problems.

In 2017, following a short period of retirement, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb asked Jim to help lead the state's response to the opioid crisis. As Indiana's first drug czar, he worked full-time for three years helping to coordinate the relevant resources of numerous state agencies that affect substance abuse issues. He also helped develop relationships to leverage the state's resources with those of other sectors, including business, education, and health care; local governments, law enforcement agencies, and the courts; and philanthropies, faith-based and community-based organizations to reduce substance abuse in Indiana.

Jim has served on the boards of numerous not-for-profit organizations at local, national, and international levels and chaired several of them. He was also heavily involved in helping develop Goodwill Industries in South Korea.

Among other honors, Jim has been inducted into the Central Indiana Business Hall of Fame, the Georgia Tech Engineering Hall of Fame, and the Goodwill Industries International Hall of Fame.

In addition to his degree from Georgia Tech, Jim earned an MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He enjoys reading and travel and has visited all 50 states and all seven continents.

A native of Florida, Jim and his wife, Jane, live in Indianapolis. They have two grown children and two grandchildren.