Goodwill Promotes Digital Skills on the Hill

By Angela Lee, GII’s manager of advocacy outreach and engagement

This week, two dozen advocates from local Goodwill organizations from across the country visited Goodwill Industries International (GII) for a digital skills workshop and took advantage of the proximity to Capitol Hill to meet with their lawmakers. The advocates promoted digital skills on the Hill and met with nearly 115 members of Congress.

The job market is changing dramatically, with 2/3 of new jobs created since 2010 requiring either high or medium level digital skills, often leaving behind those without basic digital competencies. Google.org is supporting Goodwill to launch the Goodwill Digital Career Accelerator through a $10 million grant and the support of 1,000 Google volunteers.

The Goodwill Digital Career Accelerator has helped 252,000 job seekers gain an introduction to digital skills and 27,000 job seekers find employment. This includes 88,000 people who were trained in basic digital skills and 16,000 people who learned productivity software skills. Nearly 28,000 people were placed into good jobs after building their digital skills and based on these early successes, Goodwill and Google.org committed to providing training to more than 1.25 million people.

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