What we learned on our summer vacation

One of the primary motivations for taking our recent 8,000 mile odyssey was to visit some of the nation’s leading alternative staffing organizations. Thanks to the hospitality of a number of already very busy people, we received up-close looks at the operations of three top-notch social enterprises: CASS-TES in Phoenix, Chrysalis Enterprises in Los Angeles, and Harborquest in Chicago. Here’s a sampling of what we learned.

Central Arizona Shelter Services – Temporary Employment Service operates out of the largest emergency shelter in downtown Phoenix. The sprawling complex with neatly manicured lawns accommodates several hundred guests and many on-site social services. The dental clinic in particular caught our eye. A fleet of volunteers bustled around rooms full of shimmering new equipment. The director had convinced dental supply companies to use the clinic as an opportunity to showcase their state-of-the-art equipment to the dental professionals who come from all around the country to donate their time there. CASS-TES buses about eight employees to worksites each day. Since it operates under the umbrella of the shelter, it has direct access to its client base (if someone doesn’t show up for work, you know where they sleep), and it benefits from the administrative infrastructure of the shelter. The folks at TES reminded us that the day labor market is extremely competitive, that residential construction is down, and that finding work-ready clients can be challenging.


Chrysalis seeks to empower economically disadvantaged people through employment. It is not a shelter, but rather a hub for employment services to the homeless and others in need. Their offices sit right off Skid Row in downtown LA. We were immediately struck by the welcoming atmosphere of their reception area. Clients fixed themselves coffee, checked their voicemail at a bank of phones, and hunted for jobs at the computer terminals. We attended orientation and budgeting classes, both run by enthusiastic volunteers. Chrysalis obviously knows how to utilize its volunteers effectively; many have been coming there for years. Chrysalis Enterprises is a transitional employment program offered to clients who need supported work experience before entering the job market. CE operates a booming street cleaning business, having secured the majority of the street cleaning contracts with the city’s Business Improvement Districts. CE uses former clients as foremen on its street cleaning crews, which offers current clients additional incentive to work hard. CE is in the process of cutting back its clients’ hours from 40 hours per week to 32 hours. This change is designed to give clients time to conduct job searches.

We had two additional treats at Chrysalis. Joe Parente, who oversees the operations of the street cleaning business, treated us to lunch at the Nickel Diner including a desert of maple glazed bacon donuts. Trevor Kale, who directs CE, gave us a fascinating tour of Skid Row.

In Chicago, we met with Bill Schwartz of Harborquest, the first alternative staffing organization in the country. Harborquest started in the 1970s with the aim of paying higher wages to day laborers. By the mid-1980s, they were sending out over 700 workers every day. But they felt like they weren’t helping people escape poverty. So they changed directions. They scaled back the staffing business and started transporting inner city residents to the industrial jobs springing up in the suburbs. Eventually, they convinced Chicago public transit to pick up the routes of these reverse commutes. Presently, they’re planning to jumpstart the staffing business once more. They already send out a few hundred workers each day. Bill encouraged us to be more than a temp agency, to provide the extra support that helps people help themselves. We also discussed top-down marketing for business expansion, which means pitching to the people in charge of a company rather than site supervisors because the former will be more receptive to the social benefits of our business. Additionally, by sitting in Harborquest’s call center for an hour we were able to observe well-honed account and client management procedures.

Bill also took us out for Thai food, which was slightly more delicious than the peanut butter sandwiches and granola bars upon which we sustained ourselves for most of the trip.

Overall, the words of encouragement and counsel that we received during our visits with these organizations left us more informed and more confident. We are grateful for their generosity and looking forward to thanking them further by putting their advice and example into practice.

Adrian

If you’re starting a nonprofit temp agency, Adrian, Texas has a lot to teach you.

Derek and I left Charleston on May 17 on a cross-country road trip. The plan was to visit three other nonprofit temp agencies, see the country, and build up the momentum to propel IES from concept to reality. I had initially refused to go, denouncing the whole endeavor as financially reckless. Derek convinced me, though. The day before we left he preached a sermon at the storied St. Michael’s Episcopal of downtown Charleston. Watch the video. It’s a great message and gives you a sense of how persuasive he can be when he starts talking about embracing risk. (As a side-note, if you listen carefully to the video, you’ll hear him say that we’re going to get into “our car,” and I whisper “my car.”)



Two days later we were cruising across the Texas Panhandle. Amarillo, the Cadillac Ranch, and signs for FREE 72 OZ STEAKS came and went, and the hamlet of Adrian would have come and gone as well if the speedometer hadn’t stopped working. We pulled over. Smoke rolled out from under the hood. It looked as if someone had spilled coffee on my transmission.

I had the car towed back to Amarillo. The next day Tom the mechanic rather insensitively proclaimed the death of my 1999 Mazda 626. (“Smell that? That’s the smell of death.” He would charge me $70 for that piece of nasal wizardry.) I began to wish that I had not replaced the exhaust system just prior to leaving on this trip. I began to wish that I had not swooned over Derek’s riskophilia and come half way across the country to lose the most valuable piece of property that I owned. Amarillo was an ugly town.

I purchased a used Ford Focus that afternoon. The next day we drove to Phoenix, and many gifts were given unto us during the rest of the trip.

There’s an obvious moral to the story, a restatement of what Derek talks about in his sermon: risk sometimes incurs loss, but better to lose in boldness - and still reap some of the fruits of boldness - than never to play out of fear. That’s an important moral, especially in light of the difficult steps that we will need to take to get IES off the ground in the next few weeks. But quite honestly, that was a lesson I had learned prior to the demise of my vehicle.

Still, part of me needed that car to break down. Part of me needed the rotten parts of the trip if only to force me to appreciate the real value of the journey. My favorite scene in TH White’s The Once and Future King features Lancelot, the greatest knight ever known, relating the story of his unthinkable defeat during a quest in which Lancelot had made great sacrifices to maintain spiritual purity. When Guinevere asks what his reaction was, he replies, “I knelt down in the water of Mortoise, Jenny, where he had knocked me – and I thanked God for the adventure.”

I’m no Lancelot, and I need to do a better job of being grateful for the adventure.