Guiding Light Mission in downtown Grand Rapids will add a third revenue stream to assist its shrinking dependence on donors with The Job Post, an employment agency run out of its 255 S. Division headquarters for the time being.
“What we’ve tried to do is become less and less dependent upon the normal donor income revenue streams and do it more on our own,” says Stuart Ray, executive director of Guiding Light Mission. ”The Job Post works for us because it’s consistent with our mission statement just as transitional housing is consistent with our mission.”
Operating under the tagline, “Renewing hope and rebuilding lives one job at a time,” The Job Post is open to the larger public, not just men enrolled in Guiding Light Mission’s other programming.
“We were not going to pigeonhole people into The Job Post,” Ray says. “We opened it to everybody; anybody in the community can come. We do intend to have multiple offices before this is over because, at the same time, we don’t want to be pigeonholed into Heartside.”
The agency will operate primarily as a “temp to hire” service, placing job candidates in temporary work positions with the intention of developing the positions into full-time employment. They will also offer some traditional temporary employment as well.
“It’s going to be a lot of sitting down, doing market research and strategy for where we’re going to go and what the return on investment is going to look like,” he says. “And it’s just not being afraid. Sometimes that’s one of the biggest obstacles.”
For more information, visit lifeonthestreet.org/.
Written by Anya Zentmeyer, Development News Editor
Images courtesy of Guiding Light Mission
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