CHAPTER 5.

Gidget Hoft’s case: Creating new business ventures within a not-for-profit organization to empower individuals with disabilities

Frederick Jefferson & Kankana Mukhopadhyay

(with contributions from Shaza Khan)

5.1.Gidget’s story

  5.1.1. Introduction to Gidget’s case

This is the case study of Gidget Hoft, the CEO for over 30 years of the Rochester’s Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ABVI hereafter) – which during her leadership greatly evolved its mission and even changed its name, first to Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired/Goodwill Industries International, and then Goodwill of the Finger Lakes. During her time as CEO, Gidget started many new ventures and other innovations that transformed this long-standing organization and multiplied its impact on individuals with disabilities. As such, she is a prototypical example of an intrapreneur – someone who starts new ventures within an existing organization – although in the not-for-profit rather than the business sector.

Although originally trained as a speech pathologist, Gidget devoted her entire career to supporting individuals with disabilities so they could become self-sufficient as well as valued contributors for society.  She saw her task as not only providing concrete opportunities for individuals with disabilities to achieve these goals (through creating new support services, training and job opportunities), but also as educating all stakeholders to recognize and value the potential of individuals with disabilities.  Since at the core of her vision and practice was supporting learning and development for her clients as well as people in her organization, partners and society at large, we consider Gidget first and foremost an educator.

ABVI, the context in which Gidget operated for most of her career and the focus of this case-study, started as a not-for-profit organization devoted to supporting people who are blind or visually impaired (see Figure 5.1 for more information).  ABVI grew tremendously under Gidget’s leadership over the last three decades, embracing her vision “to prepare and empower people who are blind or visually impaired to be self-sufficient and contribute to their families and communities” (2006 revised mission statement).  Consistent with this mission, at the time of our study ABVI offered direct employment opportunities to hundreds of blind or visually impaired individuals, as well as several services including vision rehabilitation services, training services for a few specific jobs, career and employment services, and other services specifically geared to children.  As such, ABVI appeared to be a school, training center, service provider, jobs incubator and social change advocate all wrapped up in one.

As many other not-for-profit organizations offering educational and/or social services, ABVI experienced the challenge of depending on government funding and philanthropy for providing many of its services.  Since these sources of funding are out of the organization’s control, and they could be very variable and undependable year by year, as she became CEO Gidget was concerned about securing greater stability and self-sufficiency for the organization.  A measure of her success is that at the time of our case study ABVI depended on external funding for only 10% of their budget.

What ABVI/Goodwill of the Finger Lakes is today is the result of a number of extraordinary innovations that Gidget initiated and successfully carried out over her 30-year tenure as CEO.  Many of these innovations focused on the creation of new job opportunities for people who are blind or visually impaired, often involving partners in the community or across the nation; these new ventures in turn also contributed new revenues to sustain other services offered by the organization.  Other innovations instead had to do with changing the culture, practices, structure and /or scope of the organization. Each of these innovations challenged people in the organization as well as other stakeholders to develop a deeper awareness, understanding and respect for the value and potential of people with disabilities. All of these innovations also required a learning strategy enrolling people in the initiative’s possibilities and with the potential to transform perspectives, policies and prejudicial attitudes about people with disabilities. Gidget continuously constructed and led this learning process.

At the time of our case study, Gidget had recently been introduced to entrepreneurship and had also increasingly come to view her work through an entrepreneurial lens, seeking to structure the organization and its processes accordingly.

Figure 5.1. ABVI Profile at the time of our study (2007)

  5.1.2. Highlights of Gidget’s professional journey

Gidget’s early work experience, beginning with her very first job, provided contexts in which she could experiment and test new ideas for services that would improve the quality of life for children and adolescents with disabilities.

Gidget began her professional work career as a speech pathologist.  Because she had limited exposure to professional careers and women in the professions, at the time Gidget believed the career choices open to her were limited to teaching or nursing. Gidget knew she didn’t want to teach, “at least (not) in a [traditional] classroom”, and she didn’t want to be a nurse because of an aversion to blood. Her choice of becoming a speech therapist was influenced by a past successful experience with a speech therapist:

“I remembered being in 1st grade and having a speech therapist work with me for a lisp and …” (Gidget)

At the very beginning of her career as a speech pathologist, she was assigned to work with children with intellectual disabilities in a large New York State residential institution on Staten Island called Willowbrook, at a time of great change. In 1972, a group of families filed a lawsuit against New York State demanding changes in the deplorable care and treatment conditions children had to endure in Willowbrook State Hospital. There was enough proof to allow a preliminary injunction which ordered the state to immediately make needed reforms to conform to existing federal guidelines for standards of care and treatment. In 1975, the Governor signed the Decree, which spurred reform of the entire system serving children with disabilities throughout the state. The legislation created a separate Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, passed laws against discrimination and established rights to humane treatment for mentally disabled persons, permitting them to live in residential communities – laying the groundwork to begin closing down many institutions, including eventually Willowbrook, Gidget’s workplace.

This is how Gidget described this transformation experience at the very beginning of her career:

“I was trained … as a speech pathologist, and I was hire to work at Willowbrook … as a speech pathologist.  Prior to that time, these services were not made available to people in the institution because it was never believed that they could benefit.  …  But then there was a very large lawsuit in New York State, where the parents and the families of the Willowbrook clients sued New York State for better services and more humane conditions and as a result of that came out the Willowbrook Consent Decree, which was a huge legal precedent that really turned the tide in terms of how people with disabilities were treated in the state and in this country.  I happened to be a 22-year-old recent college graduate just when all of this was happening, so I was really part of a revolution in many ways…” (Gidget)

At the same time, Gidget was faced with the harsh reality that she had no knowledge or training in working with this population:

“We didn’t learn about this population when I went to college.  So I had to become entrepreneurial in my thinking just to learn how to work with people [with developmental disabilities].” (Gidget)

In order to learn how to work with children with developmental disabilities, Gidget embarked on a journey of self-education – “I started looking at all the resources out there … I networked.”  She even joined with others to start a statewide organization for speech therapists working with children with developmental disabilities, so that she could meet people working with that population and start to develop “shared ideas and shared learning.” During one of her research visits to other sites that served children with developmental disabilities, she discovered that sign language could be a valuable tool.  As she returned to her workplace, she successfully negotiated with her employer to receive special training in sign language, which she then began to use in her work with the children in her caseload.

These early experiences are indicative of Gidget’s passion and capacity for self-learning, a characteristic that continued to inform her practice and represented one of her main strengths.

“…from a very early age, I knew what I didn’t know and figured out how to get what I needed to know; and then got real excited about new ideas and new ways of doing things…” (Gidget)

During her early work years, Gidget developed a commitment to supporting the development of self-sufficiency potential in individuals with disabilities and began to construct teaching strategies for achieving this end:

“I convinced my administrator to let me take a room … and turn it into an apartment so that I could start teaching these folks… how to start doing home living-skills …” (Gidget)

Gidget soon realized that her ability to gain assent to experiment with new ideas and to push against the edges of accepted practice in providing novel service to children with developmental disabilities was aided by the Willowbrook Consent Decree – as mentioned earlier. The power and effectiveness of promoting positive social change for marginalized social groups by capitalizing on court decrees and legislation would surface again, later, in Gidget’s career.

Gidget’s next two assignments were with not-for-profit agencies that served individuals with developmental disabilities. In the first of the two, Gidget continued to develop new learning strategies for children with disabilities:

“…I started working with kids who were really nonverbal… I really became more of a language therapist than a speech therapist …it was the language and the cognitive deficits … that really began to tap into my creative juices, because I really found ways to start to work with kids in terms of language development and I took advantage of everything.” (Gidget)

In her last assignment before joining ABVI, Gidget served as the Associate Executive Director of a major not-for-profit organization, where she began to develop the critical leadership skills she would need to lead an agency on her own:

“…I was at ARC (formerly Association For Retarded Citizens) of Monroe County… which is an organization that serves people with developmental disabilities, as the Associate Exec, and that’s where I learned to work with boards of directors and to work in a not-for-profit environment, because prior to that I worked for the State of New York and all of my experience coming out of college up until that point, or about 8 years worth, was all in a union setting, institutional setting, very bureaucratic – the total opposite of entrepreneurial!” (Gidget)

In 1986, at the age of 35, Gidget became the CEO of the Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired of Rochester, New York.  Gidget brought to ABVI not only her passion for working with persons with disabilities, but also her energy for creative change. By the time she reached ABVI, Gidget was brimming with ideas and a passionate determination to make a difference in lives of people with disabilities:

“…I’ve always been an idea person,… and when I got into the not-for-profit world … I found… an outlet for my ideas because I could really try them out.” (Gidget)

  5.1.3. Gidget’s innovation #1: Starting the first manufacturing initiative at ABVI

Consistent with her overall vision of empowering individuals with disabilities to be self-sufficient and productive members of society, Gidget’s first initiatives as CEO of ABVI focused on creating new job opportunities for her clients.  She believed that by starting profitable business lines within ABVI the organization could diminish their dependence on external and more unreliable sources of funding, such as those provided by government, local subsidies, or gifts.

As she had already experienced the value that laws and decrees could bring to creating positive change for persons with disabilities in the case of the Willowbrook Consent Decree, she sought to take advantage of the Javits, Wagner, O’Day (JWOD) Act, a law originally created in 1936 to privilege organizations employing blind individuals to sell products to the federal government, and then later expanded to include other severe disabilities in 1971.

“…this law had been on the books for a lot of years, but we only started to take advantage of it big time when I first got here…” (Gidget)

This led her to creating her first business line: a manufacturing initiative to produce post-it pads in partnership with the 3M Corporation – the company that introduced Post-it® Notes in 1980.

How the idea came about and was evaluated/refined

Gidget describes how the idea for producing post-it pads came into being:

“…the Javits-Wagener-O’Day Act… under that law agencies, like ours, that employ people who are blind…if we can identify a product that the federal government needs…and we can manufacture that product …then they will buy it from you.  There’s a mechanism to put it on a set aside list and it actually becomes a mandatory buy for the federal government…” (Gidget)

At this point in her career, Gidget had no experience in manufacturing or product development – but this lack of experience did not deter her from pursuing the idea of employing blind and visually impaired people to manufacture a product that the US government could buy:

“I don’t have a background in manufacturing, I don’t have a background in new product development …well I do now …but I didn’t then…but … I want to go after new opportunities…” (Gidget)

So she began to look for products that could be manufactured by people with visual disabilities and could be of interest to government agencies.  The initial idea of manufacturing post-it pads actually came from one of her employees:

“one of my employees was…looking at post-it-notes on his desk and said ‘oh I bet we could make these’.” (Gidget)

Post-it pads were certainly something that all government offices needed to buy – and in fact Gidget checked that government offices were regularly bidding for these supplies, and she also learned that a number of companies (including 3M, the company that originally invented the technology behind post-it pads) participated in these biddings.  So, if ABVI could manage to produce post-it pads, it would have a competitive advantage over all these other companies in selling the product to government offices, as by law government offices would have to purchase the products made by people with severe disabilities before they could buy it from anybody else.

So the key question really was whether ABVI would be able to produce post-it-notes while employing blind and visually impaired people. Indeed, it took Gidget a while to refine this idea into something workable.

She first thought they could produce post-it-notes independently, by purchasing paper from a mill, finding a formula for glue, and then applying the glue to the paper. She even enlisted the aid of her brother-in-law, a chemist, to help her think through the necessary processes for making the glue.  As she realized the complexities of manufacturing post-it pads from scratch, she came up with the alternative solution of partnering with 3M, a strategy that would prove to be the right one for her and the agency.

“…I actually went down the path of trying to really create a post-it-note and then I realized that …little old ABVI in Rochester New York wasn’t going to be able to do what 3M with all of its millions and millions of dollars have done and so what we decided to do was approach 3M and see if they would be willing to partner with us.” (Gidget)

The next step was to figure out what approach to take with 3M. Why would they want to partner with this small community agency located in Rochester, New York? What would be the gain for them? Gidget crafted a win-win strategy that would allow 3M to maintain market share with the federal government and increase commercial market share:

“…fact of the matter, they were starting to lose market share…every year the federal government goes out to bid and some years … some of their sizes were not winning the bid because other competitors were coming into the market…I said we have a mechanism for you to never bid on a post-it note contract again …we had to work with their attorneys to help them understand our program and how, if they just sold us the raw material, they would basically have the whole federal market and they’d help employ people who were blind or visually impaired … they had a charitable component…it was a real win-win …it turned out to be a fabulous relationship…” (Gidget)

As 3M showed interest in the collaboration, Gidget felt confident that she could and should move forward with the initiative.  Despite the high financial risks, she felt the potential benefits were well worth it.

Planning and gathering the needed resources

At this point, in consultation with 3M, Gidget began to develop detailed plans about what ABVI would need to set up in order to be able to manufacture post-it-notes, while purchasing the raw materials from 3M.  She was able to secure funding for about $2 million as needed to purchase equipment and remodel facilities, from a combination of use of internal funds and gifts.

However, in the middle of the negotiation process with 3M, Gidget and ABVI’s board became concerned about not having enough money for the additional cash required to buy the raw material upfront.

“We had to have almost $1 million dollars in raw material up front …that was a big chunk. So here we sat almost ready to lose a whole project…a board member suggested ‘why don’t you go to 3M, 3M is a very wealthy company … see what kind of terms they can give you on that up front material.’…” (Gidget)

Following the board member’s suggestion, Gidget approached 3M, their new partner, asking for an unusual concession on the terms of payments for the materials:

“We went to our partner and we said, look, this is a stumbling block, you know, we have to buy the equipment, we have to renovate the building, we’re talking about a couple of million dollars investment, however, the thing that’s really breaking our backs is the $800K that we’re going to need to pay you to get all that material up front and we said would you be willing to entertain terms…” (Gidget)

Gidget’s belief in the strength of the new partnership resulted in 3M giving ABVI an astounding 120-day term instead of the usual 30-day term for paying for raw materials – which could be seen as a form of short-term debt.  Looking back, Gidget stated:

“…I think once you start a committed desire to work together, then almost anything is possible.” (Gidget)

Implementing and monitoring the initiative

The euphoria from the success of clearing the $800,000 hurdle would not last long. The next obstacle was, in many ways, even more challenging. It was a potential deal killer. ABVI’s customer, the federal government, was questioning ABVI’s capacity to deliver the requisite goods. To guard against that risk, they would offer ABVI a partial contract until they could be assured that their fears were unfounded. Gidget and ABVI protested the decision stating that a partial contract would not work financially for them, but the head of the General Services Administration (GSA) was unmoved by their entreaties and refused to change his recommendation. Gidget and her board then took a bold step, deciding to plead their case before a committee that oversaw the program processes of the JWOD Act. This was a risky move on the part of ABVI, in that the dissenting head of GSA was a member of this committee. But, as Gidget observed, he had only one vote.

“we could not make this huge investment if we only had a partial contract….So there’s a committee, it’s called the Committee for Purchase from People who are Blind and Severely Handicapped…and that committee is put in place by law to oversee the [JWOD] law and make sure that the government taxpayer is protected. So we did something that had never been done before, we asked to bring our case to the committee…So we took our attorney, myself, one or two other people to Washington and made a presentation to the committee, explained everything that we had done for the whole year getting this project up and running…and we really felt like a jury was deciding our fate….we’re out there waiting, waiting, waiting and finally the chairman of the committee comes out and says congratulation. So we won, it was great.” (Gidget)

Although ABVI had won the right to a full contract, they were to find out later that GSA was still not convinced and had decided to overstock the government’s post-it pads supplies. As a result, ABVI had to wait nine months for its first order. ABVI delivered on time and to specifications, thus cementing what became a lasting relationship with GSA.

“…GSA thinks we are the best in the world…we have a great relationship…they know that anything we say we’re going to do we can do…” (Gidget)

ABVI’s post-it pads business line made a significant difference for the organization as it not only provided new jobs for people who are blind or visually impaired, but also the cash needed to support some new services Gidget was envisioning to offer through ABVI.

“…for us, it was the beginning of financial solvency…the margins are great, it does everything you want it to do: it creates jobs, gives us great visibility …gives us the financial leverage to begin to grow our vision rehabilitation services and to do other things…” (Gidget)

Ensuring long-term sustainability and/or bigger impact

ABVI continued to produce post-it pads in partnership with 3M, and over the years has grown this venture by making an increasing number of sizes and colors, including post-it easel pads.

Seeking to build on this first success, Gidget remained in constant search for new product ideas that would produce jobs for her constituency.

“… I’m always looking for new product lines….so when people ask for volunteers to speak to federal customers, I raise my hand and say I’d love to go to talk to federal customers because that gives me an opportunity to see first-hand what the customers want and need.” (Gidget)

Two other major products were added since the post-it pads and up to the time of our study: a CD/ROM replication business and a Textile Initiative that makes uniforms for the US Air Force (Website abvi.org).  Many more were going to be added between then and the time Gidget retired as ABVI CEO in 2020.

  5.1.4. Gidget’s initiative #2: Affiliating with Goodwill to open thrift stores

How the idea came about and was evaluated/refined

Despite the success of her manufacturing enterprises, Gidget became concerned about the risks of focusing all of their efforts on manufacturing, as she felt that “manufacturing was not the wave of the future.”  So she started looking for other opportunities that could lead to job creation for individuals who are blind or visually impaired.

She discovered the Goodwill Industries International during one of her many exploratory visits to sister agencies.  During these visits she was always on watch for best practices and good ideas that she could take back to ABVI. On this particular excursion, she was touring the Goodwill facility in New York City and learning about the organization’s extraordinary successes. As she participated in the tour, she began to see many new possibilities for ABVI.

“… I had visited the Goodwill in New York City, I have a friend who is the president down there…I was looking at this organization and seeing how successful they were and thinking… people who are blind can do this…you know, collect clothes, sort clothes, hang them, put them out…we can do that..” (Gidget)

So she came back home thinking about the possibility of opening some thrift stores that could be managed mostly by blind and visually impaired individuals.

Gidget began to inquire about Goodwill Industries International, and learned how this not-for-profit organization, founded in 1902 on the idea of collecting donated used goods and then training and hiring poor people to repair and sell those goods, had grown into a multi-billion dollars enterprise.  Gidget also learned that Goodwill had an interest in affiliating with existing agencies that would consider becoming a member of Goodwill.  Overtime, Goodwill had  expanded its mission to “enhance the quality and dignity of life for individuals, families, and communities on a global basis, through the power of work, by eliminating barriers to opportunity for people with special needs, and by facilitating empowerment, self-help, and service through dedicated, autonomous local organizations” (http://www.goodwill.org).

Recognizing the similar missions of ABVI and Goodwill, Gidget conceived of the possibility of not only starting a thrift store managed primarily by blind and visually impaired individual, but also having ABVI partner and become an affiliate of Goodwill.

“The mission … of Goodwill Industries is to help people with barriers to employment, whether they be socio-economic, disability,…find employment and economic self-sufficiency. And that’s exactly what we do we just do it for a very specific population, people who are blind. So our missions were very, very compatible.” (Gidget)

She saw many benefits to such a partnership, as:

• opening thrift stores would create more job opportunities for blind and visually impaired individuals;
• it would also help diversify their business lines, and thus minimize the risk of manufacturing going down;
• affiliating with Goodwill would greatly help ABVI enter in the retail business, an area very new to them, by benefiting of the expertise Goodwill could provide.

At the same time, Gidget realized that this initiative would present unique challenges because of the implications of affiliating with another organization for ABVI’s own identity – in addition to built-in stereotypes about Goodwill stores (“junky thrift stores”).  Yet, in the end she concluded that this was an idea worth pursuing, as she believed that the benefits of joining Goodwill would far outweigh these potential obstacles and risks, because it would enable ABVI to make a major step towards better fulfilling their mission of empowering blind and visually impaired individuals to be self-sufficient and contribute to society.

Planning and gathering the needed resources

Gidget began by developing a strategy and plan based on what she had learned from her own research about Goodwill.

When Gidget first introduced the idea to her board, she encountered the expected resistance:

“…first, I put together…a strategy and a plan and I did look at other Goodwills … started getting my board to think about it …we had a lot to overcome…our organization (ABVI) had started to move its image to a very positive sleek image … how does (Goodwill) fit with our image…so I had to overcome that…” (Gidget)

Gidget chose a novel approach with her Board to educate them about the potential value that the Goodwill affiliation would bring to the greater Rochester community and other contiguous communities. This involved site visits and participation in Goodwill’s conferences.

“Goodwill, in the last 20 years had really changed its image… they’ve gone from …rag bag shops to very, very upscale, very lovely thrift stores and that was the image that we wanted to have…So I took …4 or 5 board members to Baltimore, to Pittsburgh, to Buffalo…I took them to Goodwill conferences and started to get them comfortable with the idea and to …see what Goodwill’s had really started to do with their stores because they were really beautiful.” (Gidget)

The visits and conferences provided board members with valuable concrete examples of the work of Goodwill.  However, even when board members began to see the value of creating thrift stores to increase revenue and jobs, they still questioned the need to partner with Goodwill. Gidget reminded the board that specific competencies in retail would be needed and that Goodwill’s long experience with retail stores would be an invaluable resource for ABVI.

“The board would say, ‘well why do we need Goodwill…the idea of a thrift store…we could do that ourselves…’ I said I didn’t know anything about starting a new store…here we have (Goodwill) with hundreds of collective years of experience readily available to us … how do you design your store…how do you process the goods …what is the square footage you need…I couldn’t imagine trying to do something like this without a partner like Goodwill.” (Gidget)

Eventually the board agreed with Gidget’s assessment and voted to go forward with the partnership with Goodwill and opening two retail stores in the Rochester community.   Gidget acknowledged how tough this process was, and the importance of the trust the board had in her, as she recalled:

“… getting over the (board’s) cynicism was tough…in many ways. Over the years my board has gone along with me I think because of the trust that has been built up … I think that’s been very, very important, having that trust, and having those relationships.”  (Gidget)

Implementing and monitoring the initiative

Once board approval was secured, Gidget started her first two Goodwill stores in the Rochester Area, and in 1994 ABVI became ABVI-Goodwill.

Yet the battle wasn’t over.  While the stores were successful in enabling ABVI to employ more blind and visually impaired individuals, during the next seven years the stores lost a total of $700,000.  This led the board several times to question whether they should continue with this initiative.  Yet Gidget still believed in the great potential of this initiative, and she did not want to give up on it.  This created a lot of tension and doubt in the board. As a board member recalled:

“…  I was on the board when we became part of Goodwill, and the Goodwill piece was not very successful for a lot of years … and the board would periodically, usually annually, if not more often, come back to Gidget and say: we’re not making money, are you sure this is the right thing to do. … she’d bring in consultants, or she’d bring in Goodwill … and she would not give up with her vision that this was going to be a revenue stream for ABVI and not only a revenue stream but a way to be able to get the blind and visually impaired jobs … she never gave up on that project and I tell you there are probably times when it would have been easier for her to say: ‘you know what, maybe you’re right’.  She knew it was going to be successful.” (ABVI board member)

Gidget called consultants from Goodwill several times, before they finally figured out that the problem had to do with project manager:

“…so we lost $700K before we started making a penny… I was getting frustrated … I had Goodwill up here a million times, we brought experts, what are we doing wrong?  Well, eleven years later and tons smarter, I know what I did wrong, and I did it wrong two more times… I had the wrong person [as] the manager.” (Gidget)

Finally, as she secured the right manager, the situation started turning around for the stores in the 8th year – and after that, the stores’ success continued.  This experience made Gidget aware of how critical it is to have the right project leader in charge – a lesson she would not forget in later initiatives.

Ensuring long-term sustainability and/or bigger impact

After this difficult start, the association with Goodwill and good management of the stores led to continuous success. In 2005, 11 years after the start, there were four ABVI-Goodwill stores, bringing in a surplus of $500,000 a year.

So Gidget continued to gradually expand the number of stores and operations, building on that success.  By the time Gidget retired as ABVI CEO, the organization had established 12 Goodwill Stores, several stand-alone donation centers, a clearance center, and a large warehouse.

  5.1.5. Gidget’s innovation #3: Starting a Call Center

How the idea came about and was evaluated/refined

As Gidget continued to be concerned about the future of manufacturing, she began again to proactively search for potential services that persons who are blind or visually impaired could be trained to do.

The idea to start a call center within ABVI once again was the result of one of her visits to other organizations, which included a call center in Virginia.

“…I saw blind people answering the phones and I thought, wow, that’s really neat, because the technology today allows that to happen…so I started looking  into it…” (Gidget)

Even though this was a new area for ABVI, and she knew they did not have sufficient capacity in house, Gidget felt confident that they could handle such a situation.  Since this new opportunity fit so well with her vision, deciding to take on this new initiative seemed a “no brainer”. Indeed, Gidget’s description of the development of this initiative seemed almost “matter-of-fact”.

Planning and gathering the needed resources

While once again Gidget and hre organization were entering a field in which she had no background, after her previous experiences starting new business lines within ABVI she now knew how to go about such a situation. She chose to rely right away on expert consultants for the planning and start-up, and also immediately hired the right person as project manager.

“…the first thing I did was …to hire a call center specialist…so we hired someone who had been working in call centers for 15 years … We put together a business advisory committee of people who own and run call centers.” (Gidget)

“…here’s an example of doing it right versus doing it wrong. My call center person, I had right from the get-go … retail (Goodwill stores) I had it wrong over and over again.” (Gidget)

She also managed to secure a grant to cover some of the equipment start-up costs.

Implementing and monitoring the initiative

For the Call Center, Gidget also chose to start small and grow gradually – first by just offering a training program, then adding just a few small contracts as a means for the “trainees” to get some “real” practice:

“[We] decided on a strategy…what we would start on doing is … training people who are blind, put together a curriculum in customer service and then place them in the community. And we did that.  But, it would make our training a lot more effective if we had a small contract that they could work on in the training, so we were able to secure a small contract with XY Office Products.  …we were able to get our trainees to carry [this contract] out and get some experience and we learned a lot about a call center and what the customer was looking for. So we really took small baby steps…”  (Gidget)

With the establishment of a call center knowledge-base and service capacity, Gidget was then ready to go after a much larger contract.

“… a breakthrough happened when National Industries For The Blind was looking for a customer service delivery system and they were going to go commercial, and I said ‘well, wait a second, don’t you want to give us a try?’ …we’re trying to build jobs for people who are blind…”  (Gidget)

ABVI won the national contract with the National Industries For The Blind and would later get an Environmental Protection agency (EPA) contract for the National Lead Information Center.

Ensuring long-term sustainability and/or bigger impact

In 2005 there were 22 blind and visually impaired employees in the call center, representing a 100% increase from the previous year. The center’s inbound services were providing assistance to an estimated 31,000 requests and inquiries per month for national and state organizations.

At around this point, when an unexpected opportunity to take on a big contract for 2-1-1 presented itself, Gidget convinced her board to grab it, even if it required setting up a different structure for their call center:

“Well, Gidget just happened to be talking to the gentlemen at DePaul [the organization managing the 2-1-1 service at the time] and he had mentioned that it really didn’t fit their mission very well any longer …  Well you know,  Gidget came to the three of us and said: ‘how about we take over 2-1-1?’  … that was just something we just never thought …to tackle, that didn’t really seem to fit our mission [as] it wasn’t necessarily blind related, but when you finally boiled it all down, it had a potential to create a lot of jobs for the blind and visually impaired people…”  (ABVI board member)

The call center eventually grew into two enterprises – one that provided information and referral services along with crisis services (2-1-1) and became a nationally recognized crisis (suicide prevention) hotline, and the other a business enterprise that provided contact center services (calls, texts, live chats, etc.) for other businesses.  By 2020, when Gidget retired as CEO, the call center employed over 100 individuals.

Gidget considered the call center one of her greatest successes, as it also increased ABVI visibility and drew public attention on to what blind and visually impaired people can do:

“we’ve done such a great job  (with the call center) that it’s almost like we have contracts coming out of our ears…the Commissioner of Civil Service (New York State) wants to do a press conference in Albany and he wants us to bring an employee from the call center.… is the kind of thing that has so much appeal…when you bring people in for tours …they are so impressed and it helps to show off what the people’s capabilities are…it’s exciting.”  (Gidget)

  5.1.6. Gidget’s innovation #4: Changing the CEO’s own leadership style and practices

Bringing these creative innovations to ABVI and assuring their success and sustainability required changes in ABVI’s organizational structure and culture, as well as Gidget’s leadership style.  This happened overtime, in a number of gradual steps.

Early on, Gidget realized that the board structure had to change.

“…15 years ago…our board was very different from the one it is today. It was more hands-on than it is today and not necessarily in a healthy way, and that was something that I inherited and I had to deal with…” (Gidget)

One of Gidget’s collaborators, concurs with Gidget’s observations:

“… the board was the kind of not-for-profit board which you see in many small agencies, where the board wants to know not only how much you are spending but who you are buying it from…Gidget realized…that this was not going to work for the agency…She and I, with a few other board members, started talking to the other board members at an off-site retreat where we realized that we needed to change into more of a corporate board model.” (ABVI board member)

The board restructured itself to fit the changing needs of the organization and to strategically partner with their innovative CEO.  It also took on more “entrepreneurial practices” such as reducing the number of committees to only two key ones:

“…we’ve even redesigned our board to function entrepreneurially. It used to be that years ago we would have like 12 committees … [now] we have an assessment committee and a planning committee. The planning and resources committee does the strategic plan, they look at business plans, they look at all new initiatives going forward. The assessment committee looks at … how are you doing on that strategic plan and they do all the assessments. … So we … have those two committees … it’s very focused on what we’re trying to achieve here and the entrepreneurial aspects”. (Gidget)

 Furthermore, in the effort to continually develop the board’s capacity, Gidget proactively organized board development sessions at each board meeting. For example, she reported on the following on-going practice she has established:

“…I select key…individuals within the organization, usually…middle level managers, to come to the board, so they get face time, and they educate them, about the low-vision center, about the call center; and they talk to them about it in two ways, the double bottom line: why it’s important to the mission, and why it’s important to the margin… and so the board begins to get a sense and an understanding of what we have and wbat we do… My assessment …we’ve redesigned the board to function entrepreneurially.” (Gidget)

Promoting and participating in the organization’s culture-change process began to raise leadership questions for Gidget, who then decided to work with an executive coach.  This, in turn, led her to reconceive her role and practices as CEO of the organization.

How the idea came about and was evaluated/refined

As she started to work with the executive coach, Gidget participated in a 360 Degree Assessment that involved her executive coach interviewing key staff regarding Gidget’s leadership style and its impact on them. Although Gidget was not surprised by much of the feedback she received about her leadership style, she was not prepared for the depth of its negative impact on the lives of her employees.

“Sometimes you don’t realize when you’re stuck and I was stuck…I was stuck because of who I was…I was always ready to move the organization quantum leaps, but I always felt like somebody was dragging me back.” (Gidget)

 Gidget seriously considered at this point if it was time for her to leave the organization and move on.

“Once I was made aware of some of the things that I was doing that were impacting my employees, then I had a choice to make. The choice was, what am I going to do with all this information, and what I said was, you know, this is too much work …you know, maybe it’s just time to go”. (Gidget)

 Instead of leaving, though, Gidget chose to turn this into an opportunity for growth for her and the other people in the organization.  So, she decided to take steps to improve her leadership style even if she realized that she was taking a great personal risk embarking in such as initiative.

Planning and gathering the needed resources

Pursuing this initiative would not require funding, but rather significant time and good will on the part of herself, her staff and her board. So not only did Gidget need to decide whether she was personally willing and ready to undertake this process, but also had to ensure her staff’s and board’s collaboration.

The planning of this initiative was inseparable from the implementation itself.  Her executive coach played an important part in it.

Implementing and monitoring the initiative

As a way to get started, at the recommendation of her executive coach, Gidget decided to give a copy of her 360 report to all of her direct reports and to meet with each of them to discuss its contents.

“I gave everybody who worked for me a copy of my 360 [report] …I had to encourage them to read it, and then to talk about what I do that keeps them from being effective…” (Gidget)

This approach did more than getting the change process started, as it was critical to build the trust and awareness needed to successfully undertake the changes identified as needed.

“Once I started having that conversation with people, the trust and atmosphere really improved, and once that happened, I was able to begin to have honest conversations with people and start holding them accountable for what they were doing. Needless to say, we had a lot of people that left the organization, but I stayed!”  (Gidget)

The result of these conversations and her work with the executive coach led Godget to new insights about herself and the people she was working with, which in turn led her to try to make some specific changes in her behavior as well as in her relationships with key members of her team.  Paying attention to how her style and personality affected the work lives of her direct reports was a major insight for Gidget.

“…I know that my style can be very scary to some people who need to be more thoughtful and planful…because my tendency would be to think that there’s something wrong with you because you can’t react as fast as I need you to react …I’ve learned that in order for me to be effective here in this organization with the people I had, I had to be aware of how my style and my ideas and my wanting to just do 10 million things at once were impacting people.” (Gidget)

This experience had a profound effect on Gidget both personally and professionally.

“…I was being transformational in some ways …I mean I was communicating vision, I was true to my own values and I was a good role model…but there were a lot of things I wasn’t doing and that was what was happening,… because of how other people were being impacted by my behavior I was getting myself frustrated … changing those behaviors was what leadership was all about…..leadership isn’t running the organization and doing the budget and solving problems…that’s not leadership. Leadership is impacting other people, and how you impact other people and how you help them to perform to their ability to self-actualize their own goals…that was a transformational learning experience for me and that’s when I really wanted to start learning about leadership.” (Gidget)

Soon after that experience, Gidget entered the Executive Leadership Doctoral Program at George Washington University and completed that program in 2005.  Since then, Gidget incorporated executive coach opportunities in the development programs for her leadership team.

  5.1.7. Updates to Gidget’s story

While the data collection component of our research study ended in 2007, Gidget’s transformational leadership of ABVI continued until her retirement in June 2020.

Soon after our study was completed, Gidget led ABVI into a strategic planning process that led to a new mission statement – from, “To assist people who are  blind or visually impaired to achieve their highest level of independence in all aspects of their lives” to “To prepare and empower people who are blind or visually impaired to be self-sufficient and contribute to their families and communities” – which reflected the new directions the organization had been going under her leadership.  The organization continued to grow and change significantly, expanding the businesses, adding new products and services, serving new populations, and moving into new communities, reaching $50M in revenue with over 700 employees in 2020.

Later ABVI became officially known as Goodwill of the Finger Lakes.  While this in and of itself posed new challenges for their brand identity (having been known by most of the community as ABVI), the board and Gidget felt it was very important to expand their mission beyond people who are blind and apply their successful employment and development programs to other populations.

For the last seven years of her career, Gidget also worked passionately to bring to Rochester an Excel Center, a high school for adults who have not completed their education. The Excel Center is a project of Goodwill’s that currently operates in 6 states (soon to be 8) and offers a full academic curriculum leading to a regular high school diploma, not an equivalency.  While Gidget was not able to reach this goal by the time she retired, her organization was committed at that point to continue to pursue this critical initiative.

In August 2020, Gidget’s outstanding achievements were recognized with the National Industries for the Blind’s (NIB) highest honor, the R.B. Irwin Award.  A few months later, Gidget also learned that her organization was recognized by MacKenzie Scott with a $10M gift; in Gidget’s own word “I could not have asked for a better retirement present!”.

5.2. Analysis of Gidget’s entrepreneurial activity 

  5.2.1. Gidget’s practices about vision

As her story illustrated, Gidget’s entire career was informed by her vision of empowering individuals with disabilities to enhance their quality of life, independence and contributions to society.  This vision is what motivated most of her actions. It was also the lens she used when “scanning the environment” to identify new opportunities for her organization and deciding whether or not to embark in a major initiative – as discussed in more detailed in the next section, where we examine how she dealt with opportunities.

At the same time, the enactment (and even articulation and operationalization) of this vision was a more dynamic phenomenon, always growing, always on the cusp of transforming.  This is especially evident in her efforts at revising ABVI’s mission statement, as the 2007 mission statement made explicit that the organization strived not to assist but rather empower people who are blind and visually impaired, and furthermore set as goals for the population they served not just reaching independence but rather self sufficiency and effective contributions to their families and communities.

It is also interesting to note that her vision for independence and self-sustainability extended to the organization itself, as overtime she strived to develop “business lines” within ABVI that provided not only meaningful employment for individuals who are blind or visually impaired, but also the revenues that the organization needed to offer services without depending too much on the vagaries of external funding.

Sharing her vision of empowering individuals with disabilities to enhance their quality of life, independence and contributions, and gaining buy-in from the various stakeholders involved in each of her initiatives, were among Gidget’s explicit objectives.  As mentioned in the introduction and demonstrated throughout her story, at the core of Gidget’s practice as ABVI’s CEO was educating her staff, board members, partners, and even her clients, about the potential of individuals with disabilities – what they can do (rather than what they cannot do) and what they can contribute to society.  Gidget’s approach to sharing her vision and getting buy in for change was rooted in her belief in the “educational process” and the personal and professional development of others. And she went about this educating very purposefully and strategically.

Internally, she created structures and expectations about “learning” for both her staff and her board that provided a space to keep ABVI’s mission very visible and to examine its implications, including developing an entrepreneurial culture in the organization:

“The entrepreneurial culture, I think, also comes from the fact that I get in front of all my employees at least twice a year.  I like to have face-to-face town meetings… it gives me an opportunity to speak personally about my vision for the organization and to talk to them about, you know, the role that ABVI plays.” (Gidget)

She also created branches of the organization – such as the community education and outreach division of ABVI’s Vision Rehabilitation Services – that proactively worked at disseminating a different image of people with disabilities to the public, while also taking advantage of any opportunity to convey such a message.

Gidget’s success in communicating her vision and getting buy-in, especially in difficult and controversial situations such as the decision to affiliate with Goodwill, were very much rooted in the trust she was able to develop overtime with all of her constituencies.

“In many ways over the years my board has gone along with me, I think, because of the trust that has been built up…” (Gidget)

This is confirmed by the following observation by one of her board members:

“…I think persuasiveness is a skill [Gidget has], but that has to be coming from a relationship where there’s been trust and confidence build up over time…” (ABVI board member)

This trust was built over her years as CEO through a combination of proven successes (that built confidence in her ability to make the right decisions), the credibility and confidence she exuded because of “living” her values and beliefs, the personal relationships she created with everyone on her staff and her board, and a willingness to be vulnerable with colleagues and superiors.

“…Gidget is an incredibly passionate person, and when she is committed to doing something, she is committed to doing something… and it is pretty obvious what her passion is related to that project or that event … or whatever it is .  She doesn’t do anything kind of just half-way… she doesn’t do anything just for the sake of doing it, she does it because she absolutely believes it’s the right thing, and she believes in the product, or believes in the way that she wants to get something accomplished…” (ABVI board member)

  5.2.2. Gidget’s practices about opportunities

Gidget was always on the look-out for new opportunities for her organization and the clients it serves. As observed by a board member:

“…I can’t even tell you how many times she came up with opportunities for us for ABVI to be able to either find employment, create jobs or find revenue for the organization, and sometimes they were out there.” (ABVI Board member)

To find these new opportunities, Gidget was constantly scanning the environment for innovative ideas that could open up new possibilities to better serve her clients, as she herself articulated explicitly several times during our interviews:

“…have your antenna up and you’re out there scanning the environment for what’s going on and always being alert to opportunities and then taking advantage of those opportunities.” (Gidget)

“What am I doing, what behavior am I exhibiting that’s helping me to come up with these ideas or make these connections? … its almost entrepreneurial radar, it’s an ability to scan the environment and be receptive to what’s going on in the environment to a point where I’m always filtering it through this entrepreneurial lens: How can I incorporate that into my organization in a way that could create jobs, would build a mission, generate revenue, and advance relationships?” (Gidget)

“…what I do all the time is scan the environment, I use a metaphor of casting a big net, you know, you’re bound to catch some fish. So I try a lot of different things, I throw a lot of ideas out there, I look at a lot of different things…” (Gidget)

As we saw throughout Gidget’s story, this “scanning of the environment” translated, among other things, in the practice of going to conferences and visiting frequently other agencies that serve individuals with disabilities throughout the country, so she could identify what they did best and pick up new ideas that ABVI could replicate or adapt – as it was the case for both the Goodwill Stores and the Call Center initiatives.

“…I’m always out there … for example, we have conferences.  Our conferences are often hosted by agencies in those communities, so we always get a tour of the facility when we’re in that area.  Or if I’m traveling for something else, I always visit a colleague, you know, I’m always out there visiting Good Wills and other agencies for the blind…” (Gidget)

“…for example, not too long ago, I visited the … Toledo Agency for the Blind and they had a great children’s program, and I brought a lot of ideas back.  … there’s not much that’s original about me, I mean, I steal everybody else’s ideas and make them our own. But that’s usually where I get my ideas is from – other places.” (Gidget)

Another practice Gidget used successfully to identify new opportunities was networking and talking with partners or customers about the products and services they provided, again “keeping her antennas up”.  This is how, for example, she was able to identify the opportunity to take on the 2-1-1 service for their Call Canter when the agency originally offering that service decided to stop doing it (as reported earlier in the story).

Gidget also believed that the continued success of her organization required every employee to be able to recognize and create opportunities:

“…bringing them to the table so that you really have just an idea factory going on all…” (Gidget)

“You know, you can’t always anticipate everything that’s going to happen, but you can position yourself to take advantage of opportunities and the only way you can position yourself to take advantage of opportunities is if you have a culture of entrepreneurialism … I can’t be the only one that’s thinking about this stuff’…” (Gidget)

Gidget was also always looking proactively for opportunities to leverage the authority and power of federal laws that support individuals with disabilities – especially the JWOD Act – as a way to capitalize on her organization’s unique competitive advantage:

“…well again the law – the Javits-Wagner-O’Day Law – also applies to services, so we’re always scouring the Commerce Business Daily and the Federal Register and other, you know, government communications to find what … contracts are going out for bid … [so] we can sort of like short circuit it and say, ‘time out we want to look at this under JWO’D’ …” (Gidget)

 Oftentimes, Gidget interpreted something that other people perceived as a problem or an obstacle as an opportunity.  A notable example is her reaction to the surprising results of the 360 evaluation she undertook, which she used as the catalyst for rethinking her own role as CEO and the role of other people in leadership positions within her organization.

Not all her innovations, though, were necessarily generated by recognizing and pursuing an opportunity.  For example, she went about the process of transforming the ABVI board as a result of a careful analysis of what the organization needed, rather than in response to a particular event.

Gidget was well aware that she could find more opportunities than ABVI could reasonably take on, and therefore it was important for her – and her board – to carefully evaluate which of the opportunities she uncovered should be pursued. Considerations about the mission of ABVI has always been central to the decision-making process of what ideas and opportunities should be followed.

Overtime, Gidget and her board learned to ask themselves a set of key questions as they evaluated a specific opportunity, especially when it might lead to undertaking a major initiative:

“We have a filter that we always look through, our criteria to see if something is going to fit, and that includes first and foremost, how does this fit with the mission?  Can it create jobs for people who are blind or visually impaired?  Do we have the resources?  How does it integrate with the other things that we’re doing?  Does it have the potential to generate revenue? … where does it fit on the priority list?  We have so many things going on right now, if this is going to be something that’s really going to take us away from other things, you know, is it something we can really do right now, even though it might be the greatest idea in the world…”  (Gidget)

Although Gidget’s list of questions included one about resources, Gidget seemed to have the confidence to pursue an idea she thought worthwhile even if she did not have all the solutions and/or resources in hand – as she herself articulated when telling us about the post-it notes initiative:

“Can blind people operate guillotine cutters?  Sure, you know…  I’m the kind of person that says yes first and then figures out how to do it later, and it’s been great…” (Gidget)

Gidget was also very clear that the main criteria for deciding whether or not to take on a new venture should not be purely financial considerations, but rather whether the new venture would enable you to better achieve your vision and the mission of the organization:

“First and foremost we wouldn’t do it if it didn’t help us promote the mission … if I can’t justify an entrepreneurial venture in terms of the mission, then we’re not going to do it.” (Gidget)

Researching the idea has been an important part of the process of evaluating an opportunity, and something Gidget engaged in constantly and very spontaneously:

“Usually, these things start with me just doing my own research and calling around and talking to people and finding things out and then once I sort of feel like ‘yeah this sounds [good]’ … then I broaden it to my senior leadership team and start talking to them…” (Gidget)

“When you latch on to an entrepreneurial idea, at least I do, all of a sudden you see it all over the place … you’re seeing articles in the newspaper, people are talking about it.  When your receptors go up, all of a sudden you start to notice … so I start collecting things and put things in a file and I broaden my knowledge about a topic by just being aware and studying what’s out there and putting it all together; so that when it comes time to decide whether we’re going to do something or not, it’s a very educated informed decision…” (Gidget)

Gidget also used her board proactively for feedback about her ideas and as a “check” against her tendency to possibly take on too much. She genuinely asked them to challenge, in a constructive way, her proposals, so that together they could come up with the best initiatives for the organization:

“I tell [my board] this all the time: when I bring an idea to the board, I always think it’s already a good idea, because that’s why I’m bringing it to you, right, I mean I’ve done the thinking about it  … so now it’s your job to throw arrows, and if I can’t deflect the arrows, then maybe we got to rethink it. I use that strategy all the time, because I have a healthy ego…” (Gidget)

  5.2.3. Gidget’s practices about risk

As demonstrated throughout her story, Gidget did not hesitate taking on considerable risks when embarking in what she considered a worthwhile initiative – whether the risks were financial (as in the case of the Post-it Notes and Goodwill initiatives) or personal/reputational (as when she embarked in internal changes).  Indeed, one may say that she had an “appetite for risk” and enjoyed the challenges involved when taking on new initiatives.  Cognizant of this tendency, she often used her board to check on and balance it, as mentioned in the previous section.

Although not explicitly stated, the decisions made in all her major initiatives suggest that Gidget gave greater weight to “missing the boat” rather than “sinking the boat” risks (Brown & Cornwall, 2000).  For example, while well-aware of the risks involved in the Post-it and Goodwill initiatives, she thought that the potential benefits for blind and visually impaired individuals that could derive from those initiatives outweighed the negative consequences of undertaking the initiative and failing.

Although we could not identify the use of specific strategies to evaluate and manage risk, this does not mean that Gidget ignored considerations of risk altogether.   For example, she tried to minimize the risk of a new business line but starting small and then growing it (as illustrated by starting with two Goodwill stores and then opening new ones only after the first ones were successful, as well as beginning the Call Center as a training operation only).  Her drive to diversify ABVI’s job-creation opportunities beyond manufacturing was also motivates by the desire to minimize the organization’s risk by engaging in different kinds of enterprises.

Gidget was also not afraid to make mistakes and deal with their consequences.

  5.2.4. Gidget’s practices about resources

Gidget clearly understood and maintained a firm grasp on the finances of her organization.  One of the main drivers behind the Post-it, Goodwill and Call Center initiatives was the realization of the uncertainty and vulnerability that a not-for-profit organization experiences whenever it is dependent on gifts and government funding for their operations – what has been referred to as “resource dependence” in the literature (e.g., Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978).

“…getting that cash infusion was a really big help and has enabled our organization to stay fairly self-sufficient …for all of my tenure here without dependency on federal government or local government subsidies…” (Gidget)

The importance for ABVI to reach greater financial independence from government and philanthropic funding, and Gidget’s role in achieving this goal, was also recognized by one of her board members:

“She was always out there …  thinking of ways for our organization to be able to be independent, because it was less and less that we were getting from the government …  You know, we have a pretty incredible endowment and part of the reason we have that endowment is because of Gidget, that we’re able to … be self-sufficient, supportive internally…” (ABVI Board member)

At the same time, the recognition that mission considerations had to be given priority over purely fiscal considerations was evident in the following comments about her board meetings:

“…I was noticing that our board meetings were focusing way too much on finances and I went through the minutes of 6 months and I highlighted where we were talking about finances in yellow, and I highlighted where we talked about mission in another color and the yellow had it all over and it prompted me to show this to the board and we had this conversation … is the mission the foundation or is the margins the foundation.” (Gidget)

“…they look at what we call mission measures … Have we served more people this year than we served the year before?  How have we done in our outreach to other people with other backgrounds other than Caucasians?  How have we done in terms of wages, are our wages increasing for people who are blind?” (Gidget)

As mentioned earlier, Gidget also shared the mindset common to many entrepreneurs insofar as current resources did not stop her from pursuing what she thought was a valuable opportunity. She could be very creative and open about how to find the resources she needed and especially looked at new partnerships as a way to secure resources she did not have in house (as well illustrated in the Post-it and Goodwill initiatives).  Gidget also capitalized on grant opportunities whenever available, especially for securing start-up funds, as illustrated in the Call Center initiative:

“…I was able to get a grant to get the money to start with the equipment…” (Gidget)

With respect to human resources, as a result of her experience in the Goodwill initiative, Gidget was very aware of the key role played by project managers for any new initiative.  Therefore, she paid careful attention about selecting the right person for that position.

Gidget held a self-actualization perspective when thinking about hiring and retaining employees, as well as finding board members:

“People, after their basic needs are met, they want that higher level of self-actualization that helps them to realize their own intrinsic values, and so I always try to [offer that] … that’s how you keep employees.” (Gidget)

In addition to paying attention to hiring the “right” employee and appointing the “right” board member, Gidget also recognized the importance of continuing professional development so that people in her organization could “grow.”  This was why she decided to devote a portion of each board meeting to learning more about the organization or other relevant issues.

“Each meeting we do a deep dive into a particular program that we have here, so it’s not just a 10-minute presentation on the program, but what’s the history, can we look at the 10-year history, how many people have we served, how is it done financially…”  (Gidget)

As mentioned earlier, Gidget also believed in partnerships as win-win situations, and thus constantly sought them as a way to secure expertise her organization might not have, especially when starting a new venture.

  5.2.5. Gidget’s practices about growth

Although “growing” ABVI was not an explicit goal of Gidget’s, her organization did grow tremendously under her leadership, in terms of services and job opportunities offered to its clients, the number of its staff members, and its overall budget.  This growth was a natural outcome of Gidget’s drive to pursue new opportunities as a means to achieve her goal of empowering more and more people with disabilities, as she explicitly expressed when talking about her long-term vision for the Goodwill stores:

“…our goal is to expand into lots of other communities because we have a huge territory for Goodwill, and the idea there is that each of our Goodwill stores going up in the other communities are going to have a community center within the store, and that community center will be a good size room that we’ll be able to make available to organizations in that community, but also for us to have a presence and to provide services in that community.” (Gidget)

Thus, it looks like for Gidget, growth was never for growth’s sake, but rather the inevitable results of trying to impact as many individuals with disabilities as possible. For example, more products or Goodwill stores meant more jobs for people who were blind and visually impaired, as well as more services ABVI could provide to support them.

Gidget knew from personal experience that organizational change is a necessary outcome of growth, and as such she viewed planning for and dealing with growth as a strategic partnering between her and the board.

  5.2.6. Other interesting elements of Gidget’s case

An illustration of intrapreneurship in action

As illustrated by her story, over time Gidget undertook many new ventures within her organization – what is considered the hallmark of an intrapreneur.  She also explicitly worked at developing a more entrepreneurial culture across the entire organization, and she was willing in the process to question and change even her own role and practices as CEO.

Not surprisingly, the organizational culture and structure of ABVI at the time of our study seemed to reflect all the characteristics and values identified in the literature as factors enabling entrepreneurial behavior, as summarized earlier in Figure 2.4.

Knowing when to stop or stick to an innovation that “struggles”

The Goodwill initiative is a good illustration of one of the most difficult dilemmas facing entrepreneurial educators: how to decide if and when to stop an innovation that is not performing as expected.  This is never an easy decision because, on one hand, not all innovations are always successful and due to limited resources it is important to “cut one’s losses” early enough when something does not turn out right; indeed, the literature on business entrepreneurship warns us that one of the most common mistakes made by entrepreneurs is to get too enamored with an idea and blind to what the market is telling them about its appeal and value (e.g., Timmons & Spinelli, 2007).  On the other hand, as illustrated by the Goodwill example, there are times when it is important to give an innovation sufficient time to “work out the kinks”, and even to allow the field sufficient time to come to appreciate its potential value – the more so when dealing with radical innovations that may be “ahead of their time”.

Ultimately, this decision requires the personal judgment of the person in charge (in this case, Gidget, as ABVI’s CEO), as it will depend on that person’s values and vision how much risk s/he is willing to take in waiting for the situation to turn.  While data (such as in this case sales, revenues, profits, number of jobs created, etc.) are important, this information may not be sufficient by itself.  One may wonder, for example, how Gidget was able to stick to the Goodwill initiative for seven years while losing an average of $100,000 a year.  Part of the answer is that, while financially a losing proposition, the Goodwill stores were creating many job opportunities for blind and visually impaired people – one of the metrics used to measure ABVI’s success.

The ability to be entrepreneurial in many different contexts

While the organizational systems and culture Gidget worked towards at ABVI may have enhanced Gidget’s capacity to engage in entrepreneurial behaviors, it is important to recognize that Gidget’s behavior was entrepreneurial regardless of the environment she operated in, as she herself explicitly recognized when looking back at the early stages of her career:

“…even in the bureaucratic environment I was always looking for ways to be entrepreneurial and I was always pushing the envelope…” (Gidget)

  5.2.7. Concluding thoughts about Gidget’s case

 There is no question that Gidget’s creative leadership added considerable value to ABVI and the clients it served, as illustrated by the number and quality of the services offered by the organization, the number of jobs provided each year to people with disabilities, and a budget increase from $7 million when Gidget became CEO in 1986 to $50 million when she retired in 2020.  All these measures, in turn, are a reflection of the increased scope of her organization’s mission and visibility, both locally and nationally.  Each of the many new innovations Gidget undertook contributed in some manner to this overall success.

Even just looking at the initiatives reported in this chapter (which were a small subset of what Gidget undertook over her long tenure as CEO) allows us to appreciate the great variety of enterprises that Gidget engaged in – all of which were valuable in their own right.  First of all, we want to mention her for-profit ventures (like the Post-it, Goodwill and Call Center initiatives), which are quite unusual for a non-profit organization to consider, yet were critical to enable ABVI to pursue its mission, both through the job opportunities they created for the people they served and the funding they provided for expanding their services.  Even if we did not spend much time on these in our story, it is also important to note that Gidget was instrumental in the development of new services and education opportunities offered by ABVI – as illustrated when Gidget talked about having observed some interesting services for children in one of her trips, and soon after instituting similar services at ABVI.   Equally important to adding new business lines and services, though, were the innovations that Gidget initiated internally to ABVI.  These had more to do with changing structures and expectations than starting new initiatives, as for example she restructured the board and reconceived of her role as CEO and that of the members of her leadership team.

Among the many lessons learned from this case study we would like to highlight the following ones.  First, it is interesting to note that, as Gidget engaged in her for-profit ventures, pursuing the mission of the organization and strengthening the organization financially did not cause conflict but rather synergy. Through these ventures she was able to both generate new revenues and provide job opportunities for more blind and visually impaired people, thus empowering them to be self-sufficient and contribute to their families and communities (one of the key goals of ABVI).   The new revenues generated by the for-profit business lines, in turn, not only provided the funds to offer services that ABVI could not otherwise have been able to afford, but perhaps even more importantly made the organization more “self-sufficient” and less dependent from government funding and philanthropy.

Gidget’s achievements also remind us that education and learning can take place in many places besides schools and colleges.  ABVI indeed offered many educational services, not only to its clients through training and children’s programs, but also to the public through its many outreach programs intended to spread awareness of what blind and visually impaired people can do and the contributions they can provide to society.  And Gidget also felt that people in her organization – staff and board members alike – needed to develop expectations, and be provided opportunities for, continuous learning and professional development in order to pursue ABVI’s mission to the best of their abilities.

5.3. Commentaries on Gidget’s case