Does Goodwill hire people with felonies?

What Goodwill has said

Goodwill is a network, not a single employer. Goodwill Industries International (GII) says it coordinates more than 150 independent, community-based Goodwill organizations in the US and Canada, which run more than 3,300 stores and design their own programs. GII has run job-training work for people with records, including a Department of Labor-funded Goodwill Adult Reentry Project in five cities. GII does not publish a network-wide hiring, background check or drug testing policy, so practices depend on the local Goodwill.

• Hiring program

  GII describes the Goodwill Adult Reentry Project, funded mainly by a $4.5 million U.S. Department of Labor grant with local Goodwills covering the rest, offering job training, apprenticeships, pre-apprenticeships and support services to adults returning from incarceration or with criminal records in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Roanoke, Tucson and St. Paul/Minneapolis. The page's latest data point is June 30, 2018, so the project may have ended.¹

• How its network is organized

  GII describes Goodwill as a network of more than 150 independent, community-based organizations in the US and Canada, each of which designs its own programs and runs its own stores.²

Does Goodwill do background checks?

Goodwill hasn't said publicly whether it runs background checks. GII does not publish a background check policy for the network. Each local Goodwill is an independent organization, so ask the local Goodwill about its screening.²

• How long a background check takes

Does Goodwill drug test?

Goodwill hasn't published a drug testing policy. Some job postings say whether a test is required, so check the listing for the role you want.

Hiring programs

• Goodwill Adult Reentry Project

  GII-operated job training for adults returning from incarceration or with records, delivered with local Goodwills in five metro areas and funded largely by the U.S. Department of Labor. It trained people for jobs with local employers; it was not a Goodwill hiring policy. The newest figures on GII's page are from June 30, 2018, and current status isn't stated.¹

Rules for specific jobs

• Store, donation center and program jobs at a local Goodwill

  These jobs are with the local Goodwill organization, which GII describes as independent and community-based. Hiring and screening practices can differ from one local Goodwill to the next.²

Your rights, and how far back a check can go

• Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), an employer must get your written permission before it gets a background report about you from a background screening company.^3,4,5
• Before an employer decides not to hire, keep, or promote you because of something in a background report, it must give you a copy of the report and a document called "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act."^3,4
• You have the right to dispute inaccurate or incomplete information in your background report directly with the company that made it.^3,6
• The FCRA's seven-year limit does not apply to criminal convictions, so under federal law a conviction can show up on a background report no matter how old it is.^7,8
• Under the FCRA, background and credit reports generally cannot include arrest records, civil lawsuits, or civil judgments that are more than seven years old (or older than the statute of limitations, if that is longer).^7,9

Your full background check rights

Before you apply

• You can ask a background screening company for the information it has on you, and the CFPB keeps a list of consumer reporting companies, including employment screening companies, with their contact details.^3,6,10
• According to the Clean Slate Initiative, 14 states and Washington, D.C. have passed Clean Slate laws that meet its criteria for automatically clearing eligible records: Pennsylvania, Utah, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, Delaware, Virginia, California, Oklahoma, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Illinois, and Missouri, plus D.C.¹¹
• The Federal Bonding Program, run by the U.S. Department of Labor, lets states give employers free fidelity bonds that protect them against losses from a newly hired worker's dishonest acts, for job seekers with past justice involvement or in recovery from substance use.^12,13

See whether you can clear your record in your state