Goodwill, the 125-year-old nonprofit and beneficiary of the American thrift boom, uses its secondhand stores to fund career centers and job-training programs, and it’s moving quickly to prepare workers for a labor market in flux. Its Clean Tech Accelerator, a green-energy jobs program launched with Accenture in 2024 and since joined by partners like GM, offers paid training for entry-level roles in solar energy, EV charging, and other fast-growing fields in the clean-energy sector. The program is now running in nine U.S. cities, with plans to reach 15 by early next year. The strategy centers on “entry-level technician roles that have upward mobility,” says Chris Purington, strategic workforce initiatives lead. More than 500 graduates have completed the program to date, 20% of them justice-impacted. A recent partnership with Google will also train 200,000 people in AI skills, part of a broader push toward non-degree pathways into emerging industries. “What we’re focused on is not just getting people connected to the job that’s available to them today, but also giving them line of sight of jobs that are coming,” says chief mission officer Monique Baptiste. —Gabriela Riccardi