Goodwill of Silicon Valley

The challenge

Goodwill of Silicon Valley (GWSV) empowers people through job training, placement services and self-sufficiency programs. Before 2021, it had little usable donor data: thousands of people donated goods at its 17 retail locations and 4 express donation centers, but there was no systematic way to capture their contact details, which made targeted outreach difficult.

Its digital presence also had room to grow:

• A website that took 4.2 seconds to load
• Paper-based receipts that took up to 48 hours to process, with 15% of earlier digital receipts flagged as spam
• Untapped potential in organic search, email marketing, e-commerce and local search

What we did

Since March 2021, we have led a broad digital program for GWSV.

Digital donation receipts

We digitized the donation receipt process so donors can choose a digital receipt and share their contact details quickly at the point of donation. Information flows automatically into a central database, with no manual entry, and we resolved the spam issues that had affected earlier digital receipts.

Website performance

We cut page load time from 4.2 to 1.8 seconds, improved mobile responsiveness, and made navigation more intuitive.

SEO and content

• Keyword optimization around donations, thrift shopping and job training
• A blog of SEO-optimized, AI-assisted articles built from keyword research, with ongoing tuning based on click-through rates, bounce rates and time on page
• Backlinks from more than 50 reputable websites
• Google Business Profile optimization and review management for local search

Email marketing

With the growing donor database, we segmented audiences by donation behavior, set up automated post-donation thank-you emails and expanded the newsletter.

E-commerce and program microsites

We improved ShopGoodwill product listing strategies and simplified checkout. We also built dedicated microsites for Career Technical Education, the Veterans Employment Program and donation drives, including a Resupply Inc. integration for donation pickups.