CAREER GEAR 

Organizational Vision
Citizen Base Strategy
Results

Organizational Vision

Founded in New York by Gary Field and David Woolard in January 1999, Career Gear provides free suits, shirts and accessories to men who are recent graduates of work training programs on their way to their first job interview. Many clients are recovering drug and alcohol addicts, homeless, or released from prison. Some are new immigrants. Putting on a good quality suit inspires these men with self-confidence, a key ingredient in succeeding at a job interview. Career Gear couples this temporary boost with long-term support that includes seminars in financial planning and time management, alumni mentoring, and parenting workshops, providing the skills for continued employment success.

All clothing and accessories are provided to Career Gear by in-kind donation. These come from three sources:

• Designers and manufacturers
• Retailers
• Corporate clothing drives and individuals

The CSO acquired these donations through a combination of good networking and good marketing.

Citizen Base Strategy

An essential element in selling the idea and connecting with potential donors was Gary Field’s two years experience and contacts at Dress for Success, an older, similar program that provides interview attire for women. The founder of Dress for Success, Nancy Lublin, encouraged Field to launch an organization for men. “Dress For Success laid the groundwork and made the introductions,” says Field. Lublin helped incubate a successful pilot program which demonstrated the feasibility of extending the Dress for Success model to men. Marketing was essential to the strategy from the very beginning, and Career Gear has been especially successful in attracting the attention of the press. The New York Times published two articles about Career Gear, one when it was first started and another following up one year later. The Wall Street Journal, Daily News, New York Observer, Vibe and Men’s Health have written about Career Gear. Career Gear allied with Esquire Magazine, which promoted the organization in print and lent it credibility among retailers and other firms in the fashion world.

Early donations of overstock merchandise from such prestigious boutiques as Calvin Klein and Brooks Brothers gave president Gary Field the legitimacy to approach corporations to organize suit drives. Once they saw major design houses and magazines allied with Career Gear, corporations began to help organize clothing drives at their offices. Career Gear leverages a trend toward “business casual” dress in many New York firms, which means many lawyers and bankers are discarding suits in perfectly good condition. Corporations, including American Express and Goldman Sachs, now supply the bulk of Career Gear’s inventory (which included, on a recent visit, a Ralph Lauren linen suit and Thomas Pink shirts). These drives are coordinated by individual lawyers, bankers, and other professionals volunteering their time.

Clients do not simply walk in to Career Gear’s 5000 square foot office, showroom and stockroom, a donated space across from Penn Station—they must be referred by a Career Gear partner program. Drug rehabilitation clinics, job training programs, and other social service organizations offer Career Gear four hours of their staff’s time per month in return for the right to refer an unlimited number of their graduates to be suited up by Career Gear. Clients must also have a job interview scheduled before they can receive their suits. While the clothing is provided free of charge, clients must pay for their own alterations. (Career Gear has teamed up with a local tailor to offer discount rates.) Spending their own money gives Career Gear clients a sense of personal investment in their new suit. They are also asked to return to Career Gear to volunteer for four hours per month. Of the 40 people currently volunteering their time to Career Gear, 10 are clients.

Career Gear has three major goals for the future:

1. To branch out and offer more comprehensive services, including job training and placement, and to expand its strategic alliances with partner organizations.
2. To expand to other cities across the country, using a franchise model. Career Gear will sell a kit to nonprofits across the country, describing how to start up a Career Gear chapter and entitling the purchaser to use the Career Gear name for a fee.
3. To launch a value-priced Career Gear clothing line in collaboration with a major manufacturer. The profits would pay for Career Gear's expanding programs.

Results

Field estimates that 50 percent to 60 percent of the 200 men suited in Career Gear’s first 18 months are currently working. According to The New York State Department of Labor statistics for 1999, only 47 percent of graduates of the major adult job training programs in New York City were employed within 90 days of completion, indicating that Career Gear adds value to work training.

In terms of the CSO’s ability to mobilize local resources: in-kind contributions totaled $95,000 worth of merchandise in 2000 on total revenues of $375,000 (25 percent). Career Gear projects that in-kind contributions will rise in 2001 to $200,000 out of $575,000 in projected.