By Katie Wilson Powell
Photos by Chieko Hara

For Jimmy Donlon, a senior marketing and management major and Honors College fellow, serving the community has meant being a part of the community throughout his entire life. Donlon’s father, a physician, founded a network of non-profit medical clinics in Memphis, Tennessee, and established his family in Binghampton, home to many of the clients they serve. “It’s not just about working with people but living with people, … going to school with them, being on their baseball team. I think that has had a huge influence on me and what I want to do with my life,” Donlon said. 

“On the larger level, the goal is to use Goodwill 101 as a model program that can be taken to any center that serves people experiencing housing insecurity.”

Based on these early lessons learned, Donlon’s research on job skill development emerged organically, by looking for ways to help. As a freshman, he entered the Walton College Presenter of the Year Competition — a speech competition that focuses on social innovation. “I wanted to find a way to incorporate the things that I was learning in class as a first-year business student to real-world problems in Northwest Arkansas,” Donlon said. He ultimately found that even in a “picture-perfect community” like Fayetteville, homelessness is pervasive.

He turned this research into a speech advocating for the university to create a career center for people experiencing homelessness, because a lack of employment can be a major contributing factor to housing insecurity. Though Donlon didn’t make it into the final round of the competition, he felt the idea was worth pursuing all the same. He attempted to develop a career curriculum himself and apply it to a homeless center in the area, but, in Donlon’s own words, “failed miserably.” 

Thesis advisor Rogelio Garcia Contreras encouraged Jimmy Donlon to tap into existing community resources that provide job training

“People didn’t want to hear from some 19-year-old telling you why you are experiencing homelessness,” said Donlon, who ultimately discovered that he needed more research — and credentials — to back up his curriculum. He connected with Rogelio Garcia Contreras, director of social innovation and clinical faculty in the new Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Venture Innovation at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Garcia Contreras encouraged Donlon to find existing examples of standardized curriculum and community resources to help make his idea a reality. 

Donlon learned that Goodwill Industries has a long history of job development and training. While many sites featured one-time trainings, Goodwill was out for the long game and had developed a Goodwill 101 curriculum that offered regular meetings dedicated to job development. To learn more, Donlon shadowed members of their career services staff. “We met with people experiencing homelessness and taught them, over the course of a month, professionalism skills to help them get the job that they wanted,” Donlon said. 

After the course, he met with clients three separate times, visiting with them and discussing their needs. “More important than the course itself is just showing people that you care enough to show up,” said Donlon. Rogelio Contreras, Donlon’s advisor, emphasized the importance of this individual approach. “Mr. Donlon’s thesis is helping us identify best practices and is helping us contextualize the difficulties of approaching the issue with a ‘one size fits all’ mentality.” 

Donlon meets with clients at Magdalene Serenity House.

Donlon has worked with three area shelters, each of which focuses on different clientele: teens aging out of the foster system, men struggling to get back on their feet, and women re-entering the workforce with a criminal record. With each site he tailored his approach to the clients, ranging from big brother to goofy kid, and found his closest connection at Magdalene Serenity House working with previously incarcerated women. “They took notes!” Donlon said. “They were super engaged, and I feel like that’s far and away where we’ve had the most impact. I could tell they really wanted to be there.” The relationships he developed there created lasting and tangible change for the clients they served. For instance, one of his clients was hitting a dead end when attempting to reach a transitional employment program, and Donlon was able to step in and visit the program, in person, to secure the contact and connection. 

Donlon hopes his research will serve current individuals and address the larger-scale systemic issues that lead to homelessness. “On the individual level, we want to help people get a job,” he said. “On the larger level, the goal is to use Goodwill 101 as a model program that can be taken to any center that serves people experiencing housing insecurity.”

Ultimately, Donlon plans to go to law school and become a public defender. “No matter where I am in life, one of my goals is to use what I’m good at and what I’m learning to help other people,” he said.

Donlon’s research was supported by a SURF grant.