Social Justice - Pioneer Human Services

And the results for Pioneer? Cycle time was cut in half. Quality increased by 40%. Even better, the reorganization has freed up space in the warehouse so that Pioneer can manage inventory for its customers. "We can now store finished inventory and spoon-feed it to customers on demand," Meisinger says. "Customers don't have to count inventory, inspect it, or move it around. It's always where they need it, when they need it."

Those improvements would be a great leap for any factory, let alone for a nonprofit operation. But historically, the performance level at Pioneer has always been high. The company was the first nonprofit in the country to become ISO-9002 certified, a quality rating that it has maintained since 1996. Such performance is particularly impressive given that the employee turnover rate has been as high as 50% -- on purpose. Pioneer shoots for high turnover, because it means that the company is training employees well enough to snare higher-paying jobs in the private sector. Leaving is the pinnacle of recovery for Pioneer's clients, but it is also a thorny challenge for the company. "When someone leaves, you laugh and cry at the same time," Meisinger says. "But it's so rewarding to witness those transformations. You have people with checkered pasts and lots of problems. And then you see this change take place as they work through issues of sobriety and develop work skills. Self-esteem starts to rise, and eventually the employees say, 'I'm ready to try my wings.' Then they fly out of here."

Pioneer copes with its high turnover rate by using a structured and elaborate training system. "We've done a pretty good job of establishing a formal infrastructure for managing new clients to get them up and running quickly," Meisinger says. "We've documented everything that we do very carefully so that new employees can come in, receive clearly detailed work instructions, and then execute those job functions. And we have a supervisory staff that understands the unique issues -- addiction, legal matters, child care, housing, and transportation -- that these folks bring with them into the workplace. There is no such thing as a cookie-cutter program; everyone has different needs. But we can give employees the individualized support that they need to have a shot at turning their lives around."

That's exactly what Jack Dalton did for himself when he began Pioneer as a halfway house in 1962. A former attorney, Dalton had been released from prison after serving time for embezzlement. Disbarred and penniless, he had nowhere to go and nothing to lose. So he borrowed money from his friends (some of the same people whom he had stolen from) and started Pioneer, whose services grew from housing to employment. Norm Chamberlain, who had been executive director of Pioneer for 17 years, started the first work-release program in Washington State by inviting six parolees to live with him.

Larry Fehr, 47, a senior vice president who tracks the results of Pioneer's business and social efforts, says that the company's blend of a for-profit attitude toward business and a nonprofit attitude toward clients developed out of necessity. "We serve this very challenging client population that is not a warm-and-fuzzy cause," he says. "People aren't so inclined to have car washes for convicts. And so we have had to think of ways to earn money, rather than just asking people to give it to us. The ironic part, of course, is that we've done what nonprofits have forever been telling their clients to do -- become more self-sufficient."

Rules for a Turnaround

Cheryl Hodges used to wake up every morning and plan how she would get the money to buy the crystal meth that she craved. How did the 41-year-old grandmother end up in such a desperate situation? After spending years raising four children and enduring a messy second divorce, Hodges decided that she'd missed out on her wild and fun-filled teenage years and made some changes to her life. A few months into her new party-all-night lifestyle, she tried methamphetamine -- and got hooked. Then she started delivering the drug to earn money for her own stash. She got caught in the spring of 1997 and was sentenced to two years in prison.

Through Pioneer, Hodges was able to get into a work-release program. The new arrangement may not be as confining as prison, but it's not complete freedom either. The Department of Corrections controls her money. Hodges has a small monthly allowance; the rest goes into a savings account. She lives in the Helen B. Ratcliff House, a women's work-release facility that Pioneer owns and operates. Rooms in the facility are spartan. Hodges rises at 4 AM, waits her turn for a shower, and then wakes up her roommate so that they both will be ready when the early-morning bus arrives. Most outings are supervised, and residents can host only preapproved visitors.