Greyston Foundation, Inc.

Greyston’s mission is to create thriving communities through the practice and promotion of Open Hiring. Founded in 1982, Greyston addresses some of the most dynamic and disruptive issues facing our country today — poverty and recidivism — through human capital innovation and holistic support services. For 37 years, Greyston has been changing lives by providing job opportunities – no questions asked. Since its founding, Greyston has been fighting for inclusion: creating opportunities for disenfranchised people, battling against systemic inequities, fighting for social justice, and advocating for equity and a leveled playing field for people regardless of their past.
Greyston is a hybrid organization dedicated to serving the community of Southwest Yonkers, NY where we have been practicing and refining Open Hiring at our world-famous for-profit social enterprise, Greyston Bakery, where we hire anyone seeking a job, effectively eliminating barriers to employment.

Our support services – PathMaking programs – provide the infrastructure that is needed for individuals to thrive in our community. Through PathMaking individuals are offered the building blocks to job retention and successful employment, with a focus on overcoming the four most common obstacles to thriving; education, food security, housing, and mental health.
PathMaking programs enable us to trial new service models, which continuously informs and advances research and development at The Center for Open Hiring at Greyston (The Center). The Center is a collaborative learning and inspiration space that evaluates, improves, and defines best practices, and facilitates the widespread adoption of Open Hiring. The Center focuses on the promotion and practice of Open Hiring through three self-reinforcing and overlapping activities:

1. Education and Training: providing an immersive learning experience in social innovation, social justice, change management, and Open Hiring to enable business managers and HR leaders, and later, academic professionals and students, to understand the power of an inclusive workforce and how it could be implemented in their organizations.
2. Advisory Services: supporting organizations in the creation of pilot projects and human capital plans to access a workforce previously excluded from their business strategies.
3. Research and Programs: creating best practices for the Open Hiring Model and delivering programs and services to our Open Hiring team members and the community of SW Yonkers.
Through the Center, we will bring the Open Hiring framework to market and create a new frontier of hiring practices that will generate positive societal impact by leveling the playing field of access to job opportunities.

Greyston’s greater vision is to transform human resources practices and systems by addressing implicit bias and discrimination through the worldwide use of Open Hiring. Greyston’s pioneering Open Hiring Model and holistic PathMaking support programs have the potential to break down barriers to employment for people in any workplace and create thriving communities around the globe. As the first and longest-standing employer in the United States to practice Open Hiring, including offering support services to our employees, Greyston is uniquely positioned to continue to lead and inform the inclusive hiring movement, as we are both practitioner and systems change operators.

Greyston's PathMaking programs offer distinct solutions to the four outlined obstacles above including Workforce Development, Food Solutions, Housing Solutions, and Learning Solutions. The Center for Open Hiring at Greyston is a collaborative learning space that evaluates, improves, and defines Open Hiring best practices. The Center facilitates the adoption of Open Hiring and supports innovation in the delivery of community programs for employees and neighbors and advances the practice and promotion of Open Hiring offering programs and services in three self-reinforcing areas, Education and Training, Advisory Services, and Research and Programs.

Providing employment opportunity to those ready, willing and able to work is at the heart of Open Hiring. Providing supportive services that will give individuals the greatest chance for success on the job is what PathMaking Programs is all about. Getting a job opportunity is a critical first step for an individual to change their life, but maintaining that job is essential for someone to become a thriving individual.
With 37 years of successful operations, Greyston is uniquely positioned to scale its impact and develop workable solutions that organizations can embrace to address their needs and help solve some of the nation’s most intractable systemic problems—poverty, social justice, and income inequality. Greyston has received numerous awards and proclamations recognizing its work in the community. These include recognition by the City of Yonkers, Yonkers City Council, the Westchester County Legislature, and the New York State Assembly and Senate. Renowned universities like Harvard, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania have cited Greyston’s model in case studies on social enterprises. Greyston received national recognition when our CEO was invited on two occasions, in 2016 and 2018, to speak at The White House about the Fair Chance Business Pledge. Greyston Bakery made the “Best for the World” list by B Lab four times in the past five years and, this year won the 2018 Flourish Prize Winner from Aim2Flourish. Last year Greyston was also featured in the Be Fearless campaign from Case Foundation, and in February 2019 Greyston was recognized on Fast Company’s prestigious annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2019. Each year of the past three years, Greyston has equipped approximately 200 individuals with new skills that helped them overcome obstacles to productive, sustained employment. Greyston also placed 80% of those looking for jobs in meaningful paid internships, transitional jobs, or full-time jobs, and, due to the ongoing support provided, 70% of participants achieved three-month retention. Greyston strengthened the employability of graduates and helped them to create and realize pathways to advancing to higher paying jobs. Greyston has developed partnerships with various community organizations and agencies, including the Yonkers Public Schools, My Brother’s Keeper, Westchester Reentry Task Force, and the Department of Social Services to offer activities conducive to creating thriving communities.

After 37 years of successful operations, we have created over 3,500 jobs, paid over $65 million in salaries and have supported over 19,000 families. Operating since 2009, our Workforce Development program has provided job skills training, career counseling and job placement and retention services to over 500 people, and placed more than 300 others with local companies, agencies and organizations.

Greyston is recognized as one of only a few organizations to have successfully implemented a hiring and retention model that effectively serves the most economically disadvantaged members of a community. An analysis of Greyston’s Social Return on Investment showed a return of almost $9 for every dollar invested, while an additional analysis of Open Hiring estimates $50,000 in savings for society. There is also the individual human impact that goes beyond numbers witnessed every day at Greyston, where people are provided with an opportunity that so many of us take for granted, the dignity of work.

Traditional approaches to poverty reduction for people facing consistent barriers to employment have focused on reducing the burden of poverty with means-tested welfare benefits, rather than providing a path to a sustainable livelihood. In 2020 Greyston Bakery will be opening an expansion facility in Amsterdam, under the same Open Hiring Model, becoming the international case study for the success of the Open Hiring Model. As we grow and push the boundaries of human capital management, Greyston will continue to lead the movement revolutionizing standard employment models, and pushing other organizations join in the creation of thriving communities through the practice and promotion of Open Hiring.