Holistic Social Service Systems as a Framework for Addressing Financial Vulnerability

Facilitating Readiness Through Immediate Support and Promised Futures

In addition to potential clients reaching out to Goodwill for help, Goodwill also promotes its services proactively. Frontline service providers engage in community outreach to connect with financially vulnerable people. They offer promises of better, less financially vulnerable futures through a suite of services designed to address both acute needs—such as housing, food, clothing, or identification—and broader barriers to stability—such as access to transportation, medical care, financial systems, and jobs—with the intent of helping potential clients see the value of the social service system. Sean (60s, male, employee client) works in a program that serves unhoused people. He describes such outreach efforts:

Literally, we ride around the city and see people flying a sign [soliciting for money]. ‘Hey, you want to work today? You want to make 50 bucks? We’ll feed you a hot lunch.’ But our goal is to get them connected to services. If they don’t have ID and they don’t have birth certificates, they don’t have social security cards, we’ll pay for birth certificates, we’ll pay for their IDs. We get them connected with insurance. If they don’t have a phone, we have a lot of partners. Goodwill has a lot of partnering companies. . . We usually get on the jobsite about 10 o’clock, then 11 o’clock take a break, 12 o’clock we eat lunch. . . and we tell them about the services and things that Goodwill offers. Then we turn them over to Goodwill’s career coaches, and they do the follow-up, trying to get them job ready, get them work ready. . . They’ll buy clothes for them, work boots.

When working with these potential clients, Sean offers immediate support—including a meal and a paycheck—while continually promising a better future through Goodwill’s programs. Such promises are reinforced by Goodwill’s employment model as many of Goodwill’s service providers have participated in the system themselves, including Sean who began working at Goodwill after recovering from a decades-long substance addiction. One senior administrator said about Goodwill’s staff, “Most of our staff have a story” (fieldnotes). Service providers’ first-hand experience lends empathy and authenticity that help clients believe in the future benefits promised and accept their roles in the service system—key aspects of service system participation readiness (Dong et al. 2015).

Potential future benefits also feature prominently across Goodwill fliers and recruitment materials that advertise available services and include bullet-point lists of “educational and training opportunities,” and describe “customizable transportation packages,” among numerous other promises of future support. To further help prepare potential new clients for initiation, Goodwill incentivizes consumers to interact with and learn about available services. As a Goodwill Industries administrator describes in an annual report, “Providing piecemeal services is not enough, so we band together with our many partners for a holistic approach.” Fieldnotes from a weekly “partner day” show these external service partnerships in action:

Once a week Goodwill hosts partners at about 20 tables set up throughout a large room. . . About half an hour after things started, Kimberly, a woman in her 50s who is a senior administrator at Goodwill Industries, made an announcement with a microphone that you could get a slip of paper with six blank spaces on it. If you got six different service providers at the tables to sign the slip, indicating that you had talked to them and received some information, you could bring it back to the front desk and be entered into a drawing for a $25 gift card. Goodwill employees and interns were going around handing out these slips to everybody. Kimberly added, ‘You gotta play to win. . . That means get some education while you’re at the tables.’ Later on, she told us that someone might come in thinking they just need legal aid, or they just need a job from Goodwill. But if Goodwill can get them to talk to partners at a bunch of other tables, then they can realize that there are other services: mental health, nutrition assistance, and other things that are available.

Upon indicating interest in entering the service system, Goodwill career coaches (acting as service orchestrators; Breidbach, Antons, and Salge 2016) and community partners work with potential new clients to identify and address any existing acute needs such as housing, food, clothing, and/or identification that may hinder or prevent potential clients from entering the social service system. In other words, they work together to facilitate client participation readiness. For instance, Goodwill may refer unhoused clients to temporary housing providers and/or fund other clients’ applications for identification required for employment. The promise of future stability coupled with immediate support facilitates clients’ positive perception of benefits and acceptance of their roles. Importantly, clients also point to the individualized attention, optimism, and dignity they received during these early and ongoing interactions with Goodwill Industries as critical to their initiation and success. As Duncan (40s, male, non-employee client) says, “They see something in you when you don’t even see nothing in yourself.”

Despite such efforts, however, the value created by these initial connections remains contingent upon client action and initiative, which can often result in potential clients failing to participate sufficiently to receive the service system’s available support. For instance, many clients opt for sporadic day-to-day employment with Sean’s work crew, rather than steady employment and financial stability through Goodwill’s service system. In Sean’s words, “I tell them, I say, ‘What? 50 bucks or a long-term job? You got to weigh the difference.’ But sometimes when you’re homeless, 50 bucks is me surviving another day.” Ultimately, we find that a lack of full integration between internal and external service providers to address barriers that hinder or prevent client readiness during initiation, combined with clients’ varying degrees of abilities or willingness to comply with providers’ requirements, excludes many people from the service system, as we discuss next.

Contingent Value Propositions and the Impact of Readiness on Service Exclusion

Goodwill Industries of Kentucky defines success within its service system as increased self-sufficiency, which career coaches measure along ten dimensions (e.g., housing, food, healthcare, income) during monthly client meetings. Successful participation, from Goodwill’s perspective, means that clients progress from situations on these dimensions that coaches assess as “crisis” or “vulnerable” toward “empowered” positions of stable independence. Goodwill tracks aggregate completion numbers for its many programs, but the organization does not prescribe specific rates of program participation for individual clients, whose personal circumstances and readiness for programs vary widely. After providing immediate support, providers invite clients to participate more fully in the service system by accepting contingent value propositions (Figure 2), which we define as promises of service support and outcomes that are conditional on clients and providers fulfilling specific obligations or responsibilities. As an example, clients may be invited to participate in an educational program, such as a secondary school diploma or career readiness course, or to work at one of Goodwill’s retail locations. These forms of participation, however, are contingent on clients’ abilities to reliably transport themselves to specific locations at certain times and refrain from illicit drug use. Others may be eligible for additional housing support, contingent upon following rules and regulations such as curfews and visitor limitations.

Contingent value propositions support Goodwill’s organizational culture, which is built on ideals of personal responsibility and self-sufficiency. The organization views transitions through and out of the service system as successful to the extent that client participation builds capacities for increased stability and independence. Clients and service providers frequently reference these goals using aphorisms such as “teaching them how to fish” (fieldnotes), “an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay” (John, 60s, non-employee client), and “giving a hand up, not a handout” (multiple participants). These cultural tropes bridge tensions between individualism and collective responsibility that social service organizations navigate in the United States (Hong et al. 2022), and which Goodwill Industries accomplishes through contingent value propositions that invoke both client participation and service provider support.

To fully participate in the service system, applicants must demonstrate readiness through screening that includes processing identification and passing a drug test. If identification proves a barrier, Goodwill can fund applications for new or replacement documents. But when a person fails a drug test, “Goodwill would tell them to come back and take another drug test in two weeks” (fieldnotes). Goodwill does not have the resources or expertise to provide in-house addiction recovery services, so some clients are excluded and must seek out external partners, such as treatment or rehabilitation centers, for support with barriers to service system initiation. Such centers typically operate as independent programs that Goodwill cannot directly orchestrate, leaving individuals to develop readiness on their own and amid vulnerable circumstances. Due to a myriad of reasons, many consumers fail to seek out such support, as explained by an external partner offering outpatient addiction recovery services who states that “people come to him every week here [at partner day]” but added that “he wished more people would actually come to their unit and take advantage of what they offered” (fieldnotes).

Even after passing the initial screening, clients often face additional barriers that lead to exclusion. In an urban area where we conducted fieldwork, Goodwill hires about 20 new clients for internal retail positions each week. However, only about half of these hires typically continue for more than 2 weeks (fieldnotes, service provider interviews). New employee orientations take place after 2 weeks to focus training and human resources on clients who are most likely to continue in the service system. When asked about this relatively high rate of service exclusion, providers explain that some clients “just weren’t ready” (fieldnotes). Melissa (30s, female, internal service provider) is a store manager who explains client readiness in these terms:

I’ve had people that worked for me, and they went back to prison, and [then] they went back to prison again. So, at some point in time, you get tired of going back to prison, or you get tired of living on the streets, you get tired of being homeless, you get tired of not succeeding in life. But it has to be you. I can’t get tired for you. Goodwill can’t get tired for you. We can only offer you, ‘Here, this is what we have for you.’ Either you accept it, or you don’t. Either you’re tired or you’re not, and that’s it.

Readiness for Melissa entails reaching a breaking point that is powerful enough to prompt full initiation and engagement in the service system. Reaching such a breaking point may help client readiness by motivating clients to recognize the benefits of participation and accept roles or opportunities in the service system (Dong et al. 2015; Rothschild 1999). But breaking points do not endow clients with new abilities or remove barriers to participation, which may explain why a person’s life trajectory can change in positive or negative directions following such inflection points (Mende et al. 2024). The common explanation that clients are not “ready” glosses over the importance of cocreating readiness through support for service system initiation.

Many clients who eventually succeed in increasing financial self-sufficiency through the service system describe previously failing multiple times outside of Goodwill’s coordinated support. LeeAnna (30s, female, internal service provider) is a career coach who spent years attempting to overcome a substance addiction through recovery centers that permitted her children to stay with her. She later lost custody of her children after multiple relapses while trying to balance participation in recovery center services with parenting responsibilities. However, temporarily losing her children provided an unexpected silver lining: LeeAnna not only reached a critical breaking point but also became eligible for an intensive rehabilitation program that did not permit older children to stay in residence. She ultimately overcame her addiction, regained custody of her children, and began working at Goodwill Industries. She says, “It’s so hard for mothers, people with kids, and you really do have to prove yourself, as you should, but there aren’t as many options for women with children.” LeeAnna accepts personal responsibility for participation, but a lack of options that support her through multiple barriers—addiction and parenting—hindered her ability to fully participate. After LeeAnna received support from an external partner who could prepare her to participate in Goodwill Industries’ full suite of services, she began to succeed by gaining capacities that reduced her financial vulnerability. In summary, exclusion from service initiation results when internal and external providers fail to work together and integrate their services to support client readiness. Given this, we find that clients who are deemed “ready” typically progress and more deeply integrate into the service system only after addressing acute barriers to maintain a steady job or attend regular classes and meetings, which the social service system requires for full engagement.

Structured Responsibility and Mutual Trust

Programs available through Goodwill’s social service system require clients to take specific actions within a defined area of responsibility. For example, employee clients can opt into Goodwill’s retirement plan after 2 weeks of stable employment, and they qualify to receive up to a 5% contribution match after 6 months of employment. Six months of employment is also a prerequisite responsibility for participating in Goodwill’s car loan program, which offers reliable used cars purchased through partner dealerships. Marcene (60s, female, employee client) explains, “If you never miss a payment, you’re never late, you get all your interest back after you pay the car off.” Goodwill structures contingent value propositions like these so that clients take on responsibilities as they gain or demonstrate readiness through previous participation. As clients take on new roles, Goodwill also takes on the additional responsibility of greater financial support and more personalized coaching for vulnerable clients.

Duncan (40s, male, non-employee client), who began participating in Goodwill’s career preparedness training after completing a substance abuse rehabilitation program, describes Goodwill’s ongoing support:

What [the career coach] would do is she would help you go over a budget and help you meet—remind you of these goals you got, and you come up with a plan. They help you come up with a plan and you follow that plan, and then whatever they need to do on their end they’re going to do.

Regular and ongoing participation gives Duncan access to a career coach who mentors him individually, providing knowledge and recommendations that supplement in-class training. Duncan’s self-correction in this quote, explaining that career coaches merely “remind” him of goals that he sets, showcases his acceptance of the active role he plays in the service (Dong et al., 2015). But Duncan also understands that Goodwill takes responsibility to do “whatever they need to do on their end” to augment his personal efforts. Goodwill’s employee handbook further illustrates the dual nature of mutual trust and structured responsibility between clients and providers, describing both “Goodwill’s Commitments” and “Goodwill’s Expectations.” Through continued participation in contingent value propositions, Goodwill and its clients share vulnerability and develop mutual trust by each taking on risks and responsibilities.

As clients integrate more deeply into the system, career coaches also regularly assess their financial stability and vulnerability across a range of indicators, including debt, housing, transportation, physical health, mental health, and addiction. This addresses both deficits and strengths (Raciti, Russell-Bennett, and Letheren 2022), as career coaches recommend programs that provide remedial assistance (e.g., mental health services, financial literacy), remove barriers, and provide responsibilities that match client readiness. For example, a senior administrator describes how some clients feel shackled by “impossible” child support obligations after leaving incarceration. The administrator explains that Goodwill’s career coaches sometimes contact social services workers and creditors to negotiate on behalf of their clients, because their knowledge and experience makes them sound “more professional. . . we get respect” (fieldnotes). During such interactions, career coaches not only connect clients to services but they also model strategies for clients to successfully navigate these services independently in the future.

Goodwill also builds links with external service providers to help clients develop new abilities to address both the breadth and depth of their current vulnerabilities (Mende et al. 2024). For example, a recently constructed “opportunity center” not only hosts services offered by Goodwill Industries but also houses an external financial institution, food service startup, space for services offered by community organizations, and even a medical center operated by a private healthcare company. As a Goodwill administrator summarizes, this “provide[s] a powerful combination of resources to help strengthen the lives of many local residents” (newspaper article). Integrating multiple social services empowers clients to take on opportunities with support to fulfil new responsibilities inside and outside the service system.

Interdependent relationships between clients and the service system enable mutual trust, which is needed to navigate the risks and potential vulnerabilities that come with independence. Mike (40s, male, external service provider) is a representative for a bank that partners with Goodwill to provide clients with free checking accounts. He says that overdrafting during emergencies like overdue rent or unexpected medical expenses represent one of the most common reasons clients become excluded from mainstream financial institutions. He describes how Goodwill’s career coaches help clients navigate this financial vulnerability:

You [the client] can decide how you want us to handle overdrafts. So, if you swipe your card and you don’t have the funds, you make a decision up front, [so that] if the funds aren’t there, [we] decline it. Now, I can’t sway your decision. That’s the bank—that’s a federal policy. But when I open accounts in front of [career] coaches, they can have that conversation. So, I may say, ‘Hey, at this point we’re going to talk about how you want us to handle an overdraft, should it occur on a swipe.’ They [the career coaches] are like, ‘You should opt out. We don’t want you to incur fees or whatever.’ So, we don’t get as many calls, even at the bank, these days, as we used to about overdraft. . . I would say 95% of the people at Goodwill opt out [of allowing overdrafts].

Mike understands that overdrafing can create unnecessary vulnerabilities for clients with limited financial resources. However, federal law prohibits him from advising clients about how to manage this risk. The partnership with Mike’s bank means that he sets up accounts with clients at Goodwill locations where career coaches are available to provide guidance. Goodwill’s service providers understand individual and structural barriers that its clients face in financial services, and they identify ways that standard financial services like overdraft protection can hurt rather than help. Equally importantly, Goodwill’s service providers establish sufficient trust with their clients to provide advice without coercion. At the same time, Goodwill also guides clients through the risks and opportunities that its partners provide. By integrating external opportunities for independence with internal support, clients access resources at the same rate that they develop the ability to sustain long-term financial independence.

Dissension from Contingent Value Propositions

Sometimes clients resist or refuse conditions placed on their participation in Goodwill’s social service system. Mary (60s, female, non-employee client) accepted employment in one of Goodwill’s retail stores. She values thrift and feels a moral responsibility to avoid waste, so she dissented from Goodwill’s procedures for discarding unsold merchandise. She says, “My heart’s breaking. They’re telling me to throw it away. . . and my mind is racing, trying to think of ways to buy it, because that’s all I could think to do, because I didn’t want to throw it away.” Mary’s dissension from Goodwill’s structured responsibilities places her in a vulnerable position, where she feels compelled to spend rather than save to rescue products from the landfill. Mary eventually quit the job and exited the system to dedicate more time and effort to recycling and repurposing waste. Unfortunately, Mary continued to face barriers, including family trauma and abusive relationships, which eventually prompted her to initiate a new relationship with Goodwill Industries. Contingent value propositions can provide opportunities for structured growth, but they can also pit these opportunities against client independence. By dissenting from the service system’s structures, clients like Mary lose available support and may exit the system prematurely, before becoming ready to succeed in sustaining financial stability (see Figure 2).

Similarly, Sean (60s, male, employee client) utilizes multiple integrated services within Goodwill’s system, including career training, employment opportunities, and an automobile loan assistance program. However, Sean says, “I turned down the housing here. . . I have no problem with living with somebody else, but when you put a camera in my apartment, I can’t do that. That was too much for me. I said no.” For housing program participants, Goodwill deposits the first 6 months of on-time rent payments into a savings account available to pay for a deposit on a future apartment outside the service system. They also install security cameras in shared kitchen and living areas. Despite giving up resources that could fast-track his future financial independence, Sean views the conditions attached to this housing service as an invasion of his privacy and independence. He explained to us that he “struggled” with his career coach to find stable housing, and he is “still fighting with him [the property manager] a little bit. . . to get my paint done and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, I get to walk into my own place.” Sean’s dissension prioritizes a vulnerable state of independence, gaining the freedom of walking into his “own place” at the expense of integrated support and resources for developing his capacities.

As clients consider their options, some avoid dissension by reframing potential losses of independence as temporary investments in greater future financial power. Hope (30s, female, internal service provider) told us that the engine in a truck she recently purchased used from a stranger “blew up and I can’t find anyone to put another engine in.” This left Hope relying on public transportation and expensive Uber rides for her commute. Hope considered turning to payday lenders to finance truck repairs, but she says, “I know it’s a trap, basically. It’s money, but it’s expensive.” For Hope, independence would come at the risk of long-term vulnerabilities, and at the expense of lost support and mentoring from Goodwill career coaches. Instead, Hope plans to utilize Goodwill’s car loan program, including financing a used vehicle that she explains comes “from a decent car lot. I think you can get four door sedans. I’m more of a truck girl, but crawl before you walk.” Hope reframes her surrender to Goodwill’s contingent value proposition as a temporary compromise on her identity as a “truck girl.” She accepts the promise of greater future independence, described by Goodwill as “a life with real choices” (annual report), by choosing to invest her present independence in developing financial power within the security of the service system and increase her readiness to achieve greater future independence.

Dependence and Interdependence Within the Social Service System

In contrast to clients dissenting from Goodwill’s rules and requirements, we also find that others can become so dependent that they remain in Goodwill’s supportive system despite readiness to transition beyond it (see Figure 2). One of Goodwill’s senior administrators admits perhaps too many of its long-term clients fail to gain the confidence or motivation to “leave the nest.” Melissa (30s, female, internal service provider), a store manager, describes her perception of opportunities inside and outside of Goodwill:

There are some people that are on disability that have to work that part-time, and we absolutely have those [roles] for them. But we also need people who are going to be managers, who are going to be senior managers, who are going to be regional managers. We need those people too. So that’s what I decided to do. I thought, ‘I really like it here.’ So, it’s team lead, and then it’s assistant manager, and then a general manager. So, I just moved my way up through Goodwill, and that’s why I’m here today. I probably—I haven’t thought about leaving. I really haven’t.

More than a decade of management experience may qualify Melissa for better-paying external positions. However, clients like Melissa view Goodwill’s supportive culture and holistic programming as so different from that of external organizations that they often cannot envision life outside. A lack of confidence or experience in transferring internal capacities to external opportunities explains part of this challenge. But perhaps equally important is that Melissa feels that Goodwill “needs” her and others with internal knowledge and capabilities to support its programming. Detachment from Goodwill’s service system can free people like Melissa from internal constraints, but many choose instead to remain interdependent participants in a system where they feel both needed and supported. Many clients express a belief that “everything that you could ever want is in Goodwill Industries” (Jessica, 30s, female, employee client, interview). Clients who remain with Goodwill for years have limited opportunities for growth beyond promotion into retail store management or career coaching, which are both competitive career tracks. Within the service system, clients develop new abilities and take on new opportunities in well-supported roles (Dong et al. 2015; Rothschild 1999), but these experiences may not translate into belief in, or motivation for, seeking external opportunities.

Close collaboration with external partners during the service system integration process helps to mitigate the potential for overreliance or dependence. Clients who do not enter Goodwill’s service system through employment sometimes have more support for integrating with external partners. For example, Duncan (40s, male, non-employee client) worked on his resume and participated in a career training class that helped him obtain a position at a large manufacturing plant. He says, “When I was down there on their computer, I was working on my website, or I was working on typing up my book, or I was working on typing up [and] editing my business plan, or I was filling out an application [for a job]. And they all go hand in hand because I need that job for my personal stability while I work on these business loans and these business grants.” Duncan accesses service system resources for a wide range of goals; his career coach even proofread a draft of his memoir. Since Duncan’s responsibilities as a non-employee client do not confine him to specific internal tasks, Goodwill can support his overall “personal stability” through both internal and external opportunities.

We do find that Goodwill is restructuring some of its services to better integrate with external partners that can support transferable skill development. Shortly after a regional healthcare center opened on one of Goodwill’s campuses, a hospital administrator describes, “You can see the partnerships and relationships that are developing, and the trust and relationships that are developing between our patients and providers. So, as we hoped that we would close that gap and disparity [in healthcare access], we’re starting to see that happen” (partner website). Goodwill’s existing relationships with community members enable the formation of new relationships between financially vulnerable consumers and external service partners who provide greater inclusion and reduced vulnerability. Mike, the bank representative who offers services tailored to the needs of Goodwill’s clients, similarly explains:

Folks that work at Goodwill, because they have a partnership with us, they can get the best type of account we have for free. It’s normally $20 a month, but they don’t pay for that. They never pay for it.

By partnering with external service providers, Goodwill extends the mutual trust it develops with clients to support the formation of supportive relationships with external financial institutions. Each organization shares responsibility for the client’s overall financial well-being, including their financial stability or vulnerability outside the social service system. The bank not only provides opportunities to develop transferable skills, such as monitoring bank accounts and interfacing with financial institutions, but it also extends its support even after the client’s employment at Goodwill ends. This prevents banking services from creating new or unexpected challenges for clients as they transition out of the social service system, because clients remain partially integrated into the system’s support and benefits. Goodwill holds up self-sufficiency as an ideal for success, but its integrated programs recognize the need for holistic support that empowers clients to sustain stable independence. Close integration between external and internal partners during transitions out of the service system ensures that clients continue on positive trajectories after the critical inflection point that a system exit represents. Table 3 provides a summary and additional data illustrations, and the following section discusses our contributions.

Contributions to Vulnerability and Service System Theory

Multiple, intersecting barriers often hinder attempts to address consumer financial vulnerability one factor at a time (Baker, Gentry, and Rittenburg 2005; Morduch and Schneider 2017; Saatcioglu and Corus 2014; Salisbury et al. 2023). Our holistic social service system model contributes important theoretical insights into (1) the cocreation of client readiness to participate in service systems and (2) the system-level orchestration of social services.

Our first contribution is an explanation of how client readiness for social services can be cocreated. Social service systems can integrate individual programs in ways that address both the breadth and depth of financial vulnerability to facilitate client readiness (Mende et al. 2024). Breadth of vulnerability involves the multiplicity of interconnected factors affecting consumer experiences. For example, a new client may initiate a relationship with Goodwill while they are unhoused, suffering from chronic health conditions, and lacking reliable transportation. These challenges influence one another, shaping experiences of financial vulnerability in intersecting ways. Rather than offering discrete programs that address each challenge separately, Goodwill’s service orchestrators connect clients with temporary housing, healthcare services, bus vouchers, and a long-term relationship anchored on employment or participation in training programs. This holistic approach is most effective when multiple programs are closely integrated because many barriers (e.g., housing, employment, and transportation) are best overcome in tandem. Depth of vulnerability increases with greater exposure to hardships (Mende et al. 2024). By enabling different levels of participation, social service providers can tailor strength-based support around clients’ changing degrees of readiness. While some clients have characteristics that enable rapid integration into the service system, in line with prior research on participation readiness (Dong et al. 2015), we find that many clients receive deepening levels of support that match their increasing ability to take on new responsibilities. Clients who are more deeply embedded in vulnerable situations can develop readiness to participate as service providers support them in specific roles or responsibilities, such as attending classes or meeting with career coaches.

To theorize the relationship between provider support and client participation, we introduce the concept of contingent value propositions, which make specific forms of support available contingent on varying levels of client participation. Contingent value propositions draw on aspects of both strength- and deficit-based approaches to vulnerability (Raciti, Russell-Bennett, and Letheren 2022; Russell-Bennett et al. 2023). Goodwill’s career coaches identify specific challenges that threaten clients’ well-being, leading to recommendations for training or education. However, rather than blaming individuals for shortcomings (Russell-Bennett et al. 2023), Goodwill identifies actions that clients can take with service system support to build on strengths and increase abilities. By offering opportunities for individual action within a safe, structured, supportive service system, contingent value propositions offer security without diminishing autonomy (c.f., Sandberg et al. 2022). Furthermore, while prior research suggests that motivation and readiness are crucial for participation in any service (Dong et al. 2015; Rothschild 1999), we show that service systems can cocreate readiness by providing holistically supported opportunities for growth.

Our second contribution is a system-level analysis of service orchestration. Goodwill’s career coaches act as service orchestrators, fulfilling a similar role to healthcare case managers, by connecting clients to needed services and coordinating their journey through the system (Breidbach, Antons, and Salge 2016). We extend prior research by examining service orchestration across stages of client participation (e.g., initiation, integration, transition/exit) and across internal and external partners. We find that service orchestrators can effectively connect clients to internal as well as external programs and providers, which have different impacts at different stages of participation. During initiation, for example, external providers and organizations nurture client abilities and motivation. Service orchestrators identify barriers to participation and integrate resources that help clients develop sufficient abilities to accept contingent value propositions. Service orchestrators also demonstrate the benefits of participation, often by embodying success as former clients who have overcome their own vulnerabilities through the social service system. Service orchestrators then make more opportunities available as clients integrate into a social service system, personalizing contingent value propositions through a tailored assemblage of programs. To support a successful transition or exit out of the system, service orchestrators act as network facilitators, navigating clients through a gradual transition into stable financial independence. Clients remain integrated with necessary services to mitigate the potential for negative inflection points that may become cliffs when people lose support.

A system approach to service orchestration avoids the expense of adding new programs (Mende and Van Doorn 2015) and instead personalizes access to already existing programming. As clients develop further abilities, their motivation also increases as they gain hope for a better future and confidence to achieve it. Furthermore, mutual trust and structured responsibility illustrate the importance of shared vulnerability in social service systems. Organizations like Goodwill Industries of Kentucky take on some of their clients’ vulnerability by offering resources to ease financial challenges. At the same time, clients take on risks associated with individual action to unlock the potential of these resources. During the integration stage, service orchestrators expose clients to programs and opportunities offered by both internal and external partners to give clients confidence to transfer abilities gained inside the service system to outside opportunities when they are ready. Participating within the structured responsibility of contingent value propositions involves a temporary surrender of client independence, but service orchestrators can help clients maintain motivation and avoid dissent by framing participation as an investment in future financial independence and by providing support that nurtures mutual trust.

Directions for Future Research

Future research can build on our theoretical contributions, examining both the cocreation of participation readiness and the orchestration of social service systems. First, further research on the cocreation of participation readiness could add important nuance to current theorizations of consumer motivation, opportunity, and ability to participate in social services (Rothschild 1999). Motivation is important, but our research challenges the common belief that motivation to participate in social service starts primarily internally (i.e., hitting rock bottom). Organizations may also provide external motivation to facilitate system entry and integration. For instance, it is not uncommon for P.E.A.R.L., a nonprofit organization working to provide pathways to addiction recovery, to integrate initially reluctant clients into its service system through partnerships with local law enforcement agencies (P.E.A.R.L. 2025). Future research might evaluate the impact and efficacy of service organizations providing external motivation to facilitate client readiness. Additionally, research can examine the role of service provider empathy or personal experience with financial vulnerability and social services, which Goodwill’s career coaches demonstrate, for authentically influencing client motivation.

Opportunity and ability are also central to participation readiness (Dong et al. 2015; Rothschild 1999). The novel concept of contingent value propositions provides a framework for examining how to align social service opportunities with client abilities. Research can further examine how far beyond a client’s current skills and experience a provider should push, balancing possibilities for growth with potential for failure. We show how contingent value propositions connect clients to a network of providers in relationships of trust and mutual responsibility. Future research can build on this insight by measuring and assessing the balance of support and expectations shared between clients and providers in social services. Additionally, examining contingent value propositions outside the social service system domain, including for-profit service contexts, also provides a potentially fruitful research direction. Many businesses expect customers to take on some level of responsibility for the cocreation of services, and the concept of contingent value propositions provides a lens for analyzing this dynamic relationship. Building on Goodwill’s approach to encouraging client action around specific responsibilities, what additional monetary or non-monetary incentive structures could providers employ to increase participation in service opportunities that can improve well-being?

Second, conceptualizing service provision at a system level can direct future research toward more comprehensive analyses of service processes and customer experiences. Insights from our study are particularly relevant for directing research on social services, which depend on a network of providers whose operations and impacts on consumer vulnerability are not always examined together (Rutman et al. 2020; Searle, Neuhoff, and Belton 2011). We identify the importance of orchestrating partnerships between clients and multiple providers. Prior work has examined the importance of orchestrating service opportunities (Breidbach, Antons, and Salge 2016), and we explain further that partnerships with external organizations can increase social services access and personalization of opportunities for clients’ unique experiences of financial vulnerability. However, additional research is needed to study how orchestrating organizations and individuals, such as Goodwill Industries of Kentucky and their career coaches, establish external partnerships that add value not only to clients but also to a broad range of organizations with diverse goals and resources. Similarly, future research can study how service systems respond to changing or inconsistent provider readiness to support clients through vulnerable experiences. Finally, building on Goodwill’s second-chance approach, how can organizations better orchestrate client re-entry after failing or dropping out of participation in a service partner’s programming?

Implications for Service Practice

Addressing financial vulnerability also means addressing barriers related to housing, education, mental health, substance abuse, justice system constraints, and other interrelated challenges. Integrating multiple programs through a service system provides stability during program or funding changes that inevitably arise due to political or economic dynamics. Many aspects of our case serve as a model for financial vulnerability service systems, while others point to opportunities for improvement. These implications provide lessons for service practice across consumers’ financial vulnerability journeys. We detail four specific recommendations below.

To support and motivate clients during initiation, providers can offer immediate support in conjunction with promises for the future. Although access to Goodwill’s full suite of services is contingent upon certain participation responsibilities, support for many acute needs is provided immediately (e.g., housing, food, clothing). Immediate support makes service promises feel real and authentic, especially when made by providers who have experienced service system benefits themselves. Following a similar approach, Finland and other locations have successfully reduced homelessness through “housing first” models, which provide immediate shelter to unhoused people and offer additional social services after meeting this basic need (Shinn and Khadduri 2020). Immediate support recognizes human dignity and invites people to begin the challenge of overcoming financially vulnerable circumstances from a position of strength.

Goodwill and other social service organizations often direct more attention to clients who are ready to integrate and thus require less effort and expense to serve. This focuses the service system on those who are most likely to succeed, excluding people who may need the most support but whose current motivation or abilities hinder their participation. Instead of waiting for clients to get ready, service providers can orchestrate alternative paths to help them develop readiness. Cocreating readiness is most effective when support is distributed and coordinated across organizations whose programs offer different forms of assistance. For example, Goodwill Industries could track and follow up on the needs and progress of clients who are preparing to enter the service system under the care of emergency housing or substance rehabilitation centers. Furthermore, organizations can intervene earlier in situations where people often experience financial vulnerabilities, such as within justice or education systems. For example, Goodwill Industries of Kentucky recently partnered with government and other non-profit organizations to open a youth-specific resource center to help young people develop abilities that may prevent future vulnerabilities and dangerous breaking points. Banks, credit unions, and financial regulators can apply this process by implementing readiness programs targeted at disadvantaged consumers who are less served by traditional financial institutions.

Contingent value propositions can address multiple barriers (breadth) through opportunities tailored to the extent of clients’ current vulnerability and participation readiness (depth). Providers and clients share vulnerability through contingent value propositions, with each taking on risks through specific roles and responsibilities. Goodwill’s auto loan program, for example, removes transportation barriers that prevent stable employment while also reducing client barriers to credit and purchasing power. At the same time, Goodwill bears the risk of financially vulnerable clients not paying according to loan terms. Tailoring such propositions to individual client needs is most effective when service orchestrators have access to a sufficient breadth of programs to address identified barriers facing people in financially vulnerable circumstances. As clients become more financially stable, they gain access to opportunities for deeper participation across a broader range of services.

As clients move through the service system, service orchestrators transition to networking roles by establishing and strengthening relationships between clients and external opportunities. Across many cities in the United States, for example, the Urban League provides business training to minority entrepreneurs and connects them to mentors as they develop knowledge and begin to execute business plans (National Urban League 2025). Peer support groups can also function as collective service orchestrators, recommending service opportunities and providing ongoing support. Transitional support is enabled by the close integration of internal service providers and external partners whose relationships and programming build transferable skills and connect clients to greater opportunities for financial stability and well-being.

Limitations

Our investigation is not without limitations. First, our data collection focused on participants who were currently participating in Goodwill’s service system, with a focus on understanding system entry and integration. This provided a limited window into the experiences of those who successfully or unsuccessfully transitioned out of the system. A focus on exits could have lent insights into any barriers these clients faced, including overdependence on Goodwill Industries, as well as strategies for successfully overcoming them.

Second, our interview participants entered the service system with varying levels of social capital. Some clients had very limited networks of support, while others maintained strong relationships with friends, family, and/or colleagues as they navigated the system. However, we were limited in our ability to examine the social networks of individual clients, leaving open questions regarding social network influences and interventions that may hinder or facilitate the development of relationships with people and communities external to the social service system.

Third, we did not examine differences between consumers entering the service system from different positions of financial vulnerability. Examining how to orchestrate services differently for clients experiencing chronic, long-term poverty versus temporary, short-term poverty is beyond our current scope but represents an important area for additional study.