Our Mission – Empower individuals to reach their potential and lead stable lives through satisfying work.

Since 2003, StepUp Wilmington (formerly “Phoenix Employment Ministry” 2003 -2015 and “Phoenix Hometown Hires” 2015 -2018) has served people affected by unemployment and underemployment, often associated with the challenges of incarceration, homelessness, recovery, domestic violence, or anything that keeps one from reaching their goals. Our process teaches people to get and keep quality jobs, rebuild hope & self-esteem, and create opportunities for themselves. We place hundreds of jobs each year, with a one year job retention rate of 80%. Our impact doesn’t end with employment, we maintain relationships and provide the support and training necessary to move individuals and families toward stability, impacting their lives and strengthening our communities. We produce a profound social return on investment, where for every dollar invested in our work, $4 is re-invested in our community through wages & taxes, reduction in recidivism, and reduction in government support. The work is important, not only because of its clear goal of bringing individuals in need back to the dignity and productivity of employment, but because of its clear mission to transform people’s lives. Families become stronger, relationships are healed, and communities become more vibrant because nothing acts as a better “springboard” in life than a job!

2,111 Jobs Placed since 2003

Over $17 Million in earnings

$4 Social Return on Investment

  • Our Services

    Think of our Job Program as a week-long dress rehearsal that gets people ready for the rigors of today’s jobs and job market. With renewed confidence, deeper skill sets and a community of support around them, we prepare and market our candidates for permanent jobs. And think of “Step 2” as the classroom where people continue to hone their skills, find a diverse community of support and excel at work and life.

  • Our Impact

    When you put all of these services together, the result: Hundreds of quality jobs a year resulting in millions of dollars in wages; one-year, same-firm retention rates of 80%; and a social return on investment of $4 for every dollar invested in the work.

  • Our Future

    It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. At StepUp Wilmington we know that there is more that our community needs from us and more that we can do for our community. While we are proud of our results, we also know that there are deep rooted ongoing challenges in our community. Surrounding counties maintain poverty rates well above the national average; the City of Wilmington has a poverty rate over 23%. With so many people still struggling, we want our hundreds to be thousands. So we’re partnering with organizations to ensure that people have more access to education, job opportunities and livable wages. We are exploring the creation of a social enterprise to help people develop skills, deepen their resume and get to work faster. We seek to scale up the jobs we help secure under our own roof and scale out the jobs we can help others secure through our influence.

OUR PROCESS

Our process is more rigorous than others so our candidates are more successful than others

Finding a job is tough. That is why we have a community of staff, volunteers and employers working alongside you to get you where you want to be. Our program speaks to the varied needs, experiences, educational backgrounds, and aspirations of the job seekers who come knocking on our door.

Our candidates are wonderfully diverse – not just in their journeys but in the richness of talents they bring to the table. What they all share in common is two-fold: A palpable desire to get back to work and the sheer grit to do the heavy lifting to make that happen.

Whatever their reasons for joining us or rates of progress once they get here, all participants go through the rigors of an intense, well-defined, and well-measured process to get them the traction they need to re-enter the workforce. And it goes something like this:

Outreach

We engage in multi-sector collaboration to achieve results through a detailed outreach plan. This plan includes building relationships with businesses that hire program graduates; financial institutions that provide financial literacy; local shelters and non-profits that assist participants with housing; educational institutions that provide a pathway for increased educational opportunities; Wave Transportation to provide bus passes to program graduates; local churches to provide space for programing; and probation officers to ensure that individuals who are formerly incarcerated have a path to employment.

Employment

The Job Program is the first step in the process. It begins with Jobs Week, a 32-hour week long Employment Training Workshop. During Jobs Week participants learn job search strategies such as networking, resume writing, how to dress appropriately, time management, communication skills, how to address criminal history and employment gaps, and interview preparation. The goal is to teach individuals the skills needed to gain employment and thereby secure an income.

CareerUp

After being employed with steady income candidates can begin “CareerUp”, which is focused on career development. The program, for working adults and their children, is designed in three, twelve-week phases. Phase I focuses on personal development, Phase II focuses solely on financial literacy and by Phase III participants are working towards achieving their goals, have established a budget, and are managing their finances better.

Youth Programs

Did you know StepUp also is involved in the Youth Community? We are happy to have Future Leaders programming each Wednesday night during CareerUp. This is a time where children 0-17 split from their adult participants and focus on how they can start to build healthy social and emotional relationships, be leaders in their communities and schools, have time to share and connect, participate in hands-on activities, and learn different age-appropriate life skills. We are also proud to offer our Restoring Opportunities Internships (ROI), which is aimed at teens currently enrolled in high school. This program is designed for high-achieving, low-resource students in the Wilmington area that have a career path or career-focused goals in mind. Our team helps to mentor, inspire, and prepare these students to get connected to the professional world through internships or job shadowing, all while building their confidence, resumes, networking, and interview skills.