All individuals have equitable access to sustainable and fulfilling careers in West Michigan.
Next Step fosters a community where all individuals, regardless of background or life circumstances, find belonging and hope through work.
These opportunities stabilize and empower our team and those we serve resulting in high quality products and services for our customers.
We serve people who have barriers to employment—such as broken relationships, lack of resources, insecure housing, previous incarceration or addiction—who are determined to build a better future. By working shoulder to shoulder, we help restore dignity, identity, and purpose.
At Next Step, our team is the backbone of our mission and the driving force behind our business operations. We are a faith-based social enterprise built on the belief that excellence in products and services goes hand-in-hand with creating opportunities for people to thrive.
Our team combines professional expertise with lived experience—many of our staff first came through our training programs and now apply their skills to deliver high-quality wood products, construction solutions, and municipal services. With a strong commitment to craftsmanship, reliability, and service, our team not only sustains operations but also actively invests in the growth and success of those still in training.
We take pride in being more than a workforce—we are a community of dedicated individuals who produce exceptional results while advancing opportunity and transformation in the workplace.
We invite them to join one of our programs, learn valuable skills to open employment opportunities.
We train, mentor, and coach our program participants in new skills, both technical and soft skills to set them up for long term success.
They have graduated our program and, through our support, continue seeking employment and removing barriers, such as transportation, to sustain future employment.
They have graduated one of our programs and have sustained employment for at least 90 days. Some still may receive mentoring and transitional support.
Men in our community that needed work opportunities but were consistently met with closed doors. That year, three guys were hired to do cleaning, trash-outs, and simple maintenance work. In a few short years, the organization experienced tremendous growth. By 2009, Next Step had become a community development partner with the City of Grand Rapids and joined the Neighborhood Stabilization Program as a contractor. Over the next 4 years, we completed 11 full home remodels, putting at-risk folks to work and providing on-the-job training in the trades.
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In 2011-2012, we partnered with Starbucks to create bracelets for retail sale across the nation. We shifted gears and hired 22 employees, and over the next 7 months assembled, packed, and shipped over 25,000 bracelets a day. We have been engaged in manufacturing ever since as a way to offer employment to individuals with various levels of skill.
We moved into the completed portion of our new 100 Garden SE location and started a new wood products manufacturing division.
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Every year since, our crews have cleaned the alley-ways of our city, removing green growth and brush and hauling litter and garbage to the dump.
This impressed upon us the precarious nature of our neighbors’ economic stability and access to resources here in the 49507 zip code of Grand Rapids. The pandemic reinforced the urgency of our mission and vision to continue in our construction partnerships to offer low income housing, to persevere in our manufacturing and public works so we can offer employment and to launch a job skills training program to equip folks for the job market and link them to potential employment opportunities.
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We will continue to work to provide low income housing through our construction and remodeling efforts and steady employment through our manufacturing program.
