Suits, jobs, and training: Joi Gordon is grooming thousands of women for career success.

LIKE MOST PROFESSIONAL WOMEN, Zoe Sheppard, a counselor with PHOENIX House Foundation, a national drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, has a treasure trove of work-life anecdotes about navigating her career path. Yet, unlike many of her contemporaries, Sheppard's journey has been anything but a typical trip up the corporate ladder. She recalls picking out her first interview suit: a classic green two-piece--the same color as the prison uniform she'd been wearing for months prior to that day. She selected the Jones New York suit not from a boutique but at Dress for Success Worldwide (DFS), an international organization that provides professional attire and support services for women re-entering the workforce.

Like many DFS clients, prior to enrolling in the program, Sheppard experienced an overwhelming chain of traumatic life events that included childhood sexual abuse, drug use, and ultimately serving a three- to six-year prison sentence. Yet she was able to not only obtain employment after prison but regain her dignity and become a source of inspiration for others. Sheppard credits much of her success to the empowering influence of CEO Joi Gordon and the DFS organization, which has helped more than 350,000 women around the globe get on the road to self-sufficiency.

According to Gordon, Sheppard represents the type of results she envisioned when she took over the leadership role of shaping DFS from a charity that primarily helped low-income women acquire suits for job interviews into an international network of full-service centers offering career development and professional mentorship. This past August, one of DFS' career developmental partners, Franklin Covey, a provider of executive training courses and organizational products, contributed 500 complimentary seats to its Franklin Covey FOCUS: Achieving Your Highest Priorities one-day workshop (valued at $125,000), to members of DFS' Professional Women's Group, a program aimed at increasing job retention by providing participants with ongoing support.

Robert Half International serves as DFS' exclusive staffing sponsor, providing program members with career-skills evaluations, access to online training, job search, and career development tools.

"We just could not be a closet organization," Gordon says. "My goal is to not only put a suit on a woman. I want that woman to know that she has the potential for greatness, that she can take control of her life by taking classes, workshops, and developing other skills. That is the business model for DFS."

The DFS model helped Sheppard land two subsequent jobs and become a part of the Professional Women's Group.

Rosalyn Taylor O'Neale, DFS Worldwide board chair, sees Gordon's ability to manage people as a key to her success. "Many of the people running the affiliate sites are volunteers," she offers. "Joi has managed to help the affiliates find volunteers who believe in the mission. She is one of the finest organizational leaders that have ever seen. Her people would follow her into Hades [because] she makes them feel valued and important and gives them the support that they need."

But Gordon's professional success extends beyond how she supports women and her staff. In addition to good people skills, today's nonprofit executive must possess strong business acumen, explains David J. Maurrasse Ph.D., president and CEO of Magna Inc., a global consulting firm on philanthropy and strategic partnership. "The environment in which nonprofits are situated right now is one that is far more professionalized than it was 20 years ago," he says. "All the things you're seeing in the for-profit sector--around transparency and financial management--are also affecting the nonprofit sector."

Gordon will tell you that she inherited her determination, integrity, and values from her hard-working single mother. "My morn worked for a global airline, [but for the right opportunity,] she would pick up, move, train, and land a new job."

One of those moves took the family from Brooklyn, New York, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Gordon went on to attend the University of Oklahoma with dreams of becoming an anchorwoman. Motivated by the philosophy that journalism could be a tool for justice, she eventually turned her academic interests toward law after completing an undergraduate degree in radio and television broadcasting.

Her first legal job was with the district attorney's office in Bronx, New York, but law didn't serve as a deep source of personal fulfillment for Gordon. "I didn't feel that I was doing true justice," she says. "[But] I learned about selling ideas, and it made me love the art of public speaking."

In 1996, Gordon found a far more interesting opportunity directing a victim's assistance unit for a New York City nonprofit organization.

This move would prove to be pivotal in Gordon's career. "I realized that women's issues were my true passion. I loved being the voice for a population of people who had become silent." It was a cause that led Gordon to DFS, which was founded in New York City in 1997 by Nancy Lublin, a student, with a small inheritance. Gordon discovered DFS in its sixth month of operation, contacted Lublin, and the two women hit it off immediately. Recalls Gordon: "Nancy said she needed someone with a legal background on her board, so I joined the Dress for Success board of directors." Gordon volunteered for a year and then accepted the position of executive director of DFS New York. "At the time, it was separate from DFS Worldwide. When I came on board, there were probably 10 DFS offices in the country. Nancy was running the Worldwide office, separate and apart for about three years until she retired and I became the CEO for DFS Worldwide. That was in 2002. I had my hands full but I loved it."

In fact, her passion is infectious and contributes to Gordon's charismatic charm. That charm, and her marketing savvy, ultimately fuels the love affair businesses and clients have with the organization.

"We have a saying in the funding community," asserts Maurrasse. "'Funders fund people, not organizations.'"

Maurrasse does note that today's private donors, corporate sponsors, and foundations, more than liking a fundraising executive, have to feel confident in the organization's mission and its track record of deliverables. "Nonprofit leaders must be competent in capacity building, diversifying funding streams, and effective marketing of their programs."

In 2003, Gordon's re-branding efforts included a new look as well as new logo and tagline: Suits to Self-Sufficiency, which focuses on the more-than-suits platform. In 2006, DFS introduced a new Website and is receiving roughly 35,000 page hits a month, with more than 86% being new visitors.

Since heading the organization, Gordon has implemented a variety of support systems and technology for tracking affiliates and measuring their success in key performance areas. "Our newest affiliates are stronger than ever, and I know that is because they go through a rigorous business plan process. We reject as many applicants as we approve. The same business acumen you need to grow a small business is exactly what you need in the nonprofit sector."

Gordon's plans and assessments have paid off. According to the 2005 evaluation of Dress for Success Worldwide, the organization has been rated four out of four stars three years in a row by Charity Navigator, a nonprofit watchdog that independently analyzes charities for potential donors. "We rate charities by evaluating two broad areas of financial health: their organizational efficiency and their organizational capacity. Our ratings show givers how efficiently we believe a charity will use their support today and to what extent the charities are growing their programs and services over time." According to Charity Navigator's latest report of the agency's $4.97 million in revenues, Dress for Success utilized 90.6% on direct services to its clients. DFS' fundraising expenses and administrative costs, which can consume much of an agency's resources, were only 9.4% of its budget, and its increase in revenues from 2004 to 2005 was 45.7%.

It's this type of managerial track record that encourages the support of donors such as Vivian Behrens, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of the national retail chain dressbarn Inc.--one of more than two dozen DFS corporate sponsors. "It is quickly evident that Joi is a woman with intense conviction, unrelenting dedication, and high expectations that she applies to herself, her organization, and the women that she serves," notes Behrens. Since March 2002, dressbarn alone has donated close to $2.5 million worth of suits. The Jaffe Family Foundation, formed by dressbarn's founding family and DFS board member Roslyn Jaffe; privately donated more than $130,000 to support the charity's national and local initiatives.

Gordon's marketing strategies have extended successfully into engaging celebrity partnerships with television personality Star Jones-Reynolds, fashion icon Iman, music legend Gladys Knight, and celebrity makeup artist Bobbi Brown (who also sits on the board of directors). O'Neale observes that the organization has grown exponentially over the last three years in terms of the number of sponsors, product placement, and the number of DFS locations. "We are showing up in the most incredible places, like the online auction for [the movie] The Devil Wears Prada."

Yet with all of the organization's growth and public recognition, Gordon is-most proud of having grown from a charity "that handed out suits to an organization that became more committed to keeping women employed and developing them into leaders."

"I realized that it wasn't just about the suit, but what you fed into the soul of the woman."

PHOTOGRAPH BY LONNIE C. MAJOR