Workforce Development Committee Meeting feat. Guest Speaker, Mary Beth Wilkinson of The Well/Hon's Honey

Virtually meet our Guest Speaker, Mary Beth Wilkinson, Senior Director of Hon’s Honey—a social enterprise dedicated to empowering women surviving trauma and addiction through job training and transitional employment—a valuable platform to explore how mission-driven organizations can balance growth with financial sustainability. For Hon’s Honey, scaling production and expanding revenue streams (development and income) must be carefully calibrated alongside their core mandate of intensive, hands-on workforce training. Experiencing rapid growth without operational balance risks stretching training resources thin, while insufficient income can halt programs altogether. Connecting with MBIA allows Hon’s Honey to showcase how maintaining this balance ensures steady traction for their training pipeline, while providing our industry with a clear model: how residential construction and trade apprenticeship programs can similarly balance project development demands and revenue generation while maintaining uncompromised quality in training and workforce development.

Key Takeaways for the Building Industry

• Sustaining the Pipeline: Just as Hon's Honey cannot train workers without product sales and growth, homebuilders and trade contractors cannot train apprentices without maintaining healthy project margins and steady development pipelines.

• Capacity Management: Unchecked growth without dedicated training structures leads to burnout and lowered quality; balancing income with development capacity ensures trainees receive proper supervision and mentorship.

• Mission & Margin: Both social enterprises and construction businesses require financial stability (margin) to support their workforce investments (mission/training).