OUR HISTORY

 

Masterworks was founded in 1991 with a vision to hire those who for varied reasons have significant barriers to employment. These barriers include homelessness, felony records, addictions and chronic unemployment, often in combination. Our founder, Tim Glader, is a businessman and entrepreneur whose commitment to Jesus Christ brought about this compassionate and strategic venture. Through the years, God has brought hundreds of inner-city residents through our doors.

 

For its first 15 years, Masterworks was primarily a self-sustaining ministry, deriving 95% of its operating funds from business profits. In January 2006, Masterworks divided its ministries into two entities. One branch became a for-profit venture with locations in Little Canada, Minnesota, and Vermillion, South Dakota. All profits from this branch are donated to our on-going non-profit entity.

 

The non-profit branch, Masterworks of Minneapolis, continues to build on its history of offering full-time employment to program participants, deriving a significant portion of our operating income by doing real work in the marketplace. At the same time, we have enhanced our ministry with a more intensive, holistic, individualized approach to the multi-layered needs of our participants. To that end, we now supplement our own business profits with resources from individual donors, grants, and revenue from the for-profit entity. We do not currently receive any government funding.

 

Our on-going vision is to be an organization used by God to bring about faith and growth in Christ, as well as progress toward healthy lifestyles of sobriety, stable employment, financial responsibility and peaceful relationships.