Revolution Workshop is a social enterprise that provides construction and woodworking workforce development for unemployed or underemployed people in partnership with area businesses.

​We deliver financial independence and careers through skills, hope, and resilience.
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Photos by: Jamie Kelter Davis Photography
Our Outcomes

87% trainees complete the program
92% placed in jobs 
85% retention post 3 months
Average wage of $18 per hour

Learn more about our impact.

Why Revolution Workshop?

​Revolution Workshop was created from witnessing lives transformed through hand-crafted woodwork. With the ongoing, dire labor shortage in the skilled trades, we decided to build a best-in-class construction training program fused with a custom furniture social enterprise. Our goal is simple: help solve an ongoing labor-demand issue for skilled trades employers, while transforming lives at the same time.
  • ​Poverty/Low income impacts 1 in 2 households in Chicago*
  • Apprentice-level carpenters starting wage = $15-$17/hr
  • Skilled Trades employers have not been able to find enough good help
     *   Heartland Alliance Report on Illinois Poverty  March 2017
​Revolution Workshop is providing a model that Chicago has never seen: fusing a comprehensive carpentry and design workforce development model with a social enterprise 

Buying RW

Our trainees build skills, hope, and resilience, as well as beautiful furniture with a unique story.
Handcrafted and hand-signed, each piece is built to your specifications by our trainees.  Lives are rebuilt and transformed in the process. Click here to learn more about how you can order your piece.

Skilled Trades Labor Shortage.
  • ​For the seventh consecutive year, the 2017 Manpower talent shortage employer survey lists the skilled trades as the hardest jobs to fill in the United States.
  • Nearly 40% of the Chicago metro building construction workforce was lost after 2008, yet demand for building in 2017 continues to grow for both residential and commercial projects.* 
  • There is an aging workforce with more than half of skilled tradesmen over 45 years old.** 
  • A building renaissance is under way, as the last big building boom happened during the Eisenhower administration. Our nation’s infrastructure needs to be rebuilt.
* Chicago Tribune May 31, 2016 “Construction contractors warn of a labor shortage as building booms” **EMSI, 2012
Meet Our Team