Nonprofit Centers Network Encourages Community Organizations to Join Forces and Share Space

What is the mission of the Nonprofit Centers Network?

The Nonprofit Centers Network is a project of Tides Shared Spaces, an initiative of the Tides Network that creates and educates about quality nonprofit workspace nationally. We arose because affordable, stable workspace is always in short supply in the nonprofit sector. This is true both when funding streams are reduced but also in times of real estate boom, such as the dot-com boom in the Bay Area or nationally in cities where a lot of condo conversions are going on. Nonprofits are often forced into places like church basements, substandard space, space that's not near transit, which makes it hard for them to attract quality staff and to do the important services and advocacy that nonprofits contribute to our society. Work space is often an overlooked need on the part of foundations and donors who fund nonprofits. The other issue is that while nonprofits need good space, real estate is not a core competency of the nonprofit sector. Our mission is to provide education for nonprofits that are involved in capital projects and in particular to encourage the creating of shared infrastructure-what we call multi-tenant nonprofit centers.

What is the role and mission of the Tides Network?

The Tides Network is a consortium of large national nonprofits that together provide important infrastructure for the nonprofit sector and social change movements. It includes Tides Foundation, which works with individuals and family to facilitate their philanthropy. The Tides Center serves as a home for new nonprofit activities while providing all their back-office services. The Tides Shared Spaces and The Nonprofit Centers Network are important components of that infrastructure provision.

What are the components of a multi-tenant nonprofit center?

The model has diverse illustrations, but the building we have in San Francisco, the Thoreau Center for Sustainability, is a good example. The Tides organization renovated an historic building in a national park in San Francisco; it was an old hospital, and we converted it to nonprofit offices. We have over 50 nonprofits in quality space. The Thoreau Center has saved its nonprofit tenants over $13 million dollars in rent compared to market rates in its 10 years of existence. We also provide educational programs for the staff. We run two art galleries, and we provide a venue for nonprofits in the community to hold meetings. We encourage the nonprofits that work in the building to share back offices and other ways of making themselves more efficient. Another example is the Marin Justice Center, where all the tenants are legal services organizations for low-income people. It's a one-stop shop for low-income people who need legal services, so instead of traipsing all over town, they can go to one centralized location.

What examples are there outside the Bay Area?

There are some very large nonprofit buildings, including one the Al Sigl Center in Rochester, New York; the Community Services Building in Delaware; the Interchurch Center in New York City. The Detroit Youth Foundation just finished a building called YouthVille Detroit, where the ground floor holds facilities to serve youth-computer lab, a gym, classrooms, activity space. And the top floor of the building houses nonprofits that provide services for youth, and they have access to the kids, the kids have access to them, and they can all collaborate with each other in an efficient way. The Family Services Building in Charlotte, North Carolina, has eight organizations that all work with families and children. They worked with community donors to raise the money to build the building where all these organizations could house their services. Often these buildings might have a small restaurant or retail tenants as well. The Fairhill Center in Cleveland has, on the one hand, a lot of organizations serving elders, but it also a childcare center, and the seniors work with the children. Bringing organizations together under one roof creates a higher level of both programmatic and shared-services collaboration than if they were separate. These buildings exist in large cities, but there are also rural centers, suburban centers, and multi-tenant art centers, all over the country.

Tell us about the program of the Nonprofit Centers Network.

Once or twice a week somebody calls us and says, "The city just gave us an old junior high school and we want to put nonprofits in it, but we have no idea how to begin." We were created to fill a need of educating nonprofits about how to do these kinds of capital projects and keep them from reinventing the wheel. We carry out our mission through workshops, conferences and peer networking. We have an online resource center with everything from sample leases to pro formas to explanations about various kinds of funding. Members of the Nonprofit Centers Network receive not only discounts on our educational work, but also one on one mentoring by experienced practitioners.

We also do a lot of education about green building; we think that's important for the nonprofit sector. If they're trying to build a healthy and sustainable society, their work environment should be green. We have gone around the country doing workshops not so much on how to do cutting-edge stuff like green roofs but rather how to take an existing building and retrofit it for water and energy and operate it without toxics. That creates a much healthier environment for the staff and constituents and it also contributes to the environment in the long term.

You're leading a workshop in Los Angeles on Jan. 30 called "Strategic Considerations in Creating and Operating Multi-Tenant Nonprofit Centers." Who should attend that workshop? What themes and subjects will it include?

We will be presenting the key strategic considerations that a company or organization should think about if they're considering projects like these. Everything from vision to some of the real estate nuts and bolts and how to put it together in a coherent project that they can carry out. We'll also talk about nonprofit buildings and their role in building the nonprofit sector. I think that the workshop will be useful for a broad spectrum of participants-not just nonprofits or people who operate nonprofit buildings, but also foundations and donors who are interested in meeting the needs of their community and understand that funding workspace is important. Nonprofit centers are a great social investment proposition. One grant or loan benefits multiple organizations and nonprofit rents can leverage commercial debt to make these projects viable. Nonprofit buildings often play an important role in community economic development. They bring in nonprofit employees who are served by restaurants and stores, and it begins to pull a neighborhood together and make it desirable to other businesses. We've had a lot of interest from city and government officials. We just did a similar workshop in Denver that was sponsored by the Mayor's Office. Finally, we believe that nonprofits shouldn't try to reinvent the wheel, so we encourage them to work with businesses and individuals in the for-profit sector who have real estate skills and are interested in contributing to community health by working with nonprofits. So developers, brokers and bankers participate at all our workshops, and they are also members of the Nonprofit Centers Network.

Is there an online component to the Nonprofit Centers Network?

I encourage people go to either of our websites. They should start at www.nonprofitcenters.org where they can gain access to all of our resources and find out about our upcoming National Conference, May 16-18, 2007 in San Francisco. If you're interested in our overall project you can learn more about Tides and the buildings we operate at www.tidessharedspaces.org.