From Scarcity to Inspiration: Rethinking the Value of Nonprofit Facilities
From Scarcity to Inspiration: Rethinking the Value of Nonprofit Facilities
Assessing the Value of Your Facility: How to Set Up Your Nonprofit for Success by Joe Neri, Chief Executive Officer at IFF
IFF is a Member of Nonprofit Connect. Their mission is to strengthen nonprofits and the communities they serve by providing leadership, capital, and real estate solutions. Learn more about their services here.
Does the design of your nonprofit's facility reflect the values and principles your organization believes in? Many clients we serve at IFF are so accustomed to a mindset of scarcity and workaround that they struggle to envision operating any other way. The urge to economize is expected. Specific needs take priority over general wants; the tangible is more important than the intangible, and it can be challenging to think about the concerns of tomorrow until today’s crises are addressed. In the process, the big picture about overall facility needs often falls by the wayside. Think of your facility in a manner similar to that of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. Nonprofit facilities also have physical, psychological, and economic needs that must be met before an agency can transition to the next stage of its work. These include shelter, basic function, high function, interior beauty and inspiration, and community inspiration. Here is a little more about each aspect and how a nonprofit’s facility stage can affect the organization.
Shelter
At the most basic level, a nonprofit facility needs four walls, a roof, electricity, a bathroom, and running water. This setup can barely be described as a “facility.” It is simply a “space.”
Cash-strapped organizations often feel fortunate to have a space at all, for at least it offers them a place to assemble and provide services making it hard to meet the needs of clients’ comfort and dignity.
Basic Function
The next tier is a space that provides an agency with more control and privacy. Often originally designed for a completely different purpose, such a space can be adapted and made to work, providing some comfort and even privacy and allowing for distinct areas dedicated to the agency’s different functions. Agencies have more control in such a space, and staff spend less time managing problems.
High Function
Here, we can start to use the word facility versus space. In this category, facilities were created for their current use, and their physical elements enhance agency programs. More space is available, allowing for areas with dedicated purposes and ensuring privacy where needed. A facility like this allows staff to focus on programs and clients instead of constantly managing space limitations.
Interior Beauty and Inspiration
The next level up is a facility designed not just for function, but with attention to how staff, clients, and stakeholders feel when they are in it. Form both enhances and goes beyond function, making allowances for beauty, mood, and the physical and spiritual sensations good aesthetics can create.
A well-designed facility bolsters the confidence and self-esteem of staff and clients alike; it inspires.
Community Inspiration
Finally, at the top-most level, a nonprofit facility can signal both the value of its mission and the people it serves. Such a facility not only honors and inspires staff and clients who use the building, but the surrounding neighborhood as well. The full impact of facility design—when viewed from this perspective—is almost impossible to quantify.
What’s Next?
Even with resources, however, the evolution from scarcity to inspiration seldom occurs in a straight line, and the marriage between form and function is rarely without conflict.
Challenges include how a space that was not designed for your programs can waste staff time, undermine sustainability, and create negative experiences for clients and stakeholders. Or, alternatively, how a space designed with your programs in mind can support smooth operations and inspire everyone who moves through it.
Nonprofit leaders face many competing pressures. But it is time for our nonprofit ecosystem to recognize these tensions; to free nonprofit leaders and their boards from the psychological oppression these economic pressures have wrought; and to understand that facilities have value beyond services.
Our team can help maximize the value of your facility and allow your organization to thrive even more. For more information about IFF services in Missouri, connect with Stephen Westbrooks (swestbrooks@iff.org), Executive Director, Southern Region, or visit iff.org.
