Share Space for Efficiency and Effectiveness

China Brotsky, Senior Vice-President at Tides and Managing Director of Tides Shared Spaces recently contributed a “Tip of the Week” to the Nonprofits 101 Resource Center blog, entitled, “Consider Creating a Nonprofit Center with Other Organizations or Joining a Like-minded Co-working Space.” Here’s an excerpt from her post:

One of the most significant costs for any organization is the price of office space and back-end services. Collaboration through shared space can help maximize your operating budget while at the same time providing unexpected benefits.

Nonprofit centers are physical facilities that intentionally house more than one nonprofit organization. These centers take shape around different themes, which can help an organization find a location where it’s surrounded with synergistic relationships and potential collaborators.

Nonprofit centers provide rents to organizations at below market lease rates starting at less than half the going rate. In a recent study by Tides’ Nonprofit Centers Network, the average annual cost savings among participating organizations from sharing space and the additional shared services is about 7 percent of annual operating costs.

You can read the entire article on the Nonprofits 101 Resource Center blog.

Image from the 2011 Building Opportunities  conference, taken at the Center for Healthy Communities at The California Endowment in Los Angeles.