By Saul Ettlin
Director of Consulting
At Community Vision we have worked with hundreds of nonprofits around the Bay Area and across California to solve real estate questions and find space solutions that best allow organizations to meet their missions. Through these partnerships, we have seen that there is a dearth of readily accessible commercial real estate information available to nonprofit leaders to help them navigate the market. From a lack of straightforward listing information to a scattershot of relevant tools and guides, organizations can feel lost as they search for their next home. Further, we have seen that nonprofits who have surplus office, program, or event space to rent, have few resources available to share these opportunities with their peers.
That’s why we launched SpacesforGood.org. Spaces for Good is foremost a place to list and find space for free. It’s for anyone who is offering office, program, coworking, or event space and is excited by the prospect of having nonprofit tenants. It is a place where organizations can come to look for just about any kind of space and hopefully find just what they need.
Being a free listing service is just the beginning. Understanding that the real estate market can be tough to navigate and that there are dozens of decisions to make along the way, we wanted Spaces for Good to also be a resource center. We are assembling some of the best tools, guides, and information around commercial real estate and financial capacity building, and have tailored them to nonprofits to help them in their decision-making process. Every month we add a new offering and look forward to its’ growth into a robust library of resources for the sector.
As Spaces for Good evolves, we plan to add other resources like a calendar of our upcoming trainings and events, a listing of funding opportunities related to nonprofit space, responses to our new feature “Ask a Consultant” and more. If there is something you hope to see on Spaces for Good, please let us know.
Thriving communities need strong nonprofits and those nonprofits need quality, affordable and stable space that helps them achieve their mission. Our real estate advisory services are committed to partnering with nonprofits led by and working in communities on the margins of opportunity to find sustainable real estate solutions in the places where they need and want to be. Spaces for Good is our effort to amplify that work and bring tools, information, and other resources for as many organizations as possible.
The Spaces for Good team, which includes Community Vision’s Co-Director of Consulting Services, Saul Ettlin, and Consulting Analysts Jessica Townsend and Sarah Schwid, are excited to hear from users and welcome feedback to make the site better. We hope that you’ll find the site useful and that you’ll share it with your colleagues in the field.
