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Junior League Of Little Rock Offers New Office Space To Nonprofits

Nonprofits in Little Rock looking for a way to better their organizations will soon have a new option for doing so. The Junior League of Little Rock is entering the final stage of its plan to sell discounted office space and other resources to several nonprofits at its headquarters. The League says fostering a supportive, collaborative environment among nonprofits will help them grow and be successful.

A campaign that has been over twelve years in the making is now closer to completion. The organization is currently in the process of renovating its entire third floor in order to rent out the area as office space to nonprofit organizations at prices well below the market average.

Junior League President Lindsey Gray says this will allow the Junior League to help the community in ways it never could have done before.

“There will be seven different offices, and they will seat anywhere from one employee to four employees,” explained Gray. “So it’s kind of depending on what the organization needs individually. There’s also a boardroom there to house either board meetings or they could use it as a resource room. There will be shared office equipment, and also a kitchen and an eating area for all of those employees to share.”

This operation started back in 2002, when the Junior League acquired enough funding to buy out the three-story Woman’s City Club building in the capital city. From there, the Junior League set about renovating the first and second floors as a means of establishing their official base of operations, as well as provide them the space to host events for the public.

“The original goal when the building was purchased about eleven years ago was that Phase Three would always be a nonprofit center, something that we would open to the community to allow nonprofits to move in, share the space, have the lower rent, and use it as a place to collaborate with one another,” said Gray.

Shortly after work began on the third floor, an advisory board was created in order to determine who will get the office space. The board includes people from both inside and outside the organization who are tasked with ensuring that the groups that apply for the space meet the league’s requirements and standards. While those requirements have yet to be determined, Jennifer Maune, President of the Nonprofit Center, says that there are certain aspects that will come into play during the selection process.

“What we want,” Maune said. “Is to know what an organization has is structurally sound; it has a strategic plan, it has things in place such as a board of directors, they have a mission and a strategic plan for moving their organization forward. We’ll need to see some financial documents and then check their references with their past landlords, you know, things like that.”

The League will also help non-profits reach their maximum potential by providing a broad range of resources like a research center.

“We also plan to have a training program offered throughout the year, where we do monthly lunch and learns, where we gather everyone together and cover topics that are important to growing and sustaining nonprofit organizations,” said Maune.

The League plans on paying for utilities like electricity, water, high speed Internet service, and air conditioning. Maune says this will help decrease a non-profit’s overhead costs and improve efficiency.

“Those things they won’t be billed for separately, which is going to help them with cost savings and allow them to use their vital donor funds on the community and serving their constituencies rather than on large overhead costs,” explained Maune.

Maune says she knows from personal experience that nonprofit organizations can function more effectively if they share office space with other nonprofits. Prior to becoming the president of the Nonprofit Center, Maune worked as the executive director of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Though that organization started out as a small, home-based operation, it was eventually inducted into a similar shared office space program.

“We were accepted into a similar program,” said Maune. “And because of that program we had five different nonprofits working together in one space, learning from each other, and then also the discounted rate on our space helped our organization grow. We grew from a $150,000 organization to a $600,000 organization in a matter of four years.”

Maune is also confident that this initiative will not only have an impact on the city of Little Rock, but also on the entire state of Arkansas. “Many of the organizations that have reached out to us are statewide organizations, so they serve the statewide population of Arkansas,” said Maune.

“So we’re excited that this will actually…even though it’s built and they will reside in Little Rock, it’s actually going to be something that I think will have a positive impact on the entire state of Arkansas.”

The office space is due to finish in November, and the Junior League projects that it will be furnished and fit for sale by February. The application process is set to begin in October and will last for six weeks through November.

Link to the Junior League Nonprofit Center Web Page: http://www.jllr.org/nonprofitcenter