For Nonprofits, Evaluate Your Spaces and Needs – Again
Philanthropic groups work to create more effective workspaces and mission-critical facilities to optimize their funding and better serve causes and constituencies.
How Can Businesses Best Evaluate the Effectiveness of their Facilities and Workspaces Amid Social Distancing and Remote Work Strategies?
With rapid shifts in the workplace caused by the pandemic and shifts in delivery of services and mission, many philanthropic groups are regrouping to study how they use space and how their buildings support their most essential functions.
1. The first step in this effort is to evaluate space needs starting with a simple premise: That facilities should buttress long-term success strategies. Savvy not-for-profit leaders believe that modern, well-planned workplaces boost productivity, wellbeing and employee retention – all ultimately benefiting their mission and constituencies.
Starting with a survey of all employees and, if helpful, clients and partner providers, develop a wish list of ideal settings for the work underway and insights into what’s working well – and what isn’t. These findings then become useful roadmaps for, as an example, what functions need to be closer together, or more open to others visually and acoustically. It also will help inform decisions about relative space allocation and needs for specific kinds of furnishings or resources such as utilities, work tools, and even daylight and outdoor views.
As an example, Spacesmith helped revamp the headquarters of a major regional human-services provider to optimize limited office area and a constrained operational footprint. The new interior architecture supports the charity’s recently implemented “mobile workforce” program, freeing many of its 300 employees to spend more than 50% of their time outside the office -- boosting case-worker and therapist productivity -- and equipping staff with key tools and technologies for on-the-road services. These steps also help set the stage for a successful mobile operation during the Covid-19 pandemic.
SCO Family of Services
Back at the provider’s main facility, the survey results called for a desk-sharing solution and more of the better, more flexible training rooms and visiting suites needed for clients. The staff said they needed easier access to stored books, toys, strollers and diapers, with more ample family visiting areas and a full medical clinic to round out their support mission. Adding to this, Spacesmith created a plan for adding “phone booths” and revamped storage zones so that, in the end, the nonprofit group could deliver the resources they promised while using only a lean, 90-square-feet allotment per employee. At the same time, the new offices create an inspiring and attractive home base for client intake, therapy meetings, case files, and the training of foster parents.
2. The second step for nonprofits today is to develop a more flexible layout to ensure greater adaptability from day to day and week to week, as well as to ensure more stability and continuity of operations when scope and funding do change. This is where nonprofit innovation meets design innovation.
Even where organizations are dealing with limited funds, better facility designs can furnish workplaces on a budget while still boosting operations, enhancing morale, and creating a branded dimension to a group’s mission, vision and cause. As in the for-profit sector, the workplace should boost recruiting and retention of employees, volunteers, sponsors and more.
In fact, efficiency gains and cost reductions often come with new buildings that serve as platforms for long-term success. An example is the 15,000-square-foot home for a multifaceted poverty services group in the Bronx, N.Y., Part of the Solution (POTS). With highly resilient finishes, furnishings that fold, stack and roll, as well as more open, flexible interior layouts, the facility has become a cornerstone of community life. Inside, its modern, welcoming expression enhances such new facilities as a full-service kitchen and dining area, food pantry, counseling offices, a clothing exchange, showers, a barber shop, and full medical and dental suites.
Part of the Solution
In another example, Spacesmith created a flexibly furnished multipurpose room for a public agency, the Staten Island Family Justice Center, which supports group training and quickly resets as a conference room or presentation and event space. Adding this valuable asset came as part of a consolidation of their space needs, proving that good design – even with less space – could boosting effectiveness. Its new family waiting area is a popular and successful addition, too, with its ample windows and transparent partitions that help comfort parents and caregivers while they leave children for meetings in nearby rooms.
Staten Island Family Justice Center
3. Hoteling staff is another option. Many nonprofits and social service agencies today are considering sharing and multiple uses for single-use facilities. Perhaps the most valuable innovation among nonprofits has been the addition of not only hot-desking – the sharing of workstations based on time needed by each employee – but also shared leases, coworking, and multiple-user support and warehousing.
Evolving from the operations strategies seen in various business sectors, these collaborative and even communal concepts completely change how some charities house their operations today. Examples include the alliance between Chicago Youth Centers and Family Focus, first reported in Forbes and now in its fifth year. In another example, Spacesmith helped create a plan for shared spaces split among several workforce support organizations.