Commercial real estate for associations and nonprofits

Real estate solutions aligned with your unique mission

Nonprofits and associations have unique real estate drivers and needs. Our goal is to achieve a real estate solution that aligns with, reflects and strengthens your mission. We work to protect your time and ensure that our process is inclusive of the key stakeholders – your Board, staff, donors, members and communities.

We understand what it takes to craft and manage a thoughtful and diligent process that reflects the distinctive attributes of organizations like yours.

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Strategic planning

Critical to a thorough space evaluation process is a strategic plan. We analyze your mission, goals, and daily workflow to develop goals. Considerations include:

Your mission: We understand that your space should reflect and enhance your organization’s mission. How does/should your space relate to fundraising, retention, recruiting, daily workflow, programs, events and outreach?
Revenue/funding: How is your organization funded? Is it consistent, cyclical, influenced by specific events, etc.? How will this impact your real estate costs?
Accounting: What accounting procedures do you use for your real estate costs and furniture/equipment? How are operations funded (revenue, reserves, etc.)?
Flexibility: How can the real estate solution provide future flexibility to meet changes to your organization or the broader business climate?

Evaluation process

After establishing goals and developing a strategic plan, our Avison Young professionals help you evaluate your options.

Lease versus buy: We understand that this is an important consideration for organizations like yours. We create financial models to help you determine which option makes more sense.
Decision makers: Who will be involved in making the real estate decisions? In our experience, the process includes staff, internal committees and/or your Board. We create deliverables and tailor our process to ensure each constituency is part of the process – and ultimate decision.
Specialized uses: Whether it’s programming, events, training or client interface, we make sure we advocate for the unique ways in which you may need to use your space.
Funders/members: How will funders and/or members view and/or use your space? Our evaluation process keeps these important groups in mind.
Your time: We want you to focus on your mission. We work hard to protect your time throughout the process so you can concentrate on your organization and team.