Co‐located Nonprofit Centers

• Published date: 01 September 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21110
• Author: Diane Vinokur‐Kaplan,Bowen McBeath
• Date: 01 September 2014

77

N M  L, vol. 25, no. 1, Fall 2014 © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nml.21110

Journal sponsored by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University.

Authors’ Note: We gratefully acknowledge fi nancial support from the Aspen Institute Nonprofi t Sector Research

Fund, the University of Michigan School of Social Work and Offi ce of the Vice-Provost for Research, and one of

the nonprofi t centers studied in this paper. We would also especially like to thank the executive directors and staff

of the three nonprofi t centers for their cooperation, and Joyce Carper and Ajay Malhotra for their excellent re-

search assistance.

Correspondence to: Diane Vinokur-Kaplan,  e University of Michigan, School of Social Work, 1080 South University

Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109–1106. E-mail: dkv@umich.edu

Co-located Nonprofi t Centers

TENANTS’ ATTRACTION AND SATISFACTION

Diane Vinokur-Kaplan,1 Bowen McBeath 2

1The University of Michigan, 2Portland State University

Nonprofit centers are organized to house individual nonprofits “under one roof ” to enhance

their efficiency and effectiveness and to offer shared services to diminish administrative

load. This post-occupancy tenant satisfaction survey of three such US centers represents the

first empirical analysis of such organizations. We find that nonprofit tenants (N = 118)

initially co-located due to the leasing price and the new physical environment (free parking

and safety). Nearly all nonprofit tenants wished to remain at their nonprofit centers,

largely for the same reasons that brought them there. The article then discusses strategies to

achieve the high response rates attained in this study. It concludes with some implications

for nonprofit centers, communities, and nonprofit staff—now and in the future, including

lower occupancy costs and enhanced quality of nonprofits’ workspace.

Keywords: nonprofit management, co-location, work environment, management

support, shared services, nonprofit efficiency

DURING RECENT YEARS, charitable foundations and government in the United States

and Canada have encouraged the adoption of various organizational structures to increase

nonprofits’ effectiveness and efficiency. For example, some nonprofits are structured as

incubators for emerging nonprofi ts by providing space and guidance (for example, Vinokur-

Kaplan and Connor 1999; Centre for Social Innovation 2010; also see Gerl and Associ-

ates 2000; and Kinney and Carver 2007). Others have established network structures to

enhance service delivery (Chen and Graddy 2010; Eschenfelder 2011). Moreover, other

nonprofi ts have changed their structure through mergers and partnerships. But one other

growing organizational structure that has not been researched systematically is co-locations,

namely—co-located, multi-tenant nonprofi t centers.

These centers all contain separate, independent organizations gathered under one

roof. Nonprofit centers are defined as a building or geographic site in which nonprofit