When the Sault Ste. Marie Soup Kitchen Community Centre first opened in the city’s west end nearly thirty years ago, the modest space — a former liquor store — adequately served those who came for meals. As the organization grew however, additional programs were added, including a licensed daycare. “It served its purpose, I’d say, for the first ten years…[now] the space is totally inadequate,” says Executive Director Calna McGoldrick.

She describes the difficulty of accommodating both the daily afternoon meal provided by the soup kitchen and the late-afternoon daycare program.

“The place has to be cleaned up so the children’s staff can take their stuff out of various cupboards…we spend a lot of needless time cleaning, organizing, tripping over things.”

The Soup Kitchen’s spatial challenges are nothing short of the status quo for many nonprofits, for whom the struggle to simply stay afloat makes concepts like renovation and interior design seem almost decadent.

Still, in recent years, the Toronto-based social enterprise, the Centre for Social Innovation, has generated considerable buzz for emphasizing physical space as a key ingredient in fostering social innovation. In addition to pioneering a trend of communal workspaces — they rent offices and desks to nonprofits and socially-minded companies — the CSI stresses the foundational principle of “designing a space that’s functional, whimsical, inviting and energizing.”

Whether shared or not, the role that physical environment plays in shaping the culture or mood of an organization cannot be ignored, and is increasingly taken into account by both client-based and non-client-based agencies.

Kingston-based nonprofit marketing consultant John Suart maintains that because the sector is dominated by small organizations, “many simply do not have the money to have anything but second-class offices and physical spaces.”

Still, he suggests that a modest budget is not an excuse to forgo considerations of design altogether.

“Something for-profits know that we in the nonprofit sector often forget is that success breeds success…physical space is not the only way to measure success, but it is not unimportant. Appearances can sometimes influence reality.”

Indeed, nonprofits across the budget spectrum are weighing in on what works — and what doesn’t — in terms of physical set-up, and for some, how to maximize a smaller setting without shelling out a significant chunk of change.

Brighten it up

Suart says a nonprofit office can be enhanced and personalized simply, by using the walls to reflect the organization’s identity. “Just like we brand our websites and business cards, so too should we brand our physical spaces. If your message is that your nonprofit is a caring organization, people should see that on the walls of your office.”

He recommends establishing a process wherein clients and donors are photographed upon visiting, and that their pictures be placed on the walls. Suart also stresses the importance of including photographs of staff who, “toil in the basements of nonprofits. Make them feel important by putting their picture by the front door for all to see.”

For organizations offering basic services to vulnerable populations, there is the general sense that colour can help ward off a clinical or foreboding atmosphere. McGoldrick says the Soup Kitchen provides a space that feels physically welcoming in spite of its smallness, with bright, freshly-painted walls covered with children’s art. “Physically it’s attractive — when I started here it was all grey and doom and gloom sort of thing, so it’s much better now,” she says.

Lori Greer is the operations manager at Agape Centre, a combined soup kitchen, food bank and thrift store in downtown Cornwall. She says colour is key to making the place feel warm and fresh, as opposed to institutional. In a resourceful measure, the centre will soon be skirting costs by participating in a local store’s corporate initiative to paint nonprofit spaces free of charge.

User-friendly

Christina Palassio is the communications coordinator at the STOP Community Food Centre, a dual-location Toronto facility that applies principles of food sustainability and education to frontline services. One of their spaces houses a food bank, renovated last year so as to be brighter and more welcoming and to increase its user-friendliness. Palassio says the organization received significant feedback from clients about ways to make the food bank and drop-in space more accessible.

In addition to repainting and reorganizing the food bank, Palassio says a key suggestion was to set up a comprehensive chalkboard and program calendar to communicate more clearly the various programs held each day. Though it sounds simple, Palassio says adding the chalkboard and calendar have made a big difference in getting the word out about events, like their Friday food demonstrations.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on and it can be pretty hectic…It’s having that kind of tangible, practical information, making sure people know when things are happening — this can be a basis for letting people spread things by word of mouth, and getting them to stick around.”

Using space to break down barriers

The STOP applies their philosophy of ending the way charity divides people into “the self-sufficient and the shamed” to their set-up and use of space.

The food bank and drop-in centre are adjoining, which Palassio says encourages food bank users to sit and socialize at the tables. In addition, a subsidized food market is held each Thursday, during which a cozy, café-type atmosphere is created by staff offering cider and hot chocolate. “We want people to feel like they can sit with their friends and don’t feel they have to rush away,” Palassio explains. “It’s really hard to ask for food—[we make it a bit easier] by making a warm, welcoming space where people can hang out and get to know each other.”

Questions of privacy

While a small workspace can potentially feel like a barrier to privacy, Pam Bastedo, development manager at Meal Exchange, a charity that addresses food security through youth-based initiatives, says having their team of five working closely in small, open quarters has its advantages. “We’re able to kind of yell across the room at each other. It makes for a really open and sharing culture; we know what people are working on and are able to help each other out.”

Bastedo acknowledges, however, that working in such close proximity to others requires an extra degree of focus. “You’ve definitely got to be able to zone out or zone in on whatever, so that you’re able to focus on work when people are having meetings right next to you.”

McGoldrick cites lack of privacy as a symptom of the Soup Kitchen’s restrictive space. Because they are often at capacity, McGoldrick says waiting clients sometimes wander into the staff offices, making it difficult for employees to speak on the phone. Further, because there is little allowance between food bank and daycare hours, clients from the former sometimes inadvertently interrupt the childcare programming. “The staff from the children’s program are often not used to working with the daytime clientele, so it’s difficult for them…what we really want is a safe space for the kids — a dedicated daycare — it would make staff feel less vulnerable.”

At the STOP’s food bank, privacy is ensured using a wall they built in front of the food bank’s pass-through window. Palassio said they did so out of respect for those who are not intent on socializing or being seen picking up food.

Cultural resonance

Native Child and Family Services of Toronto is a multi-service agency that focuses on child welfare and residential care for families in the Toronto Native community. The organization has garnered substantial attention for the large, multiuse centre built in collaboration with aboriginal artists and designers in 2010. In addition to housing a childcare space, an art studio and administrative offices, the aboriginal-owned space holds a traditional longhouse — used for meetings, counseling and spiritual events — and the roof contains a garden growing traditional native plants, as well as a sweat lodge. “Culture is an active, living thing and it needs a tool,” says Executive Director Kenn Richard. “This is a place that resonates with people when they walk into it.”

Richard further touts the open spaces, use of local building materials and inclusion of iconic aboriginal imagery, “without resorting to clichés — like dream catchers, or the usual expropriated stuff.”

In building a structure that fits the organization’s mandate to establish Native ownership in an urban context, Richard says he further understands the impact of space.

“I absolutely appreciate how you can enhance the quality of your work with good design that resonates, that embodies, that creates a facilitated service environment.”

While Native Child and Family Services was fortunate to receive multiple levels of funding for the project, Richard says organizations do not need a lot of money to optimize space, but rather, “lots of imagination.” In that vein, the STOP has integrated culture into their food bank on a smaller scale. One of their sites runs a community garden initiative, wherein eight immigrant groups tend respective plots, and senior citizens representing each background mentor youth in growing practices.

Summing up

For a nonprofit space to offer an atmosphere of warmth, inclusion and sensitivity, the above factors should be considered, and may be applied to an organization’s particular mission and budget. For directors unsure of where to begin, Stuart suggests simply soliciting staff feedback. “It’s natural for workers to want to have input into what their surroundings look like. Ask them.”

As demonstrated by the STOP and Native Child and Family Services, the same can be done with clients, whose visions of space improvement will ultimately prove the most valuable.

Jodie Shupac is a Toronto-based freelance writer. She contributes to a range of publications, covering culture, urban issues, health and the environment.

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