Community Spaces Network is a membership organization of creators and operators of social purpose real estate and the professionals that make SPRE happen.
Our mission is to increase the capacity and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector and improve the communities they serve by supporting the development and operations of quality community serving spaces. We do this by:
Organizing a membership of social purpose real estate practitioners
Cultivating peer and expert-led education and capacity building
Curating events for the SPRE sector
Consulting to NGOs, philanthropy and government
Being a thought leader for SPRE across North America
Providing resources for nonprofit and SPRE leaders
All of our work has the focus of building generational wealth and power in communities systematically excluded from real estate ownership.
Mission:
Our mission is to increase the capacity and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector and improve the communities they serve by supporting the development and ongoing operations of multi-tenant nonprofit centers and other quality community serving spaces.
Vision:
Our vision is that of a future when every community has access to the space it needs to be sustainable, healthy, and vibrant.
Approach:
Our approach is to support and amplify the voices of social purpose real estate practitioners and advocate for sustainable solutions to community infrastructure, particularly through nonprofit and local ownership and control.
Theory of Change
Because marginalized and disinvested communities face systemic barriers to real estate ownership, we work to help create spaces that are designed, owned and run by communities for communities.
To us that means walking alongside leaders to envision, establish and activate social purpose real estate that creates permeance for nonprofits, prevents displacement due to gentrification, and builds generational wealth and the power resulting from land control. Social purpose real estate builds connections within and across communities to promote safety, belonging and collaboration. We do this through these core strategies:
Education: We bring together social purpose real estate leaders and practitioners from across North America around geographic, thematic and issue areas. We demystify the development process so that local organizations can build the skills necessary to drive non-extractive real estate development in their communities.
Membership: We cultivate a membership of developers and operators of social purpose real estate and all of the professionals that make community development happen to establish and share best practices for developing and operating nonprofit shared spaces through curated peer-to-peer and expert-led learning environments.
Events: We present North America’s only nonprofit commercial real estate conference, as well as various virtual training and professional development opportunities.
Consulting: We work as thought partners to NGOs, philanthropy and government to create spaces that reflect the dreams and needs of local communities by facilitating the visioning, feasibility, and pre-development of social purpose real estate.
Resources: We provide access to hundreds tools, templates, publications, studies, guides, trainings and manuals for use by practitioners