Last month, NCN launched our Regional Chapters meetups with 10 chapters across the US and Canada. The theme that I heard over and over again in this first meetup – community. At the most basic level, the Nonprofit Centers Network is a community of people who envision a world where every nonprofit has access to a quality workspace and quality infrastructure to deliver on their mission. In our 10 Regional Chapter launches, I saw 10 different regional communities start to come together to learn from each other, and share how they create and support their own communities in their nonprofit centers.
The Regional Chapter Co-Leads (an NCN Steering Committee member and a local member for each chapter) facilitated the conversation in this first meetup where members introduced themselves and discussed the results of the NCN survey “Measuring COVID19 Impacts & Planning for 2021.” We heard several examples of how members had supported their communities during this past year, like granting wide flexibility to tenants if they were experiencing hardship, quickly creating innovative ways to meet the higher need in the human services sector, and supporting the racial justice movement through action and programming. We also saw ways that members’ communities valued and supported them through things like emergency funding, trust to execute challenging projects in a time of need, and loyalty through a very high retention rate of tenants. As one member said, “tenants are wanting to come back for the sense of community – that’s the unique offering of a nonprofit space.” As we continue our work, NCN is grateful for the new communities growing in the Regional Chapters, and know that community will be what carries us all through.
Want to be a part of your Regional Chapter community? Regional Chapter meetups will happen throughout the year, with the next ones being in August and November. Make sure you’re there by filling out this form to learn more about membership. Read more about Regional Chapters here.