If your organization has space: a conference room, a multipurpose room, a gym, or parking lot, you should be using it to generate unrestricted revenue. Learn how inside this episode!

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NONPROFIT SPOTLIGHT: Airport Marina Counseling Services

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Podcast Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):

Welcome to On Air with Amber Wynn, where nonprofit leaders learned to fuse passion and commitment with proven business strategies to create long-term funding impact and sustainability. And now here's your host and resident, Philanthrepreneur, Amber Wynn.

Speaker 2 (00:29):

Hey, fam, it's your girl once again on air. I'm back. So excited to be in your space. We are continuing with our series called Monetizing Your Assets. Nonprofits have assets, you have skills, you have products, you have services, you have things that are uniquely yours that you can monetize. I'm going to say it, A nonprofit is a business. It's just a business with a philanthropic purpose. And so it is incumbent upon you as the leader to generate multiple streams of revenue. And today we're talking about how to monetize one asset that if you have it could even be passive and it's renting out your space. Nonprofits don't think about that. When I was Executive Director of Girls Inc, I rented my space out to individuals who were doing CPR classes. They needed somewhere to go and instead of going to a hotel, they used my multipurpose conference room.

Speaker 2 (01:36):

So I want you to just really get in the mindset of what is it that I can leverage to generate revenue? And here's the thing. It may not bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars, but if you bring in $300 a month, that's your utilities or it's snacks for your kids or whatever. You know what I mean? The point is you want to have multiple ways of generating revenue because having multiple ways of generating revenue is going to create some stability in your organization. So when we get back, I'm going to jump into how to rent out your space to generate more revenue when we come back.

Speaker 3 (02:25):

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Speaker 2 (03:45):

You're back on air with Amber Wynn, and today we are talking about monetizing your assets if you have space, and it doesn't necessarily mean you have to own it. You can be leasing or renting your space if you have space that you utilize, if you are in a center or if you are a church, whatever. If you have space, then you can leverage that to monetize your organization. So let me give you an example. What if you have a conference room? If you have a conference room, you can rent that out to nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits always have things they need to do. For example, board meetings. Typically boards meet once a month, once a quarter, and they may have to go out and rent a private room at a restaurant or a conference room at a hotel. Why not come to your organization? The benefit of them coming to your organization is not just the financial part, but they'll get to say, Hey, I didn't even know you were here.

Speaker 2 (04:49):

You may form some collaborations. You may have someone in a board on that board who's like, I want to support the organization. So that's another way to increase visibility. If you have a multipurpose room, let's just say it's big like an auditorium, you may use it for sports or you may use it for performances. Rent that out. You can rent that out not only to other organizations who don't have space, but you can rent it out to film crews like the multipurpose area for performances. One of the movie production companies may have a scene that they want to rent out there and they pay really well. So put your name on a registry for that. The other thing that you can rent out is if you have a parking lot, if you are a church with a nice sized parking lot or you're a nonprofit and you have a lot of times you can do your fireworks booth there. They have people who will pay you so that they can do carnivals there. Even other nonprofits, maybe they want to have a skate day and they turn your nonprofit parking lot into a skating rink.

Speaker 2 (06:06):

Not even the carnivals with the rides, but sometimes nonprofits will host just the old school carnival where they have the Dunking booth and they have the, you can rent that out to them to do that. Or even nonprofits have basketball tournaments where they have the competitions, and so you can rent your parking lot out for a plethora of things. Listen to me, if you are in Los Angeles in particular, when you are not using your parking lot, you can rent it out for cars to park there. There's an event or it's just not enough parking space in Los Angeles. So you can say from the hours of six to 10 or six at night to 6:00 AM you can park in our parking structure $25 a week. You've got 20 cars there. So I just want you to think about what is it that we can utilize that we have already, that you don't have to create, that you can monetize to bring in revenue, $300, $500, a $1000 dollars a month that is going to help you to be able to be agile in your organization.

Speaker 2 (07:20):

The most important thing I wanted to tell you about your space is when you're thinking about how to rent it out, there's two things I want you to consider. Number one, you don't want to price yourself as the same rate as a hotel. You want to look and see what their rates are. If there's like $200 an hour, then price yours at $150 an hour. You want to underprice the hotels and the people who right now are taking all of the money, right? You want to be competitive. The second thing you want to do is you want to prepare a rate sheet. So you'll have the specs of the spaces that are available. If it's classrooms, let's just say someone wants to put on a conference and they want to have breakout rooms, have the measurements of the classrooms. It's a 20 by 20 room.

Speaker 2 (08:06):

You can get 15 chairs, and guess what? If you have chairs, those are additional, right? We can bring in chairs, we can bring in tables. You have av if they need av, yes, you can charge for the av. So make sure that you have a solid rate sheet with all of the specs on it. Then you want to come off professional and you want them to know all that they're going to get for their price. The same thing for the movie studios. You want them to know, yes, you can rent out the back lot, you can rent out the front lot, you can rent out the offices. Here's the price for each one of these. So really be intentional. Sit down, look at your facility. What are the things can we rent out? Can we rent out the performing arts place? Can we rent out the conference room?

Speaker 2 (08:57):

Really, really, really think about that and try and quantify that by Googling other organizations. You can say conference rooms for rent, and then that'll come up. They have all kinds of software now where people are renting out, just like studios for photographers to do pictures. You can set up a room where a photographer can come in, bring in their props. They just need space. So renting out your space is a viable option for generating a stream of revenue. You may not have thought about it before, but if this is something that you can do, you can get a committee to come together and figure out what are the things around here that we can utilize and generate some revenue. Alright, so we're going to pause, but when we come back, guess what time it is. It's time for me to answer your questions. Ask Amber is next. When we come back,

Speaker 4 (09:55):

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Speaker 4 (10:21):

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Speaker 2 (11:07):

Welcome back to On Air with Amber Wynn. We are talking about monetizing your assets, and today the topic is renting out your space. It is time for Ask Amber this. When you can ask me your most pressing questions. Listen, they don't even have to be pressing. You could just be curious. You can reach me on any of my socials. You can email me, DM me, hit me up on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. Just ask me your questions. I'm here to answer. Today's question came from LinkedIn and it's from Tanya from Washington State. Hey, Amber, this is Tanya from Washington State. Wanted to know what's the difference between calendar year and fiscal year and does it make a difference or which one should I use? Thanks. So what is being referred to is the term in which you operate your organization. So it can be January to December or it can be any time period, but it's 12 months, right?

Speaker 2 (12:18):

And it's the time that you are going to report to the IRS your taxes. You can say, well, our fiscal year is from July 1st to June 30th, which used to be the typical fiscal year for a nonprofit because that's when the grants would be distributed. So our fiscal year, July 1st to June 30th, because that's when the grants were awarded. More and more nonprofits are just opting for a calendar year because there's so many different times that grants are being awarded that it doesn't really matter. It's really up to you and your accountant. But I wanted to point out that not only nonprofits have fiscal years, but corporations do. Why is that important? This is extremely important because when you ask for corporate sponsorships, you need to know a company's fiscal year. For example, Macy's fiscal year is Macy's, fiscal year is on the fifth Saturday of the new calendar year, the fifth Saturday of the new calendar year.

Speaker 2 (13:33):

That happened to be January 30th. So if their fiscal year is ending January 30th, what does that mean? First of all, the reason why they are fiscal year ends January 30th is because they want to include all of the revenue from the holidays. That's when they make the majority of their money, so they want to close high for their investors and things of that nature. But that's important for a nonprofit because if you are approaching them in January for corporate sponsorships, the money has already been spent. So I tell my nonprofit leaders all the time, they're like, oh, I'm doing this program. I'm going to ask corporate sponsors. I'm like, it's December. You're not going to get any money. They make their decisions typically in the fall, September, October at the latest. November generally speaking, is when corporates make their budgets. So you want to get to them in the spring or the top of the summer because you want to be included in their budget requests.

Speaker 2 (14:36):

If you ask for money afterwards, you're going to get small pittance. You don't want small pittance. You want big chunks of money. So make sure when you're doing your corporate sponsorship requests that you know their fiscal year so that you know when to ask to be included in their budget. That's really important. Okay, Tanya, thank you so much for that question. Now we're going to move to the part of the episode that I love the most when I get to feature a nonprofit. It's called a nonprofit spotlight, and today we are going to put the spotlight on Marina counseling services for more than 50 years. Airport Marina Counseling services has helped thousands of people improve their daily lives. They cover everything from mental health services, and they assist their clients in addressing the critical issues that affect their daily lives. Let's take a look at airport Marina counseling services.

Speaker 5 (15:35):

Hi, I'm Fritz Coleman. I want to get the word out about an organization that is very close to my heart Airport Marina counseling service.

Speaker 5 (15:47):

The mission of AMCS is twofold. To provide affordable community-based mental health services and to train mental health professionals. These are low cost mental health services, even for people who may not otherwise seek out or be able to afford mental health services. They provide real world training for therapists who are really important techniques and everything from art therapy and one-on-one counseling to group therapy to dealing with the LGBT community. AMCS provides counseling services for at-risk students at local schools and the Boys and Girls Club offering these students help before they develop behaviors that may get them into trouble. AMCS is privately funded. They rely on donations and grants, and they're one of the few clinics that will often continue serving clients beyond their normal treatment period. Airport Marina counseling service changes lives, everything from moms and dads who become better parents, to people who have struggled with suicidal thoughts and overcame them. AMCS is making the community a better place. For more information about the amazing work being done by airport Marina counseling service, or to make a donation, Go to www.airportmarina.org. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (17:14):

And thank you Airport Marina. Again, if you want to support their work or make a donation, reach them@amcshelps.org. Alright, so now as we start to wind down, I get to spend a minute with you, and in this minute, the mindset minute, I'm going to encourage you as a nonprofit leader to do some things that's going to endure your staff to you. As we already know, burnout and turnover rates are really high in the nonprofit sector, and it's because the funding is just not there. It's not consistent, and so you don't pay your people their value or your worth. It doesn't mean that you don't appreciate them. It just means that the funding isn't there. But there are other things that you can do to keep people loyal to the organization and excited. And so today I want to talk about that. The name of this mindset Minute is called recognize, acknowledge and reward often.

Speaker 2 (18:24):

So as I said before, the nonprofit tends to pay low and tends to overwork their people, and so what you need to do in order to keep your people there is to recognize. So I try and have my nonprofits do multiple things that will give them multiple outcomes. For example, if you have an e-newsletter, you're using that newsletter to get visibility to generate revenue, but it's also an opportunity for you to recognize the people who work for you in that newsletter. Yes, you can talk about the programs you're doing, but focus on the people who are doing the work. Maybe every month you have a spotlight on your staff that's going to make them feel important. Your programs are amazing, but those programs don't happen without your staff doing the work. So you can do a spotlight. You can also give shout outs on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2 (19:27):

Hey, people, I just want you to know I have the most amazing staff in the world. Just yesterday, Amber was doing dah, dah, dah, dah, and I just want you to know, Amber, I see you and I appreciate you. People need to hear that they are appreciated. I know that there's so many things that you're doing during the day, but I want you just to pause and stop and recognize your staff. The other thing you can do, of course, is acknowledge them. When you have your galas, when you have your events, make sure that you present them in front of your funders, in front of their family and friends. Present them with a certificate, an award, and not because they did something super special, but because they are rocking with you every day because they're doing the hard work and say publicly, I acknowledge that that is important.

Speaker 2 (20:20):

And then finally, when we talk about reward, often as nonprofits, I hear this all the time, well, I can't increase the salary. I don't have it. I'm barely making it. Okay, maybe you can't increase the salary, but what else can you do? What is important to them? If you have staff members that maybe having challenges with childcare, can you stagger their work schedule? Can you have them work from home one day a week? Can you give them a day off with pay, you're going to pay them anyway. Give them a day off so that they can do the things that they need to do in order to continue to be loyal to your organization. One day off a month is not going to kill you, but what it's going to do is endear your staff to you. They know that you don't have the money.

Speaker 2 (21:07):

They work there, but for you to say, okay, pick a day once a month so that you can just handle your business, or even if it's just a mental health day, what they choose to do with it is up to them. We learned during the pandemic that people can work from home, so maybe you say, all right, everybody gets to work from home one day a week, just so they can do their administrative work if they're not out in the field so that they can just recoup. Those are some of the things you can do. You can also, if you have a building or whatever and there's limited parking, do the employee of the month and they get to park in that special place for that month. Those are things that don't really cost you anything extra. It's just really looking to see what can I do to make my people feel special?

Speaker 2 (21:56):

You can bring in donuts. You can bring in the last Friday of the month cake from Marie Calendars, cheesecake pies, or something like that. Something to acknowledge your people who are out there doing the work. It's important that we don't take advantage because a lot of times in the nonprofit sector, people are doing the work because they believe in the mission and they believe in supporting their community. So just take time to pause and think about what you can do to recognize, acknowledge and reward your staff. That's all I have today. We will see you next week with our final installment of Monetizing Your Assets. Take care, guys.

Speaker 1 (22:40):

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe and leave a review on iTunes. Head over to www.amberwynn.net/podcast for the links and resources mentioned in today's podcast. See you next time.