Having recently acquired a building at 1000 Maple Ave. through a donation, the Nonprofit Management Center has undertaken a capital campaign to add an elevator and further renovate the two-story office.
Executive Director Laurie Johnson said the building encloses 10,000 square feet.
The building was owned by Jeff Rea of West Texas Insurance Exchange. His parents were very active in the community for many years.
Rea gifted the building to the Nonprofit Management Center at the end of December 2021. Nonprofits can rent out space and the center is renting space to other tenants, as well.
The Nonprofit Management Center has kicked off a $2.5 million capital campaign and hopes to start construction by the end of the year, Johnson said.
“We will be calling it the Rea Family Building as we do the capital campaign to recognize his family, and particularly his parents, for the work they have done in the community. We moved in. We’ve already invested out of our reserves of almost $200,000 in the building. We had to do some things to be able to get our certificate of occupancy. We completely secured the building with exterior cameras and alarms. We have furnished meeting spaces, we have done full multimedia AV (audio-visual) capabilities throughout the building,” Johnson said.
The building is meant to be a hub that will help the Nonprofit Management Center engage organizations from surrounding rural communities over a huge region. It will also mean access to reasonably priced meeting space, shorter travel times for Odessa nonprofits and areas west and southwest for lunch and learns and other NMC trainings; and access to modern equipment.
Technically called a management support organization, Johnson said the Nonprofit Management Center is a business consultant that specializes in nonprofits.
“And we, too, are a nonprofit. We provide information … education, direct consulting and technical assistance. … We help them do the things that they really didn’t probably get into nonprofits to do. They got into nonprofits because they were passionate about the mission they were serving; not passionate about personnel policies and procedures, legal components of a nonprofit, compliance issues and financial policies,” Johnson said.
“That’s not (why) they got into it and that’s not where they get their joy. We’re there to help them to be better. Some of our clients we have because they come to us because they may be in a difficult situation. Others are coming because they want strategic planning, or goal setting. We see them at all ends of the spectrum. We offer some large group classes,” Johnson said.
Generations is starting Aug. 15 at the Odessa location.
Generations is an eight-session class that is a half day for community volunteers interested in learning about board service and who want to serve a nonprofit at the board level.
“We train them about governance, about the things they need to learn to be able to be on a board. Many of them are nominated by their employer. Both the nominee and the nominator sign a commitment letter prior to being accepted into the class that they will be placed on a board by us. We work with them on their passion area. We don’t just assign them to some random board. They are placed on a board by us where they will serve for a minimum of a year. The participants sign the commitment that they’re going to at least do that and the nominator has signed a commitment that they will give them the time and resources to do it,” she added.
Currently, they have more than 400 graduates on boards. Very rarely do they see someone who only serves for a year.
“We’re thrilled by that. We have a program called the Nonprofit Executive Leadership Certification Program. It’s a 72-contact hour course. It runs September through May, one day a month. It is for people that are either in executive leadership positions, or people … aspiring to become an executive at a nonprofit. They take that course … and then we’re here for support,” Johnson said.
Johnson said they also have regular lunch and learns. They have one coming up Aug. 17 at the Odessa office.
They are also held at the Midland location at Midland Shared Spaces.
Nonprofit Management Center has existed since 2000.
The Meadows Foundation funded it for three years.
“We were part of a hosted program of the Permian Basin Area Foundation. We were a sponsored program of them. We made the decision in 2012 to branch out on our own and became our own nonprofit. We received our termination letter in late 2013 and moved out of the umbrella of the Permian Basin Area Foundation in 2014,” Johnson said.
The Nonprofit Management Center’s service area includes Odessa-Midland, the Trans-Pecos region, San Angelo to Abilene to Lamesa, over to El Paso and down to the Mexican border.
Last year, they served nonprofits from 36 Texas counties, plus some outside of that.
“We made the decision in 2018 that we were going to open a location in Odessa to better serve … Odessa and beyond. … We have people that come in for our programs from Alpine and Marfa. The nonprofit executive leadership certification class has had at least one person from the Marfa or Alpine, or Fort Davis area every year,” Johnson said.
They were at Connection Center at 4241 Tanglewood Lane, but at the end of June 2021, the board asked Johnson to find another location.
“Two weeks later, I get an email from Renee Earls at the Chamber saying, Laurie, I’ve got a businessman who’s interested in donating a building to a nonprofit. Do you know anybody who might be interested?”
Johnson told Earls, who had just come off the board, that the Nonprofit Management Center was interested.
A native of Temple, Johnson moved here as a news director of KYXX radio right after she graduated from Baylor University. She met her husband, Gary, in the church choir at First Baptist.
“We’re getting ready to hit 43 years of marriage … I’ve lived here longer than anywhere else,” Johnson said.
They will have the Beacon Awards, designed to honor excellence in nonprofit work, at 11:30 a.m. Sept. 26 at the Odessa Marriott Hotel and Conference Center.
“We’ve got the winners for this year. It’s a good mix of Midland and Odessa,” she said.
One of the winners for program excellence is the Ward County/Monahans Broadband project. There is a tie in that category.
“This is the first time we’ve had a nomination from outside of Midland-Odessa,” Johnson said.
