complete with furniture donated by Ikea.
File Photo
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN) moved this fall into new office space in Uptown. The group has had office space in the center city area for 15 years, including space at First United Methodist Church on N. Tryon St., but staffers say their new space will save them some funds and offer new opportunities for collaboration.
The new offices, furnished by donations from Wells Fargo and Ikea, are located at 601 E. 5th St., Suite 470, in the Children and Family Services Center at Fifth and McDowell Sts.
Nathan Smith, RAIN’s director of development and marketing, said he was excited about new potential opportunities at the space.
“Being one of ten nonprofits in the building, the move not only facilitates potential collaborations,” Smith said, “but being among the other agencies it makes it easier for our clients to be referred to other agencies within the building.”
Smith said over 60 non-profit collaborations have happened among groups housed at Children’s and Family Services since the facility was first built 10 years ago.
The move will also allow RAIN to be “good stewards” of their donors’ funds and more competitive in grant funding, Smith said.
“We will actually be saving money from the move because of the combined services that we now receive,” he said.
Such services include shared human resources services, bookkeeping and payroll.
Among other shared services are technology infrastructure needs, something Smith said he’s most excited about.
“Not only do we all have computers that are on the same operating system, we have an IT department that helps answer all the questions that I used to try and answer,” he said.
Most importantly, Smith said the new space will improve RAIN’s ability to serve their clients. The space also offers shared meeting space that allows the group to host several meetings at once.
“In our old space we had one large meeting space that all of our support groups, volunteers, etc., had to use, but now that we have different size meeting and training rooms we have access to, we can focus on setting up the right time based on the client and volunteers, not necessarily the open time slot,” Smith said.
The move has been described has “strategic,” saving the organization money and setting it up for future growth.
Smith said, “After 20 years serving the Charlotte area, the goal was to ensure that our organization preserves that longevity and set itself for the future.”
RAIN hopes to host an open house sometime in January. Stay tuned to qnotes’ calendar of events, published in each print edition and online at goqnotes-launch2.newspackstaging.com/calendar/ for more information. : :