Build with Purpose, formerly Real Estate Advisory and Development Services (READS), is a nonprofit real estate development and consulting firm with a focus on community and economic development. At a glance, our programs involve developing real estate for social change, ensuring healthy & green communities, and bringing knowledge & innovation to nonprofits.
Developing Real Estate and Community Facilities:
Charter Schools: Helping charter schools to focus on educating students by handling the burdens of facility development including identifying, securing, financing and modifying school space.
Supportive Housing: Developing facilities for individuals in need of social services and affordable housing through effective project management and partnerships with social service organizations.
Affordable Housing: Preserving affordable housing with nonprofit control of manufactured home communities.
Nonprofit Centers: Helping nonprofits co-locate in affordable workspace with access to shared equipment and services.
Ensuring Healthy & Green Communities:
Energy Institute: Connecting a variety of nonprofits with energy efficiency and renewable energy options.
Garden State Schools Initiative: Increasing access to healthy foods by establishing school gardens, assisting with healthier school lunches and connecting schools with their community’s health and nutrition resources.
Solar for Nonprofits: Helping nonprofits access and navigate the process of solar installation.
Bringing Knowledge & Innovation to Nonprofits:
Workshops and Special Events: Providing direct guidance to organizations throughout the year through roundtables, workshops, and webinars on facility options, financing, lending, leases, and real estate options.
Young Community Development Professionals Association: Encouraging partnerships and connectivity in the broader community development field though an organized group of young community development professionals.
Tech for Schools: Creating virtual desktop interface systems in schools to save money and maximize technology resources.
At Build with Purpose, we know the real estate challenges that nonprofits face.
Organizations with vast expertise in delivering social services or educating children also have to make good real estate decisions with less expertise. They have to figure out what’s better—a long-term lease or developing a new facility? Should they pay a premium to lease space when they could own it themselves? Can they afford what they want? How can they make their facility greener or more energy efficient despite limited resources?
Build with Purpose provides that additional support to help nonprofits make well-informed real estate decisions. Furthermore, we believe that there are tremendous opportunities for nonprofits to take far greater advantage of real estate and community development projects. Such projects—when thoughtfully planned and well-executed—can help groups to further their mission, have a broader impact on their communities, and bring organizational and long-term financial stability.
We help nonprofits that lack in-house real estate expertise to develop high-quality, financially sound, and more holistic real estate projects.
Since 2003, we have worked to assemble a team with the following expertise under one roof:
• Real estate development • Business planning • Community development
• Architecture and planning • Engineering • Finance
• Energy efficiency • Renewable energy
As a 501(c)3 organization that competes with for-profit developers, our goal is to develop more thoughtful, more integrated and more financially sound projects that build wealth for the nonprofits with whom we work. Furthermore, our experience helps us to take on hard-to-develop projects that private developers would shy away from such as those with limited equity or environmental concerns.?
