Nonprofit seeks money for growth
Eric Gray is convinced he can help cut Central Florida’s poverty rate in half. But first he needs a bigger parking lot.
Gray runs the busiest nonprofit social-service agency in the region — United Against Poverty — out of a collection of older buildings in an industrial district, sandwiched between the train tracks and busy West Michigan Street in Orlando.
The site is less than half a mile from the trendy SoDo District, but here people vie for a spot to shop for low-cost groceries, take job-training classes or seek help from a domesticviolence counselor. There are 90 parking spaces — and more than 500 people a day wanting them.
With 33,000 clients seeking
help last year, the demand has led to an urgent campaign to raise $500,000 between mid-December and mid-January to buy the only property available for expansion.
“I have to park illegally every day,” Gray says. “It’s a very tangible sign of how many people we’re helping. But I hate it because I know how many people just don’t feel comfortable trying to fight for a parking space, so they just go home. Or they don’t come down at all.”
United Against Poverty — once known as the Community Food and Outreach Center and, before that the Destiny Foundation — has tripled the number of people it served four years ago and added a popular six-week program that aims to get minimum-wage workers into better-paying and more stable careers.
A wave of new clients after hurricanes Irma and Maria has only made things more crowded.
Two years ago, the agency entered a contract to buy 2 acres on its southern border at a cost of $1.625 million — at the time, above the parcel’s appraised value. The sale has to close by March 1, and the United Against Poverty board of directors meets Monday to vote on whether to proceed with the deal.
The nonprofit has worked all along to raise the money, securing grants of $513,000 apiece from the city of Orlando and Orange County last year, though those took until September to be approved. The private Joe & Sarah Galloway Foundation in Winter Park added $90,000 to the effort. But that still left Gray with the half-million-dollar gap to close.
“Now is the point where I start to lose sleep,” he says. “We’ve never attempted to raise this kind of money in such a short time period. And if we fall short, I don’t think we’ll get another chance.”
The past two years have brought new momentum to the real estate market, particularly with the popularity of SoDo, so it’s unlikely that Gray’s agency could negotiate a new contract without offering substantially more money.
Mitchell Glasser, Orange County’s manager of Housing and Community Development, says that escalating property values and increasingly scarce land, especially within Orlando city limits, mean there simply aren’t good alternatives.
“This site is big enough to not only provide additional parking, but in the future [United Against Poverty] could also expand by constructing some additional facilities there,” Glasser says. “We’ve spent two years working with them to try to secure what they need, so we really want to see this happen.”
But contributions for land purchases are not always an easy sell to modest donors — the type of individuals and families who provide 83 percent of United Against Poverty’s funding.
“On the face of it you might think it seems like a waste to spend money for a parking lot,” says Mark Brewer, president and CEO of the philanthropic Central Florida Foundation. “But this is an urban area that is growing fast, and if you want to put services where people are, then you have to be able to build the infrastructure to do it.”
If the deal closes, Gray would immediately have space for an additional 65 cars. After raising another $100,000 to clear and pave the land, he’ll have 144 new spaces.
The final tally from December’s contributions has yet to be calculated, but Gray says he still has more work to do. For now, all donations made through the organization’s website — uporlando.org — will be used to buy the property.
“Nonprofits do this kind of fundraising all the time, but usually through an organized campaign that is planned years in advance — not months,” he says. “I’ve never worked this hard in my life.” ksantich@orlando sentinel.com or 407-420-5503. Follow @katesantich on Twitter