Over the last few years, collaborative spaces (like the one the McNary team calls home base many days) have popped up everywhere from major cities to smallish towns. These spots promise—and usually deliver—a great place to not only start up, but network, build business, and expand from a couple of entrepreneurs with some laptops to a solid team of collaborators ready to take on the world. There’s just one detail that makes these otherwise fantastic hubs exclusive in a not-so-great way: they’re historically focused on and catered to technology startups and business.
So, what if you have the next big idea on changing the world—boots on the ground style? What if that idea is not an app or a product or a service, but belongs in the non-profit space?
Enter The Next Mile Project.
This Boston-based collaborative workspace for non-profits set out with a simple goal: to fill the need for early stage non-profits and orgpreneurs (perhaps we can make that a thing?) to have a physical space not only to get work done and go from idea to action—but also to collaborate among peers, take meetings with donors, and just generally plot out how they’ll change the world for good. The Next Mile Project is effectively changing the game for tomorrow’s change-makers.
In the August edition of our e-newsletter on marketing technology, Joshua talked about how giving back is everyone’s business. The idea of a collaborative space mirrored after the success of those in the technology sphere but tailored to non-profits is a way for the technology community to do just that.
We love what The Next Mile Project is doing, but right now—they’re located in Boston. A quick search of similar spaces turns up relatively empty. So, here’s a call to action:
Share a collaborative space that you love? Meet with the folks in charge (and if that’s you, even better!) and discuss the idea of dedicating a certain part of that space to local startup non-profits.
Imagine the potential when the individuals who will lead tomorrow’s change-championing organizations are working daily with the people who will create the tools they need and provide the support (in so many ways) which will be key to their success?
Kali Duggins works virtually as a Marketing Technology Specialist with McNary Marketing & Design. She has spent a decade working with large and small non-profits as well as technology startups—especially in the health sector—in the areas of branding, development and communications. Currently, she is pursuing graduate studies in the Communications department with The Johns Hopkins University, and collaborates with a handful of startups, small non-profits and entrepreneurs. Kali lives just outside of Philadelphia in a quirky brick row home with her husband and two always-entertaining dogs. When she’s not at her desk—she’s found in the kitchen, adventuring or on a horse.