Co-Working Space Provides Runway For Nonprofit World
Notley and Capital Factory have branded space at the new Springdale General campus as co-working for nonprofits and entrepreneurs who intend to make a social impact on the Austin community.
The 10-acre Springdale General, at the intersection of Springdale and Airport Boulevard, will launch this year. The site bills itself as a campus for makers and creatives, with maker studios, test kitchens and creative office space. The goal is to accommodate small to midsize businesses, from coffee roasters to tech startups.
Within the campus will be Notley’s Center for Social Innovation, which will centralize capital resources, educational programs and a network of mentors. Notley, with the expertise of Capital Factory, wants to provide affordable co-working space for those who want to solve Austin’s toughest challenges.
“This creates an opportunity for ventures to obtain a deeper understanding of the problems that they are trying to solve by getting insights from the organizations that work with the people, places, animals and things that are impacted by a problem,” Notley Director of Community Engagement Katrina Tolentino said. “We are working with and building a runway in from universities graduating students passionate about social change.”
The Notley-Capital Factory partnership is a master lease of 65K SF of Springdale General's available 165K SF. Current nonprofits at the Center for Social Innovation include Black Fret, which gathers patrons for local musicians; Half Helen Foundation, which focuses on cost-effective hearing and vision screenings for schoolchildren; MU/DAI, which supports innovative digital design; and The David Weekley Family Foundation, which provides grants for nonprofits that pull people out of poverty.
“The world is experiencing an emergence of social enterprise spilling out of our universities, nonprofits, and for-profit businesses,” Notley co-founder Dan Graham, who owns Build A Sign, said in a statment. “As Austin becomes the next social innovation capital, this co-working model is poised to provide an important missing piece — a space for people inciting action around social causes to connect with nonprofits, educational systems and entrepreneurial programs while coming together to drive scalable and sustainable purpose-driven ventures.”
