The Glasser/Schoenbaum Human Services Center empowers non-profits to closely network with other agencies and create synergistic energy towards the life changing opportunities we all want for our clients and those in our community.
We updated our mission and vision in 2020. Watch to learn why. (1m 40s)
Why support Glasser/Schoenbaum? (5m 19s)
The Glasser/Schoenbaum Human Services Center is called the “Campus of Caring” because it is home to 17 nonprofit health and human services agencies that help children, adults, and families in need. The Center occupies 14 buildings on 5 acres on 17th Street in North Sarasota. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Our business model is charitable. We charge our tenant partner agencies $8.50 per square foot per year, which covers approximately 41% of our annual expenses to run the Center, and is only 33% of the current comparable market rate, collectively saving them well over $500,000/year in expenses. We pay agencies' electricity, water, security, grounds-keeping, cleaning, and building maintenance.
To better connect and support the human services network located on our campus and beyond, Glasser/Schoenbaum is an administrator, fiscal agent, and community liaison for five major supportive resources in our region. We offer professional development and networking events for 324 nonprofit staff to build social capital between human service agencies, laying the groundwork for collaboration and greater efficiency of service.
We work every day, keeping the lights on and the doors open for those in need.
Tenant partners report that they are better able to achieve their goals (the Center’s name lending additional credibility) by maintaining stronger revenues, delivering higher quality services, operating larger programs, and benefiting from improved staff morale, recruitment, and retention.
In 2020, our Center’s tenant partners touched the lives of over 33,000 individuals in our community through 106 programs delivered by over 300 staff. The economic impact is profound, as the tenant partners’ budgets totaled over $17.9 million. Those dollars help to offset and alleviate burdens on other major social welfare systems such as healthcare, the criminal justice system, and education.
The Center’s operational expenses are covered by the agencies’ rent payments, grants, returns from investments held at local foundations, and donations from generous community members.
Dr. Kay Glasser and Betty Schoenbaum
Founder Dr. Kay Glasser’s purpose for the Center was twofold – in her own words, “to provide accessible and affordable service” and “to save agencies operational dollars so that they would have more resources for services.” That was in 1988.
Through her volunteer efforts, she developed an alliance of public and private philanthropy. A seed money donation from the Schoenbaum family was instrumental to the creation of The Glasser/Schoenbaum Human Services Center which officially opened in March of 1990.
Today, more than 30 years later, we remain true to her concept, providing a “one-stop” center for those in need that is home to 17 human service nonprofit agencies on one 5-acre campus of 14 buildings.
The Glasser/Schoenbaum Human Services Center empowers non-profits to closely network with other agencies and create synergistic energy towards the life changing opportunities we all want for our clients and those in our community.
Real estate is one of the greatest costs in a business budget. Our partnership with the Glasser Schoenbaum Human Services Center allows more money to go towards our mission. And what better place to house our office than on a campus with nineteen other outreach agencies.
We are a small and young organization and having the ability to network and partner with other community organizations is key to the quality and impact of our work. In addition to the affordable space that The Glasser/Schoenbaum Human Services Center provides to all of us, it inspires us to use this collaborative model as we work to empower our students and their families.
I can't fully express how wonderful it is to take a client by the hand and walk them no more than a couple hundred feet from our office to another agency that can help them when they are in crisis.
As a small organization with a staff of two, employee safety was a big consideration when we were looking for office space. We did not want our employees to be in a place where they were alone. Being on the GSHSC campus has been great because there is a whole community of like-minded professionals.