Finding ways to give where you work and live

Nonprofit brings volunteer options to offices, apartments

When he retired, David Grollman wanted to use some of his free time to volunteer, but finding a volunteer project was trickier than he expected. Two nonprofit groups turned him down, saying they already had enough help.

"I had always felt it was nice giving back and doing something for others," said Grollman, 56, a former career counselor for the University of Massachusetts, "but when it comes to volunteering, where do you start and who needs volunteers?"

That puzzlement ended when he moved to Seven Springs, a Burlington housing complex where residents are frequently notified of community service activities, civic engagements, and charitable fund-raisers. The complex partners with a Boston nonprofit called Building Impact, which brings philanthropic opportunities to the places where people live and work. In sterile office towers and residential buildings, the partnership is also meant to create a sense of community.

"Between the commute in, the commute home, and really busy schedules, there are some clear barriers that prevent people from getting more involved in the community," said Lisa Guyon, executive director of Building Impact. "But we recognized a need and a desire among our tenants to get involved, so we're trying to spark volunteerism and philanthropy in people's everyday living."

Launched five years ago, Building Impact originally partnered only with commercial buildings, providing feel-good opportunities for tenants of downtown towers and suburban office parks. Last year the organ ization expanded into residential properties and now operates in eight apartment buildings in the Boston area that collectively have more than 2,500 units. It hopes eventually to partner with condo complexes, too.

Through newsletters, e-mail alerts, elevator signs, lobby events, website postings, and volunteer recruitment efforts, Building Impact offers its commercial and residential clients myriad opportunities to get involved in the community, whether for a single afternoon or a months-long commitment. It also organizes social events like book clubs and walking groups.

That has made volunteering easy for Kathleen Charles, a manager at DiCicco, Gulman & Co., an accounting firm in a Woburn office building that partners with Building Impact. Through the program, she has participated in a blood drive and sorted donations for Cradles to Crayons, which collects clothes, toys, and other items for homeless children.

"They take a lot of the legwork out of it," she said of Building Impact, "and they make it very easy to be able to get involved in activities in the community."

Other activities include food collections, book drops, and get-togethers where backpacks, school supplies, and winter coats are gathered for charity. Building Impact also recruits teams of people for fund-raisers like the Walk for Hunger. And it compiles lists of volunteer opportunities such as serving meals at soup kitchens, planting and harvesting fresh produce for emergency food programs, helping job seekers with mock interviewing and resume reviewing, and serving as tutors in literacy programs.

Through these building-based civic engagements, Building Impact aims to increase community involvement, volunteerism, and philanthropy. It also hopes commercial and residential tenants will meet their neighbors, become more invested in their homes and workplaces, and get fulfillment from their volunteerism.

To many building owners and managers, Building Impact is a valuable tenant amenity - just like an on-site health club or round-the-clock security - and one they're willing to pay for: Although it's a nonprofit, Building Impact is a revenue-generating operation. In exchange for its services, commercial buildings pay a licensing fee of 3 cents per square foot and residential buildings pay $33 per housing unit, according to Guyon. That earned income covers about 45 percent of Building Impact's roughly $500,000 annual budget; the remainder is funded by foundations, corporate sponsors, and individual donors.

Building managers like Roseann Sdoia say it's a worthwhile expense because it engenders goodwill among tenants.

"Most people don't have the chance or time nowadays to participate in these different activities, but it's really easy for the residents to participate when we bring it to their door," said Sdoia, general manager of residential properties at National Development Corp., which manages the Arborpoint apartments in Burlington, Medford, and Newton, each of which partners with Building Impact. "When we explain we have this program at our sites, I think they realize we're creating a sense of community."

While a partnership with Building Impact may not be enough to attract new tenants, existing tenants who are familiar with the program's benefits might choose to extend their leases as a result, speculated Gary Hofstetter, president of New Boston Management Services, a property and asset management company that uses Building Impact in five of its commercial buildings and one apartment complex, Washington Crossing in Woburn.

Building Impact began in the late 1990s as an in-house program offered by Paradigm Properties, a Boston real estate company, for tenants at its headquarters building at 31 Milk St. It then spread to 11 other buildings managed by Paradigm. In 2003, it acquired nonprofit status and began partnering with other commercial landlords to provide its services to non-Paradigm properties, too. Paradigm still provides free rent and accounting services to the organization.

The other apartment buildings that partner with Building Impact are Parkside Commons in Chelsea and Jefferson Terrace, Jefferson Hills, and Jefferson Village, each in Framingham. Nearly 40 commercial buildings in Boston and about a dozen surrounding suburbs are partners, too.

For Grollman, the Burlington retiree, volunteering is now fairly effortless thanks to Building Impact's presence at the complex where he lives. Through the program, he has delivered holiday gifts to elderly shut-ins and taken part in a fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society. He even joined a biweekly fitness club.

"I was amazed how many projects were available that could use volunteers, and they make it very easy," he said. "They pretty much set it all up, and you just do it."

Sacha Pfeiffer can be reached at pfeiffer@globe.com.