County’s Nonprofits Get a Big, New Holiday Gift

Written By Patricia Rouzer

This year Carroll County’s nonprofit community is getting a very special holiday gift, and, boy, is it a whopper.

Around New Year’s, some 20 Carroll nonprofits will move into a brand new multi-story Westminster building, rent free. The building, located on 3.15 acres in the Englar Business Park on Clifton Blvd., is a gift from the Anverse Foundation, a publicity-shy philanthropic organization created from the largesse of a generous and grateful family whose business had operations in Carroll County.

The family wishes to remain completely anonymous, said Mark Krider, director of the nonprofit center. The nonprofits selected for tenancy in the building will pay no rent, he explained. Their only costs will be for utilities.

“The idea is that these organizations will be able to take the money they have been spending on rent and use it to hire more staff or develop their programs,” Krider said.

At this point, Krider is tight-lipped about exactly which organizations will be moving in when the building is complete. “Some of them have not yet notified their landlords that they are moving,” he explained.

Organizations need only meet two criteria to qualify for space in the new, 37,000 square foot building. The first is that they are a 501(c)3 organization–i.e. an organization formally recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as not for profit. The second criterion is that they serve only the citizens of Carroll County.

Although Krider would not identify any of the other tenants of the building, he did confirm that Head Start will occupy the entire first floor: some 13,000 square feet that will include six classrooms and a playground. As a result of the new, rent-free space, the program will expand to serve 120 children rather than its current 70 and will hire new teachers, as well.

The foundation’s founders hope the new building will not only free up money that the nonprofits can invest to expand their programs, they hope it will provide a collaborative atmosphere among its tenants that will foster cross-pollination of ideas and programs to the benefit of Carroll County’s residents.

The building is the foundation’s first nonprofit center, Krider said, adding that Anverse funds other kinds of programs in a number of cities, including Dallas, San Francisco and Wilmington, DE.

“The Foundation’s mission is to give back to the communities where its founders had business operations–communities that contributed to their success,” he said.