“ReHabitat” (class project hypothetical–proposal): update to Habitat for Humanity’s business model to focus on restoration of multi-unit properties.
“FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT, YOU ARE FORMING A NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION AND PRESENTING A MISSION AND THEORY OF CHANGE TO POTENTIAL BOARD MEMBERS.
PREPARE A MEMO EXPLAINING TO THE BOARD WHAT THE ORGANIZATIONAL MISSION IS AND WHY YOU CHOSE THE FRAMING AND WORDING OF THE MISSION…”
ReHabitat is designed as a separate brand entity/division to function under the Habitat for Humanity umbrella, with a unique foundation.
ReHabitat MISSION:
Renew communities by providing volunteer opportunities to learn trade skills on construction rehabilitation projects that can translate to greater employment and earning potential, while making renting/owning a home more accessible for an increasing number of dedicated participants.
ReHabitat VISION:
“Helping individuals and families rebuild their communities through building their careers and own homes.”
Habitat for Humanity works to secure donations of land, building materials, and money, and activates volunteer labor, that allow the organization to build affordable homes with no-interest mortgages for low-income individuals. The non-profit supplements its income through ReStore thrift shop.
ReHabitat furthers this Mission as a separate brand entity/division to function under the Habitat for Humanity umbrella, with a distinct Mission, Vision, and business model: rather than construct new houses, ReHabitat acquires and restores dilapidated multi-unit properties.
Through an apprenticeship component, volunteers learn fundamental trade skills on the job, and can choose to become eligible to rent/purchase a unit in a project they have worked to complete, through affordable rent/a no-interest mortgage, sweat equity, and a formal commitment to pay it forward, by teaching learned trade skills to future volunteers seeking the same opportunity.
Program participants interested in starting retail businesses can receive support towards renting commercial space in a ReHabitat project, through continued sweat equity, instruction, and/or profit sharing of goods/services.
“ReModel” condensed ReStore-style thrift shops will serve as initial tenants in newly completed mixed-use properties with public storefronts.
THEORY:
ReHabitat will initially function as a pilot program in select urban/semi-urban Habitat-served communities that have above-average unemployment rates and blighted housing structures, while also having nearby/accessible resources.
Individual pilot programs will initially be spearheaded solely by the CEO, who may come to know or learn of a property with potential but that falls outside of Habitat’s core business model. The CEO, with approval, may work to secure this property through some beneficial exchange.
Next, the CEO selects a dedicated Director, who will then assemble an advisory committee to serve as an informal board, comprised of the CEO; local/community government and housing authority leadership, executives/managers with local/local affiliate construction and supply firms, local trade school/technical college leadership, community and faith-based community organizations, architects and planners, the business community and funding organizations, realtors, property owners, and other nonprofit organizations and community stakeholders.
The advisory committee should be invested in the completion of the project, and in positions to recruit program participants, both as professionals, and volunteer-participants, who will include:
Volunteers for volunteering sake
Volunteers for skills training sake
Volunteers for skills training and home rent/purchase sake
Each program will initiate a minimum viable project—a small multi-unit apartment building, uninhabitable in its current state though structurally sound, made available by some action of the community (donation, default, etc.)—with program participants working alongside local technical college instructors and/or local construction professionals volunteering their time and expertise.
The first program participants selected will be committed to learning trade skills, renting in the project once they have completed it, and teaching their learned skills to new program participants on subsequent projects—creating a snowball effect in paying it forward, by training more participants to build more affordable homes they can own.
Participants may go on to be hired by the companies that trained them after completion of projects.
For ReHabitat to achieve its Mission, the entity must become self-sustaining in rehabilitating apartment buildings and housing structures that can then house the human and intellectual capital and resources to rehabilitate another apartment building/housing structure, and another…
SUCCESS MEASURING:
Initial successes will be small. A CEO securing a suitable property will prove a monumental task; however, this initial success can signal belief in the project and the model by the greater community.
Announcing a Director and assembling an advisory committee of respected experts and community figures is a second success to build from, before formalizing a project.
The most critical element of the pilot is selecting the right participants, as this group will serve as the starter for any future ReHabitat projects initiated within this community.
A team of alternate participants should be selected to fill in in case participants must leave for any reason, and can be ready to participate on the second project.
Engaged instructors will evaluate volunteer participants on their skills and development as the project progresses. At the completion of the project, instructors should be confident they have adequately trained participants in the fundamental skills necessary to continue in this type of work. Sweat equity earned can then be applied to rent/mortgage payments.
A new project begins…
