Helping Navigate Property Solutions and Finding Affordable Office Space For Charities
If you’re looking for nonprofit property solutions, ASTOP can provide unique charity property consultancy services. We understand the sector’s challenges in finding cost-effective retail and office spaces. We handle the intricacies of property management, allowing good causes to focus on their important missions.
What is Charity Property Consultancy?
For our team, charity property consultancy means providing expert advice to nonprofits and charities on acquiring and maintaining retail and office spaces in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible. This typically involves matchmaking between good causes needing a new home and commercial landlords with empty spaces to fill. This works because providing retail and office space to good causes benefits owners who would otherwise be left with no tenants, no rental income, and, to make matters worse, liable for punitive business rates.
If you’re a charity, community organisation or nonprofit organisation, working with ASTOP can save your organisation significant time, money, and resources — allowing you to stay focused on the causes that matter most. You can also enjoy knowing you’re involved in a mutually beneficial arrangement. Everybody wins.
Key benefits of our approach include:
Free or low-cost retail and office space for charities
Optimised flexible tenancy agreements
Mutually beneficial terms with landlords
Business rates relief for charities
Simplified property management
We have more than ten years of experience in supporting good causes. Thanks to a commitment to ethical property solutions that benefit all stakeholders, we have a growing reputation rooted in sustainability, responsibility, and positive community impact.
Why Charities Benefit from Professional Property Consultancy
Charities and good causes often work within tight financial constraints, and property costs can quickly become a significant and unwelcome overhead. We can help reduce property costs or even cut them entirely. We know location matters, too, so we can help you find the perfect location. Our experts can also help you navigate business rates and other liabilities.
Affordable office space for charities
Our consultancy services are specifically designed to help nonprofits find the most affordable solutions. Importantly, our solutions are also beneficial to landlords. Unlike other property schemes, our approach is typically supported by local government. We help charities ethically reduce overheads while meeting operational needs and supporting their users and the wider community.
Location, Location, Location
Location matters a great deal when it comes to servicing users, often in vulnerable categories. It certainly pays to be in the right place for operational efficiency and community engagement rates. We can help organisations maximise footfall, frequently utilising proven retail space for our clients. Whatever their goals, our consultancy service helps charities find spaces in locations that align with their mission and are easily accessible for staff, volunteers, and service users alike.
Business Rates Reduction Advice
Most charities, nonprofits, and community-based organisations are eligible for business rate relief but may not know about opportunities to save significant amounts of money. We offer expert advice on applying for relief and implementing strategies to minimise community organisation’s liabilities. Here, our commitment to ethical and sustainable best practices has meant local authorities generally support us. Navigating the legalities of charity property can be daunting. However, we ensure you comply with the spirit and letter of relevant rules and regulations when giving advice.
Success Stories: How We’ve Delivered Nonprofit Office Space & Retail Solutions
ASTOP’s Charity property advice and consultancy have helped countless charity initiatives and good causes throughout the UK. Here are three examples of our nonprofit office space solutions.
Case Study 1: The Better Together Building, Rochdale
ASTOP transformed the former M&S building in Rochdale town centre into the Better Together Building, a vibrant community hub. This 18,000 sq ft space, vacated once M&S moved on in 2021, became home to charities like Mind Rochdale, Caring & Sharing, and Reuse Littleborough. Space was offered rent-free through ASTOP’s innovative property consultancy services.
The hub supported diverse community services, from mental health and advocacy to refugee assistance and environmental reuse. For instance, Reuse Littleborough used the space to sell larger items, freeing up their leading site. At the same time, the Global Educational Trust provided free donated books for the community from the building.
ASTOP partnered with Savills, M&S, and Rochdale Council to repurpose the site, covering business rates and uniting multiple charities under one roof. This collaborative approach strengthened the local voluntary sector, improved accessibility for residents, and maximised the site’s social impact.
Jav Rehman of the local authority’s Bridging Communities organisation praised the initiative for fostering stronger partnerships and enhancing services across Rochdale. ASTOP Director Shaylesh Patel commented, “We will happily work with any charitable organisation and always look forward to bringing everyone together under one roof. We wanted to bring something positive to the town. The Better Together initiative provided a solution to an empty building and proved a good idea for putting it back into use.”
Case Study 2: Free Bookshops Initiative by Global Educational Trust
The Global Educational Trust (GET) launched an innovative free bookshop in Newport, Wales, to promote literacy and reduce waste. This initiative, supported by ASTOP, repurposed an otherwise vacant retail space, transforming it into a community hub where visitors could take up to three books daily at no cost.
The shop’s inventory comprised donated books that might have otherwise been discarded, aligning with GET’s mission to give books a second life and make literature accessible to all. By occupying an unused property, the project provided a valuable community service and helped rejuvenate a section of the town’s High Street at risk of dilapidation. This demonstrated ASTOP’s commitment to supporting charitable organisations in effectively utilising vacant office and retail spaces.
The success of GET’s Newport bookshop increased community engagement and inspired similar projects in other locations. It showcased the potential of collaborative efforts between landlords and charitable organisations to create meaningful social impact.
This case exemplifies how ASTOP’s property consultancy transforms unused spaces into vibrant community resources, supporting literacy, environmental sustainability, and urban regeneration.
