HOW WE WORK
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The ASTOP team spends its days supporting ambitious charities, not-for-profit organisations and good causes through partnering them with landlords with empty premises that need short-term or temporary tenants. Tax incentives and government support mean both parties benefit from the arrangement. The partnerships ASTOP creates significantly reduce landlord costs while, at the same time, providing rent-free temporary office and retail spaces to worthwhile initiatives.
Starting with a deep understanding of the law regarding temporary workspaces, ASTOP can advise charities on wholly ethical rental and leasing of space at no cost or significantly reduced costs. Our network includes major commercial property owners and developers who are actively looking for deserving tenants, too. It is a match made in heaven.
Why Temporary Office Space Is Ideal for Charities & Good Causes
Affordable office space for charities is often the Holy Grail for not-for-profits and community causes seeking flexibility, cost control, and speed of execution. Unlike traditional office setups bound by long-term leases, temporary office arrangements, of the kind ASTOP can help with, give charities the ability to scale their space usage up or down as needed, without overcommitting valuable resources to property.
Whether you’re starting something new, managing a time-limited campaign, running a seasonal programme, or opening in a new location, a short-term office solution allows your team of staff or volunteers to stay agile and working on delivering results rather than concerning themselves with overhead.. Nobody wants to be waylaid by a long-term commitment or even lengthy contractual discussions and negotiations. ASTOP’s expertise means you can spend time on doing what’s important to you instead.
Benefits of Temporary Office Space for Charities
UK charities and community groups have long found looking for workspace a challenge. Offices in otherwise empty commercial property may not be a permanent solution, but they are a good place to start. Why not watch our video to explain how it works?
ASTOP can provide advice and introduce you to appropriate landlords. The result? Rent-free office or work space on legal rolling tenancy or licence agreements. We promise, there isn’t a catch. Savings on the property business rates are shared between the landlords, us and you, as a good cause. Everyone wins.
If you are looking for a low-risk, legal, ethical, and proven way to find temporary office space as a charity or nonprofit concern, you’ve landed with the right people. ASTOP legitimately reduces commercial business rates on empty and unused assets and passes on the benefits to deserving causes like you.
Cost-Effective and Flexible Space For Non-Profits
The key benefit of temporary office space arranged through ASTOP is cost-effectiveness. The low or zero costs involved in non-profit leasing premises from landlords with liability for an otherwise vacant building is almost impossible to beat in terms of value. It frees up valuable resources that can directly help your service users rather than be swallowed up on providing work and office space.
The other benefit of working with ASTOP is that we understand the value of flexibility to the charity and not-for-profit sector. We know it is hard sometimes to predict your future with confidence. That’s why our service is designed to accommodate shifting requirements and changing priorities. We often find temporary office space for charities working on specific, time-limited projects or campaigns such as pop-up stores, seasonal offerings, and rapid response work.
We are not in the business of tying either party involved in our leases to anything overly long or onerous. We are ideally placed to help in the here and now.
Scalability for Growing Charities
Our commitment to flexibility and cost-effectiveness suits new and emerging charities particularly well. If all goes well and you need to expand, we can do that right along with you. It is often the case that landlords in our network look for partnerships that will grow over time, too. Many of our arrangements started small but, over time, grew into larger, multi-site, and geographically diverse operations.
Equally, if things don’t go as planned, we can help you respond to changing workspace requirements as you lower head count, for example, or evolve your offering into something new. Scalability up or down is easy with ASTOP’s solutions and certainly more practicable than if you are hampered by traditional long-term lease arrangements.
Finding Short-Term Office Space For Charities Through ASTOP
Our service relies on our UK-wide network of commercial landlords. How do we find free space charities? We have active relationships with some of the country’s major property businesses who recognise the benefits of what we do and remain keen to meet and work with the charities and good causes we serve.
Our approach to mitigating the losses accrued by empty property is celebrated by more than 100 of the UK’s local authorities and, as a result, we are often welcome collaborators on government-led community-based projects. Councillors and MPs across the UK political spectrum have commended our work and commented that it is preferable to traditional business rate avoidance.
It is a testament to the continued success of our work that many of our initial short-term projects have gone on to become lasting, long-term partnerships between commerce and the charity sector. Communities benefit when the two different sectors work together rather than compete for space and resources.
Types of Office Space for Nonprofits & Charities
We can help charities, good causes and not-for-profit organisations with a range of solutions, so contact us if you would like to know about any of the following.
Coworking Spaces
Coworking spaces are ideal for charities looking for an affordable and flexible workspace with shared resources and community interaction.
Dedicated Office Spaces
Renting your own dedicated office space, even temporarily, provides privacy and control over the environment.
Pop-Up Stores
Introducing pop-up spaces is increasingly proving to be an option for charities involved in short-term campaigns, events, and projects.
Event Spaces
We can help with temporary event spaces that can serve charities for conferences, workshops, or community outreach programs.
Temporary Office Space Success Stories
ASTOP helps charities find suitable temporary office spaces that fulfill their needs and free up their budgets. Our network includes major property owners and recent projects have included Barclays, Marks & Spencer, Debenhams, Savills, Land Securities, Pearl & Coots and more. Partnerships with them helped charities and good causes save thousands of pounds and have a positive impact on thousands of people in the unities they choose to serve.
Comments about our work include:
“The Global Educational Trust has a free bookshop in Bishop Auckland and, having visited the shop recently, I was very impressed… an innovative and worthwhile use of what was previously an empty shop, and a valuable contribution to the revitalisation of the town centre, this is an initiative I wholeheartedly support.”
Helen Goodman
MP for Bishop Auckland
“My colleagues and I have found ASTOP’s social goal of transforming unused spaces for good causes to be easy to understand, explain and commintroduce to charities and landlords/agents alike… Thank you for your support of BitC and our commercial and social networks.”
David Camm
RH Prince Charles’ Business Connector Programme
Start Your Search For Temporary Office Space
Contact the ASTOP team if you’d like to know more about how we work with charities, not-for-profits and local good causes to provide flexible, cost-effective workplaces. We can talk you through case studies where commercial landlords, local authorities and charities have worked together, found mutual benefits and contributed to the greater good.
Contact ASTOP for expert advice and assistance in finding the perfect temporary office space for your charity.