NORTHAMPTON — Valley Community Development Corp. is marking its 30th anniversary the best way its leaders know how: by broadening its reach.
On Monday Joanne Campbell, the organization’s executive director, announced a $400,000 fundraising goal she plans to achieve largely through a tax credit program. The campaign style is a first for the county-focused nonprofit, which specializes in affordable housing development, homeownership services and small business assistance.
“It’s been a very exciting time to kind of reach out and just broaden the base of support for the organization,” Campbell said Monday, adding donating is a way people dissatisfied with the national scene can make change in Hampshire County. “This is one way they can see something happening locally, helping people in our own community.”
Campbell said the organization has already collected about $20,000 since fundraising began last week. She said the extra funds would go toward the nonprofit’s small business assistance program in the form of a part-time staff person. She said it would also expand the services the agency could provide, including more generalized credit counseling for folks who may not be ready for homeownership.
“There’s a saturation point of how many people you can see,” she said of the nonprofit’s small staff. “If we had a bigger program we could serve more people.”
The Valley CDC currently has five full-time staff people and an annual budget of about $650,000.
She said the $400,000 goal is feasible in light of fundraising success in recent years. She said the agency was able to raise over $200,000 a year in the past two years — a number she sees rising with the evolution of the tax credit program.
“Some of this $400,000 is part of what we normally receive — there’s a portion of those dollars that we raise that we’re seeking funding from those same partners,” she said, adding there will be “hopefully a little step up to mark our 30th anniversary.”
She said the agency first began using pared-back versions of the tax credit program in 2015, but this is the first year it’s going for the full 150 credits allowed under the state program for community development corporations. She said the tax credit incentives already helped pay for a new real estate project manager, who is busily working on the nonprofit’s 209 housing units in development.
“Everyone could use some help, here, in serving people,” Campbell said.
In its most successful years, Campbell said, the CDC has raised as much as $87,000 from individual donors and small businesses. With the addition of banks and larger entities that number quickly rose to over $200,000.
She says the new tax credit program helps organizations like hers connect with larger institutions wanting to contribute in exchange for tax credits, like banks.
Someone who donated $15,000 to the nonprofit, she explained, could be eligible for $7,500 in state tax credits and $3,750 in federal tax credits.
“One of our pushes is to move that credit, because it’s available and it’s a great fundraising tool,” she said. “It’s given us an opportunity to connect with more people we haven’t had contact with in years past.”
Campbell has been working with The Creative, a strategic marketing firm in Northampton, to refine the long-standing agency’s vision. A move away from the CDC acronym is a product of that work, Campbell says, as spelling out ‘Valley Community Development’ does more to inform people about the role it plays in Hampshire County.
She said if they can raise the financial bar for the nonprofit then they can hire more people who could, in turn, do more outreach and better assess the community’s need. She said the legislators behind the state’s tax program recognize that the work her organization does helps bring the local economy forward.
“They felt the benefit is critical to the state’s housing and economic development agenda,” she said. “Through the work the CDCs do, we are an economic engine.”
Amanda Drane can be contacted at adrane@gazettenet.com.