Kim Cook, director of the Open Door Mission in Glens Falls, says she wants her organization
to partner with businesses, so they give back to the community that is the source of donations.
BY ANDREA PALMER
The Glens Falls area has shown to be an extraordinarily
philanthropic region to live and do
business in. One of the area’s strongest nonprofit
organizations is the Open Door Mission.
The mission serves primarily as a soup kitchen,
with other support and nutritional services.
Kim Cook, director of the mission, has the
heart of a servant and the mind of a businesswoman.
This is one of the attributes that makes
her suited for the job.
“We are every bit a business. We have four
employees. It just so happens that we don’t charge
for our services, so we have to look elsewhere
for that income. We get a lot of things done with
volunteers. In every other way, we are a business,”
she said.
The Open Door, 47 Lawrence St., Glens Falls,
works with consultants specializing in missions.
The board of directors includes a bookkeeper,
treasurer and CPA.
It runs the Glens Falls Code Blue program,
which provides emergency overnight shelter to
homeless people in the Greater Glens Falls Area.
A Code Blue night is called when the forecast is
for a temperature of 20 degrees or lower (including
wind chill) or at least 12 inches of snow.
The Warren County Board of Supervisors
Facilities Committee has agreed to let the Open
Door Mission use the former youth detention
home on Gurney Lane, next to Westmount Health
Facility, for a temporary Code Blue emergency
shelter this season.
While the mission receives a small amount
of grant money, Cook said most financial support
comes through corporate and individual
donations.
“We have been the recipient of many gifts
given in honor of someone who has passed
away. We always recognize and appreciate that,”
said Cook.
Donors leaving money to charities will often
name the charity as the beneficiary of their 401k
or IRA (Individual Retirement Account). A donation
to the charity is tax free. Rather than pass
money through a will to a charity, donors can
name a nonprofit organization as a beneficiary
to their IRA and name their family as benefiaries
in life insurance, said Cook.
A life insurance death benefit paid to benefiaries
is tax free, as is the charitable donation of
the IRA to the nonprofit group. A good financial
advisor can help individuals and businesses set
up the most tax-efficient way to donate.
Though there are tax-efficient ways to leave
a legacy with both family and nonprofits, most
people give to charities out of good will and
philanthropy, not for tax benefits.
Cook is also working on a program called
Bridges out of Poverty. It is a set of concepts to
help others understand why people are caught
in poverty.
Cook plans to use a “success coach” to help
people in poverty become more self-sustaining.
A success coach would be contracted by a business
to work with people struggling with things
like child care, housing and transportation. The
success coach would also work with people to
help them solve problems and become a better
employee.
An example of this program succeeding is
Best Cleaners in Schenectady. In one year, the
company went from a 300 percent turnover rate,
to 3 percent, said Cook.
Cook wants to develop a culture of the Open
Door’s guests giving back to the community.
“I grew up with parents who owned a business.
I understand the viewpoint of people who own a
business, and what they need in a community,”
she said. “I want to partner with business so it’s
not just a one-way street where they help us. We
want to help them as well. I don’t want us to just
be seen as a nonprofit that always has our hand
out. I want our guests to have a real impact on
the community.”
She is looking for a place to have a community
garden, where guests can grow produce.
“There are so many ways [a community garden]
can help. It helps the people who are doing
it, because there’s just something about getting
your hands in the dirt. These are learning tools
they can take with them. They can establish a real
sense of pride and ownership, knowing they’ve
done something important. It gives our staff
an opportunity to come along side our guests.
There’s a lot of teachable moments,” Cook said.
“We want to take it a step further and make
things with our produce and sell them. There
would then be income. Our guests would be
learning job skills around the sale, the packaging,
the marketing–all of that–skills they could
take to the job place.”
The mission is conducting a capital campaign
to raise funds for a new building. Cook hopes to
have a new building in about a year.
Cook said she plans to have a resource center
at the new facility to help people in poverty gain
the tools they need to maintain jobs.
“Poverty reaches across all sectors. It’s easy to
think poverty doesn’t affect you, but it’s going to
affect our community in a negative way unless
we start to do something different other than
what we’ve been doing,” said Cook.