Narthex One Newsletter – Q1 2021
Happy Easter season to all of you!
A message from Rob Boyer, CEO
2021 is off to a very good start for Narthex. We completed our acquisition of Blue Ridge Trinity Lutheran in the first quarter. We executed, on time and on budget, a variety of renovations to the property including new HVAC, upgrades to the roof and parking lot, and a host of cosmetic improvements. Blue Ridge Trinity is now fully leased and generating excellent revenue for the portfolio.
Our recently launched, “Champions Program” is yielding great results for our pipeline of church properties. The program pays up to $10,000 as finder’s fees for groups and individuals who deliver opportunities that lead to transactions. Narthex Management pays for this program as an incentive to generate deal flow. We paid out our first $10,000 donation to the Lutheran Synod of Kansas City for referring Blue Ridge Trinity to us. In the past weeks, they have sent us two new excellent prospects. Our other Champion, The Sending Project, has been equally active in referring churches and tenants to us. The Southern Baptist denomination of Kansas City is set to become our next Champion.
As you can see from our Pipeline list, deal flow is increasing rapidly. This is relationally driven activity from all the networking we do in the community. The process is often frustratingly slow, as Churches work their way through the options available to them, and through the various committees, congregational issues, denominational issues. But I’m always encouraged by the feedback we get; both from our existing tenants and from our prospective partners, that we are doing good and valuable work. I believe opportunities will continue to expand and grow.
I want to thank all of you who have referred or mentioned Narthex in your circles of influence. Nearly every week, I get contacted by someone who wants to learn more about what we do. The more people talk about us, the better…so thank you!
As always, if you have questions or ideas, don’t hesitate to reach out. Thank you for the trust you place in us and please know that every day we strive to be good stewards of your resources.
The new “management agreement”
We’ve been working very hard this quarter on our new “Management Agreement” program.
We turn away a lot of churches because their building is either too big or too small to meet our criteria for acquisition. Big churches are a property tax problem and smaller churches are simply too small to offer a return on investment. There is also another large category of churches that want to work with Narthex, but don’t want to sell their property.
The “Management Agreement” program is designed as the perfect gap filler for the Narthex portfolio. It allows us to partner with churches without owning them, while also providing homes for our growing backlog of church tenants in need of spaces for rent. Under this program, we provide the Church with property management services, access to our trusted vendor list, and a turnkey tenant management program including lease management and rent collection.
This program has met with great enthusiasm from the community. Churches are eager to find new revenue streams, and by helping them rent the unused spaces in their churches, we’re creating win-win-win solutions for them, us and the Kingdom! What’s most exciting for me, is that this program makes it possible for us to offer a solution for any church we encounter.
