The Open Door Mission: It’s About Us

It is a fact that the Glens Falls area is 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 has the heart of a good Samaritan and the mind of a businesswoman. This is one of the many attributes that makes her ideal for her position as Director at the Open Door Mission.

“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 works with consultants specializing in missions. The board of directors includes a bookkeeper, treasurer and CPA.

While the mission receives a small amount of grant money, Cook says 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). The donation is tax free to the charity, whereas the family would have paid taxes on the money. 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. The life insurance death benefit paid to benefiaries is tax free, as is the charitable donation of the IRA to the nonprofit. 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 around how people in poverty, middle class and wealth do life, and helping others understand why people are caught in poverty.

Cook plans to utilize 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 childcare, housing, transportation, etc. The success coach would work with the individual to help them solve these 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% turnover rate, to 3%. 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. 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,” said Cook.

Cook and the guests of the Open Door had a table in this year’s Take-A-Bite marathon event, and the response was tremendous . Currently she is looking for a place to have a community garden.

“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. They’re 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,” said Cook.

The Open Door Mission is holding its inaugural fundraising dinner at the end of the month.

“We’re looking for corporate sponsors for the event itself. We’re looking for individuals to be there and hear about what we are doing,” she said. Cook is also looking for tangible donations for the silent auction. Donors of all silent auction items will be recognized.

The dinner will be held in the Mohican Ballroom at the Great Escape Lodge on October 29^th at 6pm. Tickets are $30. A table of 8 can be purchased for $195, and will receive recognition.
“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.

Blog Written by Andrea Palmer

Andrea specializes in financial planning with Northwestern Mutual. She is an accomplished writer and contributes regularly to several local publications. Andrea is an AVOPA awardee, Leadership Adirondack Alumni, Life Scholarship recipient, and 3rd place winner for females of her age group in the Hartford Spud Run 5K in 2013 (subsequent years had more than 3 female runners in that age group, so...).