Mission-Driven Real Estate Expertise for Organizations that Serve
Every mission needs a place to thrive. The Nonprofit, Education, and Faith-Based (NEFB) Practice Group at Lee & Associates helps organizations across North America make real estate decisions that advance their purpose and ensure long-term sustainability. We understand that for mission-driven organizations, property decisions are about more than square footage - it’s a strategic platform for service, growth, and community impact.
Our advisors specialize in creating real estate strategies and action plans, from visioning to move-in, aligned with each client’s organizational mission and financial goals. Whether you’re a nonprofit facing funding constraints, a growing school seeking its next campus, or a congregation stewarding sacred property, we bring expertise, empathy, patience, and practical solutions to help you navigate complexity in the real estate marketplace. From site selection and acquisitions to dispositions, adaptive reuse, and lease structuring, we help clients make informed choices that balance financial responsibility with social purpose.
With more than 1,750 professionals nationwide, over $120 billion in transaction volume, and four decades of experience, Lee & Associates combines local market knowledge with national reach. Our advisors collaborate across sectors to ensure each project reflects the unique needs of the organization, its stakeholders, and the communities it serves.
We’ve helped nonprofits unlock dormant real estate equity into working capital, transition out of obsolete facilities, guide educational institutions through complex use permit and development approvals, and assisted faith-based clients in modernizing and preserving historic properties while creating new ministry opportunities. Every engagement reflects our core belief: real estate is a servant to support and strengthen your organization’s mission and legacy.
LEADERSHIP
David Klein, Nonprofit
Elijah Hodges, Education
Jerome Madigan, Faith-based
WEST
Jason Grindle, California
David Kaufman, California
Steve Malley, California
SOUTHWEST
John Gazzola, Texas
Bill Insull, Texas
SOUTH
Tessa Mellinger, Florida
EAST
Beth Chezmar, New Jersey
Erica Davidson, New Jersey
Jason Lynch, New Jersey
Ken Salzman, New York
Jessica Vasil, New Jersey
CANADA
Mark Cascagnette, Ontario
Empowering Nonprofits to Serve with Strength and Stability
In today’s uncertain economic environment, nonprofits are more vital than ever to communities - feeding families, housing neighbors, advocating legal rights, providing educational opportunities, nurturing creativity, and driving societal change. Yet today’s nonprofit leaders face grant cuts, reductions in charitable giving, rising facility costs, aging infrastructure, and spiraling demand for services amid limited resources. The Nonprofit Specialty Practice at Lee & Associates helps organizations turn real estate challenges into opportunities for long-term mission success.
Our advisors partner with clients nationwide to align property strategy with organizational priorities. We guide nonprofits through acquisitions, dispositions, right-sizing, relocations, lease restructuring, sale-leasebacks, portfolio optimization, and asset monetization - always grounded in transparency and fiscal responsibility. Whether your goal is to unlock equity for programs, stimulate donor giving through facility programs, expand into new markets, or consolidate multiple sites, we tailor each solution to your mission, budget, culture, and community goals.
Our team has supported human service agencies, arts and culture organizations, advocacy groups, and foundations across the country. We’ve helped clients modernize facilities, renegotiate favorable leases, and repurpose underutilized properties to meet emerging community needs.
At every step, we act as both advisors and advocates - ensuring that your facilities reflect your values, support your teams, and enable greater impact.
OUR CLIENTS
Creating Space for Learning and Growth
Education is the foundation of vital and thriving communities, and every great school educates at its highest potential in a great space. The Education Specialty Practice at Lee & Associates has partnered with public, private, charter, and specialty educational institutions across North America to navigate the complexities of educational real estate - from facility programming, site search and acquisition, financing, operations, and execution throughout a facilities’ life cycle.
Our advisors understand the realities of today’s learning environments: competition for premium spaces, increasing enrollment, technology and obsolescence, code compliance, and constantly evolving operating standards in competitive space markets. We deliver creative, scalable solutions that help institutions grow responsibly and sustainably. Services include visioning, programming, site selection, transaction restructuring, adaptive reuse, master planning, and campus right-placing and sizing.
From charter schools securing coveted campuses, colleges launching specialized facilities, foreign language immersion, developmental disability schools facing community opposition, our team has guided education leaders through complex projects that blend mission, practicality, and financial strength. We bring both market intelligence and hands-on experience in navigating regulatory approvals, community engagement, and partnership models.
By aligning facility planning with your academic and financial goals, we help you create spaces where students, educators, and communities thrive.
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OUR CLIENTS
Stewarding Sacred Spaces with Vision and Care
Faith communities are witness to the social and spiritual fabric of every community. From traditional institutions evolving rapidly to the need of their communities to the emergence of worship serving sub-groups with unique ministerial needs, we are witnessing the forces at work in the realm of faith. As demographics shift and operational realities evolve, many religious organizations are reimagining how their properties can house their ministry to serve todays and our future generations. The Faith-Based Specialty Practice at Lee & Associates helps religious organizations of all denominations and faiths make thoughtful, mission-centered real estate decisions in this very dynamic time.
Our team understands the complexity of consecrated properties – balancing service, healing, governance, history, and its community’s expectations. We offer comprehensive advisory services, including property assessments, right-sizing strategies, redevelopment planning, adaptive reuse, and dispositions that respect its traditions within a transformative process with discretion.
We’ve worked with a wide range of faith-based organizations and their varied property needs – such as offices, shared space, sanctuaries, rectories, schools, cemeteries, mortuaries, retreats, convents, daycare, social halls, sports facilities, dormitories, and gifted property - across North America to repurpose historic campuses, create affordable housing and senior living, and develop spaces for shared ministry or community-use facilities. Every project is guided by compassion, discretion, and strategic insight.
Our goal is to help you preserve your legacy while positioning your ministry for continued relevance and reach.
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OUR CLIENTS
