On a Friday morning at Front Porch, Makena Fix, construction management senior, sat outside to enjoy a free cup of coffee. She noted that the open community space and free caffeine Front Porch provides makes her grateful for the coffee house. However, some of these free resources that make Front Porch special to Cal Poly students could be jeopardized.
“Our budget has been continually growing over the course of the past five or six years,” Executive Director Joel Drenckpohl said.“ If we do end up short at the end of the year, not being able to make a budget, then they’ll probably be a serious conversation of something has to change.”
Front Porch, a nonprofit coffee house and open community space near Cal Poly’s campus, is facing a deficit after a donor backed out of promising a $50,000 donation expected to come in February. Drenckpohl, who has been Front Porch’s Executive Director for the last 13 years, states this deficit shouldn’t impact staff or students who come to Front Porch anytime soon.
However, if the gap isn’t filled by December, cutting or downsizing staffing and free programs may be a possibility.
“I’m very optimistic there will not be a shortfall and that we will make budget,” Drenckpohl said. “Because we’ve gotten out ahead of it enough, because we’re doing this campaign.”
Front Porch has launched the “Bridge the Gap” campaign that reaches out to previous donors and outreaches students to help close their deficit. The campaign aims to close the funding gap by June.
About two-thirds of Front Porch budget goes to five full time staff members who run majority of the nonprofit’s operations and about one-third goes free coffee, free food and keeping Front Porch’s physical space open.
Any years in which Front Porch received more money than their budget accounted for goes toward the organization’s reserve funds. These reserves are often used for emergencies or when budget isn’t met, however, taking a large sum of these safety reserves at once could further put Front Porch in more financial jeopardy.
Front Porch was founded in 2004 and is Christian-based organization. After Drenckpohl took over in 2013, he worked to get more non-Christians to come to the coffee house which grew its popularity.
Danny Benitez Saucedo, environmental earth and soil science senior, and Siduri Eaton, environmental earth and soil science junior, came to Front Porch to do work for their research lab.
“We can have coffee, we can have snacks here and it’s a good environment,” Benitez Saucedo said.
Eamon Myatt, liberal studies sophomore, is a volunteer at front porch. He started volunteering there because he wanted some food service experience and already enjoyed coming to Front Porch as a student. He noted how the deficit made him feel.
“It’s obviously not great as someone who works here,” Myatt said. “I think that especially the student body really appreciates this ability to get free coffee and appreciate the space. [The deficit] is upsetting.”
