MANATEE — When Brian Caswell looks around the new conference room at the Economic Development Investment Fund, he is thankful that he decided to take part in a national office makeover contest that won the Manatee nonprofit new furniture.
The business-lending organization, which had just moved from Sarasota into new offices off University Parkway, won the contest over 14 other competitors across the country.
“They showed ingenuity, they were very clever,” said Abel Zalcberg, owner of OFM, an importer and distributor of office furniture.
The photos Caswell sent in showed volunteers at the nonprofit on their knees in front of their laptops, which were sitting atop boxes.
“When you are results focused and working non-stop to help our economy, sometimes you forget the table and chairs,” Caswell wrote in his submission.
“Please help us OFM,” declared a big sign in the background.
“We knew they needed help,” Zalcberg said.
Soon six chairs, a conference table and a credenza arrived to furnish the nonprofit’s empty conference room, where volunteers meet with businesses to help them with necessary funding.
“We are nonprofit small business lenders, we administered a lot of federal programs and are a strategic alliance partner with the Small Business Administration,” Caswell said. “We serve businesses that can’t get credit elsewhere.”
Zalcberg thinks it’s great that an organization that is giving a helping hand to others won the competition but he said “that was just a fluke that they happen to be the winner. We gave it to them because of their ingenuity.”
Other entries included a photo of a woman working out of her closet. “Most were more that they had a messy situation rather than really needing help,” Zalcberg said.
The Economic Development Investment Fund started in 2008 and is staffed by nine volunteers.
“Every dollar we get goes to helping small business,” Caswell said.
This was the first year the Holly Springs, N.C.-based company has done an office makeover.
“We started our business out of our home,” Zalcberg said. “So we wanted to give back.”
