Madison House, the 57-year-old independent nonprofit that pairs civic-minded University of Virginia students with community partners serving Charlottesville, is exploring integration with the University. Its leaders say the new relationship would expand opportunities for both volunteer-minded students and Madison House’s community partners.
Madison House and University leaders have agreed to a two-year memorandum of understanding that could eventually make Madison House a department or division of the University, or could allow it to maintain its nonprofit status for certain functions while running programs under the University’s umbrella.
A merger or partnership will help ensure the long-term stability of Madison House’s mission and finances while continuing to provide an opportunity for thousands of UVA volunteers to support the work of scores of Charlottesville-area community partners, according to Louis Nelson, UVA’s vice provost for academic outreach.
“For the past half-century, Madison House has been an integral part of the UVA undergraduate experience, providing extraordinary opportunities for UVA students to engage directly with the greater Charlottesville community through volunteerism,” Nelson said.
Although Madison House historically has been an entity separate from the University, for generations of UVA students, volunteering through Madison House has been a core undergraduate experience. About 2,000 students serve through Madison House each year, working with more than 75 community organizations, according to Mary Denlinger, Madison House’s executive director. Roughly 200 students serve in leadership capacities, she said.
However, like many nonprofits, Madison House faced financial challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic and has not fully recovered, Nelson said. That financial pressure led to talks with the University.
A new structure “will help to ensure the continued support of students and their community partners and a continued commitment to the Madison House mission,” Nelson said. “We are hopeful that this new partnership will, in fact, allow us to grow those partnerships in scale and numbers to help us meet the growing demand from both students and community partners.”
Delinger said the partnership will allow the organization to worry less about costs and concentrate on providing more assistance to the community.
