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GREENSBORO — The little white house at 315 N. Spring St. smells like warm cookies.

Inside, the small staff of A Sweet Success Bakery transfers vegan oatmeal peanut butter cookies from the oven to cooling racks.

Meanwhile, workers at another bakery a few miles away fill pans with bite-sized, bone-shaped dog biscuits. ArcBarks bakery near Lindley Park smells like peanut butter and oats.

The startup isn’t profitable. For now, it provides its chefs — adults with developmental or intellectual disabilities — a social outlet and job training. It’s The Arc of Greensboro’s newest venture, and organizers hope arcBarks will eventually sustain itself and spread to other cities.

A Sweet Success Bakery, a creation of The Sanctuary House, also provides job training for people with special needs. The Sanctuary House serves adults with mental illness.

The business, launched in 2008, provides cakes, cookies and other desserts to coffee shops, retirement communities and businesses. Sales have increased at least 300 percent since then, and the bakery continues to attract new customers.

More nonprofit organizations are considering small business ventures like these to supplement budget shortfalls, and to help those they serve. Donna Newton, director of Guilford Nonprofit Consortium, says nonprofits need to diversify funding.

“It’s a less than vibrant economy, and donations are down,” she says. “(Nonprofits) are looking at any way they can diversify their funding, both legal and moral.”

Newton says nonprofits shouldn’t venture far from their mission.

Most also need guidance in starting a for-profit business. She cites Goodwill and Freedom House thrift stores as successful examples.

Jodi Lorenzo-Schibley, executive director and CEO of Sanctuary House, credits the success to slow growth and careful consideration. She also says the bakery has benefitted from partnerships with for-profit businesses, like Maxie B’s, which gave them pots and pans.

The success of Sanctuary House’s bakery helped pad its budget, which had a rate cut of nearly 15 percent for programs last year. Yet Lorenzo-Schibley says nonprofits shouldn’t start business ventures just to make money.

“For us, we looked at it as an opportunity to further teach our members vocational skills,” she says. “I think nonprofits would be very short-sighted if making money was their only goal.”

Like A Sweet Success, arcBarks aims to also help those they serve.

Patricia Clapp had to save her son, David.

David Clapp, 56, had been employed most of his adult life, but he lost his job a few years ago because of medical problems.

David Clapp, who has Down syndrome, had been outgoing and happy. Without work, he grew withdrawn and gained about 25 pounds. “We were just seeing a regression that was breaking my heart,” Patricia Clapp says.

He needed to work again, but the job market is especially hard for people like David.

Patricia went to the Arc of Greensboro with an idea. Inspired by a Cape Cod, Mass., company that employs adults with special needs to help make chicken pies, she considered a bakery specializing in dog biscuits.

That led to the arcBarks Doggie Treat Co.

The treats are approved by the state Department of Agriculture and were introduced to rave reviews. The bakery accepts donations for the products.

Arc leaders want to launch the business by the summer and hope to pay employees and sell the products at the bakery where they’re made. They eventually want to hire employees without disabilities, too.

Arc Executive Director Ruth Edwards says if arc-Barks can sustain itself and add to The Arc’s coffers, the group may not need as much state or federal money. That could mean more money for other groups, she says.

As for David, he’s lost 20 pounds and no longer needs oxygen to help him breathe. Happy and outgoing again, he works alongside his girlfriend.

“I think it’s a wonderful story of entrepreneurship that can open doors for the people we serve. ... It will open the doors for many others,” his mother says.

Contact Tina Firesheets at 373-3498 or tina.firesheets@news-record.com