query: buying an office

[colist-admin at comm-org.utoledo.edu]

[ed:  thanks to Dave for the interesting thoughts on the risks and
opportunities of how you get your office.]

From: Dave Beckwith <beckwithd at commchange.org>

offices - i've worked out of a rented apartment, an old fire station, a 
vacant public housing unit, a church sunday school space, an old funeral 
home, a couple of storefronts..a few common threads - it's good to have a 
place with the group's name on the door - feels more serious. it's good to 
have space for meetings - medium to small, for staff, leaders, think tank 
sessions, brainstorming - you can borrow big halls for rallies, but there 
needs to be a home base that you can use anytime, without pushing the kids 
out of the living room or the pastor out of her study. Phones, files, a 
chalkboard, a copier - soon you're talking money. raising the money for 
your own place, for your own capacity, is part of building a real thing - 
an organization! it's something that says 'we're here and we're serious'. 
The place shouldn't take over from the fight, though...that's why i get 
nervous about buying a building.
if you've got folks who can do the upkeep and management, that could cover 
some of the concerns. I know when we took the old fire station #13 from the 
city for $1/year, we had lots of cleanup and paintup parties, and it built 
great spirit. An added bonus was that the reason the place was available 
was that the city had built a new one, after we fought for it...