Nonprofits and Their Buildings: Buying as a Gentrification Hedge

March 12, 2018; Next City

As nonprofits grow or decide to scale up, they often face significant decisions about their physical space, including whether to buy or keep renting. NPQ has looked at this conundrum many times, and one of the most critical questions to be answered is about budget size and the amount of slack within the budget. Buildings impose fixed costs within your budget structure, and those can sometimes crowd out program and budget flexibility. Often, this is too great a risk, unless the building has an undeniable mission-centered rationale, which in this case it does. Continue Reading