On 5/26/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Being in NYC, DC, or varrious other locations would being us closer to some subset of interesting orginizations... But being near a solid airport places us near all of them. This really is the way a lot of business is done today.
I think this is a large reason why Park Ridge, Illinois is such a popular location for non-profits. Park Ridge is a $15 taxi fare from O'Hare, which alternates with Altanta for busiest airport in the U.S.), has good civic amenities (due to high taxes, which the non-profits largely avoid, being tax-exempt), and is also close to Rosemont, which has some really good convention facilities. Chicagoland is the third most popular convention destination in the United States, after Orlando and Las Vegas.
Caveat: I used to work for a non-profit located in Park Ridge.
An alternative Chicago office location would be at 310 S. Michigan, although I've no idea what it costs to live there. Still, there'd be some amusement value in sharing a mailing address with our leading competitor. Also has good proximity to the Equinix facility at McCormick Place, which is an excellent hosting facility, as well as the hosting facilities at CBOE (which I don't know as much about).
Really, though, what matters is who you need to be close to. And I don't really know who the Foundation needs to be close to, as I don't know who our big corporate and institutional donors are. I doubt many of them are in St. Petersburg, though.
Kelly