Now check out the hot red front door for the National Council of La Raza. Swank, eh?
Now when you see a nonprofit with an expensive office like this, what do you think? Congrats for them to have the funding to buy or lease such high-dollar digs. That the Class A office space denotes legitimacy and respectability for what was once an upstart organization.
Or do you wonder if their membership dues and charitable donations could be spent on less flash and more forward motion? You could argue that the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization int he USA could have higher priorities than a bright red entry way.
I’d say that if you wanna concern yourself with misappropriation of funds, don’t worry about the cost of an entryway. Ponder the associated costs of their conference that’s ending today in San Diego.
That red wall is about visibility, and is the only reason I now know what NCLR even is; it provoked you to write about it and me to read and research the organization that put it up.
I’d say it worked.
All advocacy groups are like this. It’s entirely psychological–and aimed at the membership. “this is a big and powerful and successful group, and you can tell this just by looking at our super awesome headquarters.”
And by God, does it work. I did a spell as a temp once, and I wound in in a die-press shop. The workers there were union, and one day the union rep arrived; this sharp-looking cat in a three-piece suit, shiny tie, Masons pin, and he drives in in an E-type Jaguar convertible. The workers are all crowding around him, smiling and laughing like he’s their best buddy, and I’m thinking…”jesus, guys, he’s wearing your salary, he’s driving around in the car that you bought him, and you’re happy to see him?”
Ah, La Raza. I remember the last time I talked to one of them. It was when they were giving my father crap for marrying a non-Latino.
Seriously, they can spend their money however they want.