IDF’s new office boasts convenience, flexibility, savings

The Immune Deficiency Foundation (IDF) is proud to announce the opening of a new office at 7550 Teague Road, Suite 220, in Hanover, Maryland that better fits the needs of IDF employees, the PI community, and IDF partners — and is more economical.

IDF moved its headquarters to Hanover from a location in Towson, Maryland. With 10,000 square feet of space, the Towson office became obsolete when IDF shifted to working from an in-office environment to an all-virtual one during the pandemic. 

The Hanover office, which is about a third of the size of the Towson office, is centrally located between Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C., with easy access to transportation and lodging. Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and an Amtrak Train station are just minutes away, parking is ample, and nearby amenities include restaurants and malls.

The new office is a convenient spot to convene with community members, donors, non-profits, and other important partners. IDF plans to use the office for Board of Trustee meetings, staff fly-ins, and public events. Additionally, while the office is not staffed daily, IDF team members who live locally can opt to work in-office when needed.

IDF transitioned to the new office on October 1, 2022, and two weeks later hosted a two-day, in-person work session for staff who traveled from 14 states to attend. In December, IDF is excited to debut the new office to the public for an in-person education meeting and to the IDF Board of Trustees at their quarterly meeting.

The Hanover location is a flexible space that supports an innovative, hybrid work environment customized to meet the organization’s current needs.

The space includes three traditional offices, two huddle nooks, a conference room, a kitchenette, computer workstations, and a large space that can accommodate theater-style or conference-style seating. Desk space offers room for 25 people to work on a laptop computer at any given time, the main space accommodates up to 50 people, and the conference room holds 20 people.

“I love that the space is so flexible and open, making it very conducive to collaboration and innovation, both of which are so important to strengthening the IDF community,” said IDF President and CEO Jorey Berry.

The office is outfitted with Wi-Fi and features docking stations for “plug and play” options for various technologies, eliminating the need for hard-wired computers. In addition, because IDF now communicates through the Teams platform, which supports video conferencing, meetings, and calls, phone systems are unnecessary. The technology also allows for hybrid meetings.

By moving to the new office, IDF achieved significant cost savings. The reduction in square footage, elimination of hard-wired computers and phone systems, and the option to hold meetings and public events at the location instead of renting space means that more resources can be allocated to other efforts that serve the PI community.

The office’s décor is dedicated to expressing IDF’s mission. The IDF logo and core values are imprinted on the walls, wall canvases reflect IDF’s vision to connect, engage, and empower, a branded logo wall offers team members a backdrop for video meetings, and, of course, zebra representation adorns all the rooms. In addition, IDF re-used existing furnishings.

“Because the space was unfinished when selected, the IDF team was able to design the space in a way that would allow us to repurpose furniture we already had in our Towson office, which was serendipitous,” said Berry.

“All of it is flexible and movable, which allows us to reimagine and reconfigure how the space works for us today, and yet also can accommodate how that may change in the future.”