[hackerspaces] Introduction from Western Australia

[john arclight]

Offer a class, have parties, put together a nice "donation jar" atht
everyone can see.  Work out some sort of scheme whereby you have a small
core of dedicated rent-payers who are reliable and can consistently make
rent even if membership doesn't increase right away or someone flakes.


Also, try to start saving for 1-2 months of "rainy day" fund money.

Arclight

On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 12:55 AM, Tilman Frosch <til at das-labor.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Am Donnerstag, den 01.10.2009, 14:49 +0800 schrieb David Cake:
>
> >       We'd love ideas from other hackerspaces, particularly for
> > fundraising, membership drives, and good ideas for rules to run the
> > actual physical space.
>
> 1) Offer talks frequently. Invite people, who do interesting stuff, to
> give a talk. Surprise your visitors with quality. Workshops are great,
> too, but you will have additional costs in advance, depending on what
> you do.
> Let everybody use every tool, if the person knows how to and handles
> your stuff with care. If somebody does not know to do $thing, show
> him/her how to do it.
> Just make sure people know that your hackerspace needs their (financial)
> support if they want to keep what they started to enjoy (think tools,
> people with similar interests etc.)
> 2) host meetings of local groups with similar interests (linux user
> groups etc.)
> 3) have a 'drink for donation' scheme (and make sure people know what
> they are expected to donate) or sell drinks (softdrinks; the highly
> caffeinated stuff your target audience enjoys). Make sure your visitors
> know that this keeps your space running.
> As everybody needs to drink this is kind of a usage-based fee. People
> who use the space more often will drink more and thus pay a higher fee.
>
> This is roughly how it worked for us in the beginning. We had one talk
> per week, every Tuesday, for about 1.5 years. Quality varied, of course,
> but the average seemed high enough that people were surprised they could
> get this for free.
>
>
> HTH
>
> Til
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.hackerspaces.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20091001/bb993687/attachment.html>