[hackerspaces] What form of organization does your hackerspace use?

[Punkin3.14]

KwartzLab lives someplace between The Board and The Membership.

Legally,  we're Corporation Without Share Capital (Not-for-Profit), 
which matches "The Board". We opted not to register as a Co-operative 
(which would more closely match "The Membership"), because the laws 
governing Co-operatives are more restrictive, without offering us any 
useful benefits. But the Co-operative or "Membership" philosophy closely 
matches our vision for the space, so we borrow heavily from it in our 
bylaws, policies, and procedures.

Whether or not to incorporate was never a question -- it was important 
to everyone involved in the early planning that the hackerspace be its 
own legal entity, independent of any personalities.

We are 100% member funded (with all members paying the same level of 
dues), which was also very important to our initial membership. Any of 
the big decisions (like how much dues will be) are subject to a member 
vote, and all members-in-good-standing get an equal vote.

We don't have a surplus budget, so the question of how to spend our 
savings (buying tools, etc.) hasn't come up yet.

For the sake of doing business efficiently, the Board does handle most 
of the mundane decisions (like who we should get our liability insurance 
through). However, all of our Board meetings are open to the membership 
(they can't vote, but they do take part in the discussion), and we have 
a fairly large Board (7 Directors, all members) to ensure that a good 
cross-section of the membership is represented.

Letting the Board handle most of the day-to-day decisions ensures that 
things can get done in a timely fashion -- we know from experience that 
a lot of our members are not interested in the administrivia, and we're 
lucky to get quorum at a general meeting. Any Board decisions which 
impact the membership directly do need to be ratified by the members 
(usually within 30 days), and so far we haven't had a problem getting 
enough members interested to at least do that.

We also endorse the "do-ocracy" ethic, and encourage members to take 
ownership of the space. A lot of things which need doing don't need a 
meeting or a vote, they just need somebody to take charge and do them, 
and we work hard to foster an environment where people will do that.

Its too early to say how well this works for maintaining the hackerspace 
-- we just had our Grand Opening last week. However, this is the 
approach we used for getting KwartzLab off the ground, and its worked 
well for the bootstrapping & build-out phases.

-- 

     |\___/|   Punkin3.14
     )     (
    =\     /=     punkin at mag3.14159.ca | http://punkin3.14159.ca
      )===(
     /     \          Relaxen,
     |     |            und watschen der blinkenlichten
    /       \
    \       /
/\_/\__  _/_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\
   |  |( (  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
   |  | ) ) |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
   |  |(_(  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
   |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |