[hackerspaces] Cash flow?

[Edward L Platt]

Lots of good suggestions already, but I'd like to add a few.

To add to the idea of attracting new members, you need to figure out what
the demand is and how to meet it.  Is your membership growing?  Do you have
the same members month after month?  Do you have some new members joining
and some old members dropping out each month?  Are there people interested
in being members, but who are turned off by something?  The best methods
will depend on the answers to these questions.  Find out why people are
leaving and/or not joining, fix it, and hold an open house.  At i3 Detroit,
we had to switch from $100/mo dues to a $39/$89 combo.  If there isn't
demand, you'll have to cut your expenses somehow.

And now for a shameless plug!  You should use Seltzer CRM <
http://github.com/elplatt/seltzer> to track memberships and collect dues.
 It makes it easy to keep member data up to date and track dues payments
through amazon payments (and soon paypal).  The more you can automate, the
more you can focus on improving the space.

-Ed

On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 9:50 AM, Ron Bean
<makerspace at rbean.users.panix.com>wrote:

> One obvious thing that nobody has mentioned yet-- attract more members!
>
> We try to accomodate nonmembers, but we also try to make sure there's an
> advantage to being a member. The main advantage is 24/7 access to the
> building. We're mostly open to nonmembers two nights per week (and
> occasionally on weekends). Nonmembers can also get in as a guest of a
> member. For the most part, only members can use the heavy machinery,
> although we've talked about making exceptions to that.
>
> Also, we accept payments through Dwolla. According to this page, they
> accept recurring payments:
>
> http://help.dwolla.com/customer/portal/articles/235874-how-can-i-setup-a-recurring-payment-
>
> We also accept payments through PayPal (although they charge more than
> Dwolla). Some people don't trust Dwolla (it's a bank transfer, so you
> have to give them your bank account number), and some people don't trust
> PayPal. I don't know how our membership breaks down along those lines.
> I think we can also accept payments through Square, but I don't know if
> anyone is paying their membership that way.
>
> I do know that our treasurer doesn't like to cash checks manually, even
> if they're on time.
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>



-- 
Edward L. Platt
http://elplatt.com
http://civic.mit.edu/users/elplatt
http://i3detroit.com
@EdwardLPlatt <http://twitter.com/EdwardLPlatt>
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