[hackerspaces] what fundraising methods have worked best for you?

[Paul Brown]

Here is the split of Dallas Makerspace's income:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2eh0xwk0vfj4gbe/income_dist.png

Most income comes from members who pay automatically each month to use the
tools and workspace outside of public classes, hackathons, lectures, and
workshops. Now that our tools and workspace are impressive, we're getting a
lots of new members each month:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fmzjsqo0ldz9ht8/membership_growth.png

Selling memberships gives us the cash we need to hire teachers and fund our
educational mission in a bigger way.

It wasn't always that way though. Initially, a brave souls needed to talk
the original group into paying recurring membership dues even though there
wasn't a space. It was an investment (and a tax deductible donation).

Funding 80% of an organization with workshops/classes is going to be a huge
burden on a volunteer-only organization. It's super impressive that
Artisan's Asylum was able to attract enough instructors to pull it off.
They mention it in the "Identifying Income" section of this article that
Gui wrote:
http://makezine.com/2013/06/04/making-makerspaces-creating-a-business-model/


On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 5:06 PM, William Saturno <wsaturno at gmail.com> wrote:

> From what I learned from talking with others at Artist's Asylum's
> "Make a Makerspace" Weekend, my own survey shows that many successful
> spaces have an average revenue split 20% membership dues / 80%
> Workshops. At CT Hackerspace in Connecticut, we are now working on
> increasing our workshops to see if there is revenue opportunity.
>
> Bill Saturno
> CTHackerspace.com
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 5:55 PM, Randall G. Arnold
> <randall.arnold at texrat.net> wrote:
> > Greetings all,
> >
> > Tarrant Makers just got its 501(c)3 approved and we are in the process of
> > investigating grants.  Meanwhile, we've been limping along on donation
> jar,
> > garage sale and director funding to keep the bank account open, etc.
> >
> > We're looking into a variety of other fundraising modes, to wit:
> >
> > - community swag (Tee shirts, mugs, etc) starting with Zazzle to get
> stuff
> > done quickly, but ultimately wanting community production if we see the
> > interest
> > - raffles
> > - angel donors (one approached so far; no response yet, considering
> others)
> >
> > I'm also curious about member consulting, with a percentage plowed into
> the
> > org, but people seem lukewarm on the idea so far.
> >
> > Anyway, I'd love to hear from you all on what is working for you and even
> > what hasn't worked.  One mode that has not worked well for us at all is a
> > paypal link on our site: despite several appeals, it goes unclicked for
> the
> > most part.  Anyone else had success with Paypal (or similar)?  What about
> > crowdfunding tools?
> >
> > We're partnering with educational and civic organizations for
> makerspaces,
> > so no expense on our part there, but we would like an office and a
> > promotions budget, for starters.  I estimate needing $30,000 or so per
> year,
> > minimum, based on lease rates and wishlists.
> >
> > Assuming we land one or more grants, initial funding could be largely
> just a
> > bootstrap...
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Randy Arnold, Tarrant Makers
> > http://tarrantmakers.org
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> > http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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/20140317/ff8cd3e6/attachment.html>