[hackerspaces] Who currently has the best, most functional hackerspace model?

[Ben Brown]

Finance-wise, Kwartzlab has never been in the red. This has been
achieved by being fiscally conservative of extra spending and proper
reporting -- we always know where money is and for what purpose. Keeping
the doors open and lights on is the priority, we've never considered a
new space that we can't sustain with our current membership. Most of our
big tools have come from grants/donations and member-driven group buys.
We've also kept an emergency fund of three full months of operational
expenses (rent, hydro, etc) that we've never used, but it's good to have
just in case.

Our biggest problem is we don't have enough new members interested in
the general day-to-day operation of the space. Traditionally the board +
small number of volunteers take care of most things - cleaning,
upgrades, new tools, etc. However a lot of our core group (including
myself) is burning out after seven years of operation. Our last two
boards were appointed without a vote because we didn't have enough
interested nominees.

If anyone's got some insight on successful ways of combating member
apathy I'd love to hear what worked!

Cheers,
Ben

On 7/4/2016 6:11 PM, Shirley Hicks wrote:
> Hey everyone,
>
> For those of you who visit other hackerspaces, who has the best financial and operational model? What organizational models have you looked at/borrowed from in order to improve your space? Looking for a couple to study in an effort to improve how the Red Mountain Makers is operating. 
>
> Shirley Hicks
> Red Mountain Makers
> Birmingham, AL
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