[Finance] Startup Costs

[Christopher J. Pilkington]

On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 11:02:58AM -0400, Brain Tank wrote:
> If this works we've even gone a step further, WE HAVE NOT TAKEN MONEY AWAY FROM
> NON-PROFITS. We are generating new income instead while doing non-profit type
> things for the community. Tinkering is good but whatever money a Hackerspace
> gets donated to them for a tool or event could just as easily have gone to help
> people feed their families.

This is fearmongering. You're making the false assumption that
donations to a non-profit hackerspace are reallocations of
donations to other non-profits.

Furthermore, I'd argue that if I get members of the community
interested in technology, and learning the basics through the
classes we offer, I'm putting them in a better position to be
employable (if not in the short term, in the long term), which
does indeed help people feed their families.

Again, I brought up the difference between a hackerspace and a
for-profit technology workshop because the economics are quite
different, and this list is centered on the finances of
hackerspaces.  I did not mean to start a holy war on the merits
of hackerspaces vs. for-profit workshops. 

-cjp
sig315.org