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Comment by TamDenholm | Hacker News Reader

One option is to create a business model, run it like a business, a way of running a non-profit is to just spend all the revenue on the business' goal, rather than to pay the shareholders of the business.

I think thats the most robust way to insure longevity of the enterprise. Relying on donations to keep the lights on is difficult.

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> Relying on donations to keep the lights on is difficult.

Can confirm - the Hackerspace I help run is in big part funded by company donations. Every now and then comes the day when I have to convince someone to keep donating, and since result depends mostly on the goodwill of the other party, we have to play safe with finances - which slows the growth and acquisition of new useful workshop tools.

We're trying to move to self-sustainable model, but with almost everyone having a day job and/or a significant other, it's damn difficult.

What does growth mean in the context of a non-profit? Is it really a meaningful metric?

Number of people using the service seems like a good metric.

In the context of our space - more tools, more people coming to use those tools, learn and build awesome stuff.

It is a meaningful metric because it's our whole raison d'être - providing free access to more and more advanced workshop for building stuff and learning new skills.

Everyone needs to measure success somehow, and increasing your performance against that metric (which is often linked with growth) is good. I worked with a non-profit for a while where each member was asked to track performance against goals. It was often repeated, "it's not about the numbers." No, it's about the people you're serving, but the numbers represent people and serving more people is better. What's wrong with trying to do that? It doesn't have to come at the expense of forgetting the people behind the numbers.

Some things you might consider for becoming more self sufficient:

-Membership dues -Vending machine with useful supplies -Locker / storage space rental -Government grants for larger purchases

A community workshop I used to go to had great success with this. There were two membership types, drop-in and keyholder, with different monthly dues and perks. That was enough to be self sufficient and make routine equipment purchases. When they needed to make a big purchase, like a dust and fume extractor system, they got a grant for between $5000-20000 from the local government.

I'm in the process of trying to get a makerspace in my area off the ground - any chance you can give some insight as to how you approached companies for donations? We've got dues-paying members who want to get this thing going, and are working with a local tech school to try to get some space on their campus, but I feel like large-donations is what we're really lacking and we're just not sure of who to approach or how to do so.

We had some success with:

- IT companies

- electronics companies (one of which is our current regular donor)

- local angel investors

- government grants (we did a series of workshops for a project run by the US embassy in Poland)

Two other options we're also exploring:

- various grants, both government (national and EU) and from company-backed nonprofits

- CSR - big companies tend to have money allocated to spend on non-profit causes because of their Corporate Social Responsibility programs; you can try and apply to those

As for how we approached companies: we mailed them directly, describing what we're doing. We created a nice PDF brochure to be attached with details and photos. However, the best results came from something else - some of our members talked about our Hackerspace at work, and the word reached their employers, who then reached out to us.

Hi, President of SparkCC (sparkcc.org) in Australia here.

First I suggest you take a look at the hackerspaces.org Design Patterns (https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/Design_Patterns), particularly the Independence and Sustainability patterns. Relying on donations is following the "Sponsoring Anti-Pattern".

I've seen a lot of not-for-profit groups who end up on the "grant cycle". The spend a bunch of time applying for various grants or soliciting donations just to survive. Once one grant/donation is secured it's time to start chasing the next one. Instead of spending time working in the 'space and making things.

You say you have paying members already which is great - this is the key to real sustainability. Perhaps you could follow the Charitable Member Pattern and see if they would be able to pay their entire year up front to get the space off the ground?

Starting a makerspace has been one of the most satisfying and worthwhile things I've done and I highly recommend sticking at it and making it work. I wish you good luck!!!

"Relying on donations to keep the lights on is difficult."

You just have to plaster a giant banner ad of your puppy dog face, begging for donations at the top of every article. Works for Jimmy Wales.

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