Fundraising

Please use this page to organise the various revenue streams for the space, and to suggest new ways of fundraising.

Membership Drive

What ways now we have a new space can we sell the benefits of membership to prospective members? Can someone make a flyer to hand out?

• have a space-warming-party
  • make sure to invite lots of loosely-related mailing lists/interest groups
  • make sure to mention the need for regular donations on invitation & during event

• Have a presence at relevant events - hand out flyers, answer questions, demo projects:
  • Maker Faire
  • dorkbot. jonty and russ "open-dorked" 18/08/2010. update/ refresh as necessary?
  • Freshers Fayres at unis
  • OSHUG

• Interviews with the media:
  • Jonty to be interviewed by the ubuntu UK podcast
  • Is there a Hackspace Podcast? Maybe talking about the projects been done in hackspaces around the world??
  • offthehook HVN

• Engage with students
  • Student membership drive at university Fresher's weeks - flyers, posters, Facebook, target societies like Games and Electronics societies, Drama societies (contact route for techies), and scifi societies (good demographic)
  • Student Open Day or similar at hackspace in early October/late September - free day, let people come and see and tinker, have some projects for them to do, cheap ones a few can take away (maybe £40 or so of stuff donated to the cause of getting people to join), badges/stickers
  • Dorkbot gets quite a lot of art/design students who want to add some technical content. However, it's an infrequent meeting so great for an introduction and less good for drop-in or long term support. Design students will have access to mechanical making facilities but not necessarily electronics, especially debug skills and test equipment.

• IET [1] (I have written to the secretary - artag)
  • Might it be worth trying to get featured in their magazine? --Teabot 09:59, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Increase Small Donations and/or existing subscriptions

• Make transparent our income vs. outgoings with this poster by AlexP: svg, png

Dontations

• "day pass": donation box at the door with a recommended minimum of e.g. £5 - would this replace the 'bring a guest' benefit of membership?
  • Would this work if someone with out a key turns up to get a day pass?--Solexious 11:38, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Build a machine to issue one day passes???
• sell larger LHS stickers for £3 a piece, call it a small donation (don't call it an expensive sticker)
  • e.g. sign next to donation box: "if you donate more than £x you can take a sticker" <- Seconded Solexious <- thirded SpikeUK 09:59, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Fundraising for Tools Purchases

Have members pledge funds for a bigger tools purchase, e.g. a laser cutter. Once it's been acquired: cut a plaque with the names of all sponsors and stick it on the machine.

Cf. Pledges

Workshops

• Soldering workshop, either pay to attend, or charge for kits to solder, i.e. tv-be-gones or trippyRGB LEDs
  • Adafruit gives 40% reseller discount to hackspaces, min order is $250. We could order in a large batch of kits and sell them as part of a workshop. Charge £5 entry + per kit cost. One day event??
• Arduino Workshop - Being planned
• Computer related workshops - networking, programming, etc, free for members, £3-5 on the door for small presentations, £20-40 for half/full-day workshops? Could be a good little earner with members volunteering to give workshops --James Harrison 21:50, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
• Hold appropriate workshops for other groups, e.g. LILI

Services

(Provided we have the tools and volunteers.)

• e.g. laser etchings
• 3d printings / prototyping
• Parcel dropoff / business address / PO Box
• Email / web / rack space
• Wifi for other offices in the same building (or a full network - could fund a fast link)
  • Previous occupant of the space was an IT support company ref
• Space for small tech/hardware orientated meetups, with organisers putting down a small donation fee for wifi + desk space
• Rent out car spaces. Or offer the use of daytime spaces in exchange for evening spaces.
  • Is not allowed
• Carry some google ads

For sale items

• Have arduinos etc available to buy at a slight mark-up, this would be useful to sell at public nights.
  • Produced by slave labour in the hackspace itself? Could just buy in all the parts in bulk and assemble them ourselves. -- CMooney
    • Not sure if we could beat prices once you factor in time spent by members. Core idea of selling 'expensive' components at marked-up rate on-site is a plan, though. --James Harrison 21:48, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
    • Is it sensible to factor in time spent by members ? If people would rather work overtime and donate, that's undoubtedly more efficient but a sociable building session that makes a small profit is quite appealing.
• Reprap parts sets
• Building rep-raps to order?
• Buy in a few small kits (RGB Blinky, TV-B-Gone) etc, and have them for sale when people turn up first time and would like to do something, good for Tuesdays and monthly meetings? -- Ciarán

Fundraiser Events

• identify people with lots of disposable cash and an interest in technology (e.g. former-bankers-turned-philanthropists, successful startup founders, Dyson ? Bayliss ?)
• hold an event where we:
  • present the history of the space and hackspaces in general
  • present some of the ongoing projects
  • highlight what this space means for the local tech scene (esp in terms of teaching/socialising for younger people)
  • highlight some of the things we would like funding for (hardware, tools, rent)
  • provide a simple way to donate larger amounts of money, with some kind of public recognition if warranted/wanted
• Ask for funding from organisations such as Crafts Council
• Ask for funding from the IET's 'Promoting Engineering' campaign. This requires that the hackspace be first endorsed by the London Local Network. The Young Professionals [2] [3] group might be a good point of contact.

• Attend a local community fair or fête with the Makerbot and print off things objects for people from Thingiverse. Admittedly relies on the Makerbot working longer than 30 secs but possible. Take along other kits and soldering irons for people to make things!

Publicise projects

It is quite likely that those of us working on projects are documenting or bloging about them - sometimes on the LHS wiki. We could make an effort to publicise projects that are likely to be of interest to wider Maker/Hacker type audiences and make a clear connection to the LHS.

We could then ask for support of said project and others by making an online donation to the LHS.

This would obviously have to be done with the project owners consent.

If we get jonty to do something dangerous with a Dremel we could be an overnight YouTube sensation and make millions. He has: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7zxNTXgSvI --Solexious

Sponsorship

Ask Google, etc.

kendes: I spoke to the IOP (Inst. of Physics):

The funding source that we have for external projects is the Institute's public engagement grant scheme. The scheme awards up to £1000 for physics-based outreach and engagement activities so it might be worth the Space members looking at that. See http://www.iop.org/about/grants/outreach/page_38843.html . The 2011 scheme will launch at the start of September and the guidelines might change slightly from those on the site at the moment, but they won't be hugely different.

It might be worth knowing that a hacker space did apply for a grant in the last round but they were unsuccessful because it was not clear what the physics link was. Or rather, how participants would realise that what they were doing was physics. They were also charging a substantial amount for participation which didn't go down well with the assessment panel. So any application needs to be very clear about where the physics is and ensure that there aren't barriers created due to cost or where the activity is being held.

Im happy to make a banner saying "We are doing physics!!!1!1" --Solexious 14:24, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

They also suggested talking to the local branch to attract more members / bring members to a branch meeting.