only works if mispronounced…
Or if you have peanut allergies, I guess…
Well I’m glad we all feel we have a great Makerspace , and we do! Yet I’m still troubled with our finances. Ben is doing a great job (which is very hard work) but the willingness to buy big ticket items without a true final cost is a challenge. The CNC router is an amazing piece of equipment but we spent a lot on getting it setup and running. Glad we have it but we should know how it was going to impact our finances.
I was there, as many others, when we pretty much only had loaned equipment and just enough funds to pay rent & utilities. So please excuse me as someone who would like to know the bigger picture before just deciding to increase the membership fees. There have been a lot people who have contributed much more than me but yes I do commit a fair amount of time to DMS in the eLab. Even then, I don’t think I would stay if the rate went to $65/month without some justification to fixing the problem. As far as it only applying to new members that is still not the point. We should KNOW if it is necessary.
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Personally,
I think the stuff of making it “new members” is crap. Its just like hiring a new person into a position and you as a “new” person is making 30% less than the people already there despite doing the same work.
I say, lets raise ALL of them. If you don’t want to pay the new rate, simply write an appeal to the board and you might be able to keep your old rate.
Stev-o and I put in an extra $50/month towards general expenses on top of membership fees and its because we wanted to avoid situations like this. Maybe if more people did this who use the space more often and get extra value out of it would do so… we could avoid this entirely.
TREAT EVERYONE FAIRLY, RAISE EVERYONE. That includes the super OG people part pf the first 50 memberships that still pay $35/month. Yeah, and some of us have been members for 5+ years. It doesn’t mean we deserve special treatment.
I know its not popular, but I mean… everyone is a person and deserves the same treatment.
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But is it even possible to KNOW with 100% certainty what our future expenses will be? Then we could do the simple math of we need to raise dues X to afford Y expenses.
For now I’m just going off I think we need more revenue to support employees and saving for future expansion without just stopping all capital expenses for the next year.
We cannot know 100%, but we can make reasonable and even really good estimations. @mblatz is right to point out that we have unexplored options for increasing our revenues; several have pointed out that we should be exploring cost-cutting. Several comments on this thread make me think we need to communicate our priorities throughout the membership.
As it’s been mentioned above, I think raising dues without solid,
informative and reliable financial statements (income statement, balance
sheet, budgets…) is a terrible idea. It could have the effect of trying
to put out a fire with gasoline. In fact, it might even be a good idea to
lower all memberships to $5 a month until said financial reports are made
available. Spur the right sort of action, eh? I’m TOTALLY JOKING! but you
get the idea…
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Can anyone demanding more detailed budget tracking
- define exactly what you want to see with example spreadsheets, diagrams, data
- volunteer to help produce such reports
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Seems to be a lot knee jerk reactions going on here. Yes there were some alarming reports. And yes a lot of requests for “fund my request, toy, tool, etc.” have been turned down/tabled. As others have stated it is not a complete picture. We probably will not have a complete picture for a while. Until such time, I recommend NO CHANGES be made.
A few other comments: Abolishing honorariums is a bad idea. It’s as an added incentive to teach classes. It’s also used by some who teach to pay their dues. Raise the dues = raise the honorariums…Right??
Donations made above and beyond the dues are tax deductible…Right??
I think any major changes being discussed here should be voted on by the whole DMS collective.
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I thought of another sure to be unpopular way to generate more revenue (no one will want to pay more for what they are already getting for less, there is incredible inertia in maintaining the status quo, unfortunately as we grow the status quo may not work forever), instead of saying anyone can have a personal storage box, we charge $15 / month extra for the luxury of having a personal storage box. This would have the ability to generate $2,500 / month in revenue. There are currently 168 box locations available, but there is a possibility of losing some of that capacity in the future.
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I think we need some discipline in spending first. Excuse me if I misrepresent anything here, but before we raise rates, why 2 table saws, is a 12 inch joiner really necessary, I went in looking for a biscuit joiner one day to find we didn’t have this basic $100 tool, but did have a festool version hidden away in the network closet. It seems we went from harbor freight to festool and now we are in a bind. Just because it is somebody else’s money does not mean money is no object. There is a middle ground.
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In response to the post about a light user fee level.
I agree. Not sure how this would be done, but as a light user, I am considering dropping out at the current rate. I see a lot of questionable spending on expensive tools with rare training offered.
While I would love to be able to offer this (from an infrastructure and access control standpoint), we don’t have a way to handle it, given our current systems. We also have members that follow people in the doors (which is friendly to allow, but terrible from a security perspective). I guess something I’d say we could start with (again, IF we had a controller that could handle this) is 8-5 access, or weekends only or something like that.
There is a biscuit joiner at the space. The Festool Domino seems to be a bit more accessible now than it used to be and it is awesome.
This would have to be monitored and seems like a rabbit hole. I am struggling to come up with a fair, objective, and consistent way to characterize a “light” user.
I am sure the festool is fantastic, it is also 10x as expensive as other reliable options, and most of its advantages are lost on the large majority of users.
I feel the space has become the personal playground of a few, supported by the many, as a way to get fantastic tools that we all dream about affording, and through training limitations and squirreling away, get near private use of those community purchased assets.
How much did the festool domino joiner and tenon cabinet cost? $1000, $1500?
How about the festool sander?
Given these purchases it feels like crocodile tears to be asking for more money.
How about a small sustaining membership level without access rights? Just a small option for folks who want to support the community (like public radio). $5/month? Free t-shirt? Car sticker? A way for members who may be about to drop out but would still like to keep the machine idling for when they return.
Yeah, the Domino XL (which is the one we have) is somewhere around $1500. As far as I can tell, it isn’t usage-restricted. The regular sized Domino I would argue is more useful to the average user, as the smallest thickness tenon cut by the XL is 8mm (using the 3:1 rule-of-thumb, you need inch-thick material for an 8mm tenon). The dust extractor and sanders were probably just shy of $1500.
I don’t consider the Festools we have excessive. They’re expensive, yes, but they’re also ridiculously well-engineered and designed to handle the [ab]use they’re going to see at the space.
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Ken,
I appreciate your professional and considerate reply - you express yourself well.
The CNC router is an amazing piece of equipment but we spent a lot on getting it setup and running. Glad we have it but we should know how it was going to impact our finances.
A good point, but I see that as natural consequence of being on the bleeding edge of the best. DMS is moving into some uncharted waters and the Space is doing things that no one else is.
As used to be traditionally written at the unknown edges of ancient maps:
“Here, there be dragons.”
So please excuse me as someone who would like to know the bigger picture before just deciding to increase the membership fees.
You don’t need an excuse, Ken. It is a perfectly reasonable request to want to know what the financial picture is.
What I don’t understand is why we have some of the Western binary thinking on this subject - it is not like we are constrained to either raise rates OR analyze our financial situation. Why not raise all rates $5 a month while the books are examined?
At any rate, I am glad we are having a relatively civil discussion as it has brought a number of other creative avenues that I was unaware of such as the extra donation links provided by Walter and Robert, as well as the Amazon Smile link given by Nick.
Even then, I don’t think I would stay if the rate went to $65/month without some justification to fixing the problem.
I can appreciate your perspective on that.
We should KNOW if it is necessary.
I doubt it is necessary to raise it to $65 to stay at this level HOWEVER the real question is the old hot rodder’s maxim of “Speed costs money, how fast do you want to go?” In this case, how far should DMS reach before we start risking more than it is worth in terms of keeping things manageable and safe?
Is there a finite goal in terms of having X number of members that we should reach for and then just work on improving the infrastructure?
Regardless, just like with a computer where you can never have too much RAM, hard drive space, etc. there is no such thing as having too strong of a financial position. The next huge purchase is potentially adding more space one way or another and that crossroads will need to be answered in less than two years.
So whether it is done by raising rates, cutting costs, writing grants, beating up the tooth fairy or robbing liquor stores, I would like to know IF we have some clue or vision for what the end goal is in terms of some semi-hard metrics like a max of 3,000 members in a 65,000 square foot space positioned in some geo-desirable location. (I am not saying this is realistic, a limitation or even my personal agenda, I am just throwing numbers out as an example)
Y’all understand what I’m driving at here?
JAG “What Does YOUR Dream Makerspace Look Like?” MAN
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Well, in my opinion, they are excessive. One could buy 10 dewalt biscuit joiners for the price of this and they would actually work in common 3/4 inch boards. After asking around, I was reluctantly shown the secret hiding place of the festool, and after looking at it for 5 minutes, realized that it would not work for my need, and was an extravagant luxury paid for with my dues. It’s a great tool, but it is a luxury.
Some tools are very expensive, the laser cutter is expensive, but name the tool that will do the same thing as the laser cutter at 1/10 the cost?
These festools are unnecessary luxuries whose function could be 95% duplicated for 10% of the cost.
Ok, I’ll bite. I suppose a reasonably simple explanation might help. Please bear in mind, that there are several ways to approach this, mostly involving standard double-entry accounting. I can tell you, the larger the org, and the more revenue it takes in, the more complex these systems must become in order to adequately serve the boards need for information and accountability.
First, recognize the golden rule of accounting. ASSETS - LIABILITIES = EQUITY.
Equity, is how much you are worth. How much you haven’t spent. What you can do new. Money in reserve.
Assets, are what you take in and what you have - in our case, memberships, donations, all other income, and if we were being taxed - the price of things we own depreciated to current value.
Liability is what we owe. Rent, electricity, and money the board has already spent (voted allocations of cash for equipment, maintenance, committee funds, etc)
A Ledger, is a series of columnar entries, usually divided into sub-accounts, that tracks Assets and Liabilities. Assets in the left column, liabilities in the right. Each Ledger is typically defined by it’s “Chart of Accounts”.
Typically, you use a system of funds to manage this. A “Fund” is not a bank balance. A “Fund” is a ledger dedicated to a specific funding activity. The General fund, for example, is normally a ledger set up to track the routine and predictable expenses of the org. A Capital fund, is a ledger set up to track the purchase of new stuff - equipment, properties, etc. There can be as many ledgers (funds) as the Org needs.
When the Board votes to spend money for some purpose, that decision is entered into the ledger of the appropriate fund as a liability, and considered to be money already spent from the point of view of:
The Balance Sheet, is the master accounting where the ledgers balances are all entered to produced a running bottom line (and typically lots of tracking data, like "Year to date, vs. this time last year, etc.). Typically, the Treasurer will produce a version of this for the board, called a treasurers report, at the start of every board meeting, and provide his/her views on what it represents.
Budget - The process of developing a strategic plan for overall management of funding at the space, including all known expenses, predicted expenses, revenue, and predicted revenue. It also involves the timing of money movement into the funds (can’t spend it til you have it). Please note, that Budgets, in effect, pre-load the books with liabilities, which eventually become assets as the budget item is paid for. The budget is also the whip hand of the Treasurer, and is his single biggest tool to ensure spending doesn’t make us insolvent - The treasurer and the treasurer alone funds the ledgers. Budgets can be revised as needed, but typically Boards are loathe to do so. It screws up their planning, and breeds uncertainty.
Now, I’m simplifying a lot, and taking a few liberties with definitions for clarity’s sake. Recognize, that real Accountants (versus bookkeepers) go to school four years just to get half-assed good enough at this to get a junior level job. Debits and Credits be complicated business in larger Orgs, and no bullshit about it. There’s little point in doing this when you’re running a hamburger stand, a boy scout troop, or a Vape storefront. But political bodies (boards, councils, etc.) require them, otherwise they have no clue what the effect of their previous votes were on the bottom line, and no way to tell what the impact of their current and future decisions will be. DMS has a political body, revenues at or exceeding a half million dollars a year, and 1000 members expecting to receive what they paid for.
The process of developing an accounting system should look something like:
- Define the fund structure.
- Define the chart of accounts for each fund.
- Define the process for entering data into the new structure
- Develop an Interim budget
- Board to develop strategy for determining what revenues go into which funds (policy)
- Close out the existing accounting, move data, and begin operating from the new system.
Doing this isn’t as bad as it sounds, but it’s definitely work. It would be easy for a real-live accountant. With 1000 members, I’d be very surprised if there were no accountants in our midst already.
None of this is no harm, no foul. Every board member, as a matter of law, undertakes a “Fiduciary Duty” to the membership that has some very real-world consequences associated with it. Doing the accounting right is not only in the best interest of the Organization, it’s also in the self-interest of the individual board members.
My two cents, for whatever value you take from it.
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@Tapper And do you think we, with our recent move to Quick Books (a double-entry accounting software package, I believe) and the consulting work with a real-live accountant, are moving in the right direction?
Have you, since it seems like you know a bit more on this than some of us, asked for access to the read-onlies, as Ben has offered? It might open the door to more specific constructive comments than these generalized statements you have offered. I’m wiling to look, but that’s pearls before swine, frankly.
and you’re right, there almost MUST be some accountants in our midst, but like many professionals, being at the Makerspace was not a move to take on MORE work…