Sorry for the long post everyone, I tried my best to be brief but i do think this needs to be talked about.
I am relatively new here, but the fundraising situation at the space has always confounded me. Walking in I honestly thought y’all would have fundraising on lock, especially considering we are objectively, like, the biggest and most successful maker space ever…
Maybe I’m out of the loop but it seems that people always seem to forget that we are a public charity , which means individuals, companies, foundations etc. love to give us money for tax purposes and PR (…501(c)(3) status, we all know that).
However, there is another really important point that is oft overlooked, when it comes to soliciting manufacturers and distributors, donating to a large makerspace is a pretty easy sell.
I hang out in the electronics workshop a lot which is supported heavily by Mouser.com. So does anybody wanna guess when I last ordered components from Digikey or Newark? Probably like 4 months ago, there needs to be a large price disparity for me to not order from Mouser, because not only do I recognize their contribution to a cause I care about, but its really hard to argue with the quality of service they provide. (Also the big sign probably contributes more than I want to admit lol)
Last time I heard Mouser donates about 5k worth of goods each year, and they sometimes remind us to send them our wishlist. The point here is that companies see a very significant ROI for donations of this kind, especially relative to other non-profits that only offer tax benefits and brand recognition in exchange for support.
One of the core missions of community workshops is to provide the public with equipment they can’t afford or justify buying. But at some point if you find yourself in a position where you want to buy a tool or material for yourself… it makes good sense to bias your purchasing decision towards a tool you already use and understand.
If someone contacts the right person at DeWalt and says (something to the effect of and hopefully more eloquent):
“hey we are a 2000+ member, volunteer run, 501(c)(3) community workshop out of Dallas, TX. We provide tools, equipment, materials, education, and a collaborative community to the Dallas area public. To do this at such a large scale we require a lot of tools, especially basic battery-powered hand tools such as drills, impact drivers, circular saws, reciprocating saws, etc… We currently purchase from Ryobi for this purpose, but we aren’t really satisfied with their longevity (we actually consider them consumables). This is obviously very expensive for a volunteer-run non-profit, so we are looking into leveraging our mission to provide higher quality tools to our member base without the large expenses associated with repeatedly purchasing low quality tools. So I am just reaching out to gauge DeWalt’s interest in outfitting our organization with a small collection of tools for our members to try out on their projects…”
You get the point, given all the aforementioned benefits on their end, that is bound to start a conversation. And with proper execution from a well supported fundraising team it could cultivate into a long term relationship regardless of the manufacturer.
@Holliday I’m really excited this is starting to come up, and I would have no problem reaching out to whoever we need to try and get some traction. I’ve done this sort of thing before for an engineering club in college, where one of my main functions was managing sponsors. I probably wont be much help on the internal administration side but if anybody needs someone to do grunt work lmk.
@Edenblue I understand the tendency to babystep, (a SIG under PR sounds like a good way to proceed, however i’m not very apprised of our political nuances) but this is something that if executed swiftly and properly could add so much more value to the community than arguing until our keys stick about honorarium.
Anyway, I’m really excited about the trajectory of @Team_PR and I look forward to a even better space!
Thanks all