Mission Statement
The Dallas Makerspace is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, shared community workshop and laboratory. We are an organized group of local artists, engineers, makers, and thinkers who work together to provide tools and learning resources to the public.
I personally think our mission statement is fine … we just need to reconize that we are a charitable organization in that we do make distributions to organizations and offer free classes to the general public. But I think we can do more with funding … and some volunteers … perhaps employees later
Dallas Makerspace Mission Statement
This corporation is organized exclusively for charitable, educational, and scientific purposes, including, for such purposes, the making of distributions to organizations under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, or the corresponding section of any future federal tax code.
Within the limits of such purposes the corporation shall:
Build and maintain spaces suitable for technical and social collaboration.
Collaborate on all forms of technology, culture, and craft in new and interesting ways.
Apply the results of its work to specific cultural, charitable, and scientific causes.
Freely share its research and discoveries, using what is learned to teach others.
Recruit and develop talented members dedicated to these purposes.
Promote scientific, cultural, and artistic advancement
Non-profit does not imply that we’re a charity. We are specifically set up for education, and we do that reasonable well. As an example, the Dallas Craft Guild is also a 501c3, and they charge a boatload for classes. Their classes may well be better than ours due to that cost, but we are encouraging a wider range of makers.
Here’s another example – the Society for Creative Anachronism is a 501c3. And, the education that their members get just from belonging to the events has been judged sufficient to maintain their non-profit status. They also teach boatloads of free classes, but community outreach is not required.
Some of our actions are charitable like offering a significant number of classes to the public for free. Charity is technically in our mission statement but it’s just one of many factors.
I personally think we could do more. I don’t mean giving stuff away like a typical charity but more like helping others in the maker movement. Help bootstrap other maker spaces. I’ve spent countless hours fielding questions from people all over the world about starting and running maker spaces. The demand for the knowledge and expertise is real. Maybe it would be worth setting up more formal documentation about how we operate to help others. There are lots of other ways we could help others but that’s the one that is always on my mind.
I think you are absolutely correct … however the SCA is also a public charity just like we are.
You are correct, that the membership is enough to qualify us.
Good point. I don’t think it does currently. Like @dryad2b says the classes we teach are enough to satisfy the requirement. And the education people get from just being members.
I was wrong on the tax status.
However, I’m trying to figure out a way explain this in a way that people will be willing to give donations regardless of membership. I don’t think we have gotten a single sign up on our donation page…
We have gotten a few Paypal signups through our button … I would like to see 1 million dollar donations like some other non-profits get. But there will have to be more thought on how we can help makers world wide. We are one of the largest makerspaces around. I think we can find ways to do more to help the entire world.
We were busy working to build a Makerspace. Other than matching funds from some members employer’s we did not do enough on donations and grants.
As many have pointed out grants usually have strings attached and specific goals. We probably now have enough resources to look into grants effectively.
Whew! After some off-board discussion, “public charity” is part of the verbiage in the application for 501c3 status. Our outreach to our members and the educational opportunities that we provide is sufficient to fulfill our purpose.
Every couple years. It is resurrected from the dead to scare everyone and cause concern.
We teach so many classes so cheaply. We easily justify our 501c3 status.
DMS has been lucky and skilled to be where we are. The genesis event that started DMS could have failed. The last move to Monetary was “interesting”. Expenses were high and income was low. Things were financially unstable.
I like Luke’s comment about helping other Makerspaces thrive. If we can grease the skids for other Makerspaces that would be righteous.