Is this maybe an over reaction to a couple of lean months and prior expenses finally hitting the books? Are we likely to return to more normal finances if we just wait it out a few months?
I worry that there may be a lot of inactive members who don’t really pay attention to $50 against the potential to use the space if needed in some future month. I’ve let some $50 recurring expenses of minimal use slide for a long time. As an active member the increased rate wouldn’t bother me. But as an inactive member, that would probably be enough to make me seriously reconsider, and possibly drop until I needed the space again…
Can you provide any info on how you came to the conclusion that 30% / $15 was a good number to raise the membership rates by? I am genuinely curious about the breakdown of costs of running and up-keeping Makerspace. Is the rise in costs due to basic expenses of running the space, purchasing of new equipment, repairs?
Would it be a good idea to run a poll of who would keep / remove their memberships at this (and other) price increases?
I think that any poll here will most strongly reflect members who are active, and least likely to mind the increase. Those who pay, but have not made it to the space in months I expect to be seriously under represented in talk, even though they are a majority of the paying members.
Just to clarify nobody is talking about raising current member dues. This would strictly be for new members.
Historically how it works is you are grandfathered in, the policy is you cant turn off your membership and retain the legacy rate unless you pay the backlog of invoices. The effect is if you are on the grandfather plan you can’t stop your membership. If you do stop you get moved to the new plan.
Costs may be rising; however, no evidence of that has yet been presented.
What is clear is that we have become addicted to spending, when the reality is we should focus first on developing more fiscal responsibility.
Of course, one advantage of raising the membership rates is that it will slow growth. Personally, I think doubling our basic membership fee wouldn’t be a bad idea. We are already far larger then the current space can truly support.
Last month we brought in 750 member months equivalent of money (divide income by $50, 1000 member count includes family, lifers, yearly, reduced rate members)
Our expenses are (very) roughly:
220 member months for rent
80 member months for electricity (decreasing in fall)
20 member months for cnc router payment
32 member months for cleaning (increased)
100 member months for honorariums (increasing)
60 member months for allocations to committees (increasing)
100 member months for (potential) employees (new expense)
60 member months for (potential) saving 3,000 each month (new expense)
So 672 member months allocated before any capital purchases
Leaving 78 member months (less than $4,000) to be allocated at any given board meeting currently, of course funds are increasing as more members but growth rate is no longer exponential.
Just a note that the expense for the cnc router IS a capital purchase. And the savings would have been less necessary if we had not spent $10K-$30k on discretionary capitol expenses in the last few months. I am thinking second table saw, the $1500 on the parts for the digital media computer that is now considered ‘non-functional’, The 3D scanner, etc…
Further, many of the expenses you listed as a ‘given’ are still optional. For instance, perhaps employees aren’t the most fiscally responsible choice at this time. Particularly considering that the board, at the last meeting they were discussed, couldn’t even agree on what the job responsibilities of these employee’s would be.
And the highlighted part is the primary reason I have a concern with the reasoning behind this proposal. If your spending is based on the growth, rather then need (which seems to have been the case in the last five months of free spending), then you have a fiscal policy problem. Something I think should be addressed first. Only after you have a few months of fiscal stability and restraint, can you truly determine what the actual revenue needs are. And then you can determine what increase would be necessary.
In short, I think this proposal is premature. But ultimately I believe an increase is going to be necessary given anticipated future expenses and our current lack of preparation for them. The real problem is that those costs likely can not be borne simply by ‘new’ members as indicated by Robert above, but all members.
Raising the membership dues with out a SOLID austere plan in place (first) will be a grave oversight.
I know some will drop membership as a protest of the increase in price. Add insult to injury, by not clearly defining the whys and a projected solid fiscal plan, and you could have a massive number of people dropping out. The tiny $15/mo increase will be enough for some, just like @kbraby stated:
.
Lets not forget who the member at DMS are: from fairly intelligent to brilliant group of people; creative and critical thinkers of all degrees. The proposed price increased in the context of the perceived lack of fiscal planning will feel like the proverbial “wool over their eyes…” Members will rebel, drop membership and leave.
Base solely on perception: how can it be possible that now that we have +1,000 members - we have less money, thus need to increase the price?
Base solely on perception: how can it be possible that now that we have
+1,000 members - we have less money, thus need to increase the price?
Good points that I also cautioned. (though not in this level of detail) My take on the WHY the increase in price is because DMS is buying new equipment, hiring employees, adding new classes and capabilities, having to meet regulations for extra safety and because we are a bigger target/more liable to have an incident with more members, etc. and thus VALUE ADDED + EXTRA POTENTIAL LIABILITY.
I’m too busy this weekend to argue with anyone, so take that FWIW.
More members = more diverse wants/needs, more use of tools(increased maintenance/upkeep), and scaling past a certain point drastically increases administrative overhead.
Since our spending is based on membership demand, which changes and fluctuates, I doubt precise long term financial planning is possible.
For the next board agenda I proposed setting up an automatic monthly allocation of $3,000 tto our savings fund.
I included it in list of spending to get a more shocking number, saying we have 12,000 a month to spend sounds like a lot more than 4,000. (Employee plus savings would be 8,000 / month)
An example of why I think costs don’t scale linearly with membership count, and thus even more members means each member needs to pay more. Especially in the current model of all members funds go together into one bucket to support everything we do.
When starting out DMS had to start with basic tools, like saws and 3d printers, but once we had the basics, it’s not like members are satisfied at maintaining what we had, we want the next biggest / larger / more specific tool, such as purchasing a 3d scanner, bigger laser cutter, or more modern mill,or a 5x10 cnc router, etc.
Not only do we want to get bigger and better tools in the areas we are currently in, we want to expand into more areas, so instead of member’s dues just supporting 4 main areas as in the past, now each member is supporting 20+ committees all with different interests and each with capital needs.
I’m going to agree with Walter: a thorough review of spending is in order before a rate raise is considered. If we are hitting a wall on things like the ventilation for plasma, perhaps we should consider doing away with that for the time being. Do more with less and pick our battles, that sort of thing.
What may I ask are these new full time or nearly full time employees going to be doing? I think we should be saving that money for properly ventilating the welding shop so members can actually use the equipment we already have that is useless without it and a waste of space and money otherwise!
I’m one of those inactive members who rarely come by. I believe I have been a member for about 6 months and visited 3 or 4 times. In that time, I paid the $50 a month to maintain a membership, read the postings here and look for a reason to leave my home lab and get involved in something that makes me want to drive 25 miles to visit the Makerspace. Fifty bucks was about my limit and was about all I was willing to spend to be an idle member. At $65, I’m pretty sure I would have left much sooner than this. Also, a new Makerspace is being organized in the Allen/Plano/Richardson area, so the competition for membership is going to get more intense.
