What donors are being approached?

Quick question - What type of donors are we going after as an organization and what are the terms? Is it individuals, organizations and is anything promised for advertisement space or anything else?
@dr_cee @Kriskat30 @Photomancer @LukeStrickland @Diplomat @talkers
@Team_PR

Edited to include who might know

4 Likes

I do not know of any potential donors, or anyone looking for donors.

1 Like

" As donation letters are about to go out to ask for money to support DMS in its mission to share the education of creating and joy in making and to help flesh out our expansion, I made the decision as President of Dallas Makerspace to move to a more private venue. "
from Kris

8 Likes

Is the BoD doing this or PR? I know when I was on the BoD, we had discussions about being careful as grants usually have strings attached.

3 Likes

I honestly don’t know and I’m hoping it can be expanded on.

You do realize that part of this process is to not talk about who has been approached right? Not only eould talking about it be unprofessional but would very likely cause ang negotiations to fail.

You dont talk about how the sausage is made. Only how good it tastes…

1 Like

You and I have very different viewpoints haha.

Not only should you talk about how the sausage is made, you should film a documentary about it, create a talk post on it, and teach a class on it! Who doesn’t want to make their own sausage!

15 Likes

Lol if we are talking about food then sure. I can teach ya :wink:

Talking sausage is one of my favorite things to do…(come on man, that’s funny and you know it)

Do you fear that the potential donors are able to see inside talk right now? Because it’s not public, I wouldn’t worry about it and I think as an organization it would be good to talk about.

Here’s my context - when I was CA chair many moon ago we talked about going to different manufactures to see if we could get sponsorship in return for some signage…but we overturned it, because we didn’t want to obligate ourselves to any “strings”. I believe one of my worries for an organization would be the “the strings.”

Personal story time- so I’m a high school teacher who reaches out ALL THE TIME for donations - seriously I’m really good at it. One of the wacky fun things we do is give out hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of bananas at a parade (this year we need to have 500+lbs) . For this, I solicit donations from the community and also businesses - two years ago I was in a problem banana spot with two donors Kroger and Winco - Kroger had to dramatically pull out because they heard Winco was going to be our main donor for the year. They wanted exclusive banana naming rights to our project. It was banana drama like you’ve never seen before. So yes, I understand that we don’t need philanthropy based chess games - I’m just wondering what/who the pieces are.
I’ve also had experience with grants (simple ones - National Endowment of the Humanities and an organization called LEF, and Target when they used to do grants) the grants I’ve applied for are small but are difficult to report back to sometimes, but not always, so I just wonder about the back end.

PS would you like to join the #bananamafia? It only takes one dollar to sponsor some banana based fun. ALLLTHEEEETIME I’m reaching out.

4 Likes

The way I see it, if you’re soliciting donations as a group you do not want to double your efforts and make it look like your organization is disorganized if you have more than one point of contact sending out similar but different e-mails completely unaware of what the other is doing.

1 Like

Lol…They are going after all of them (donors)…

This is specifically why the BoD is the only one authorizing people to talk to donors or anyone on behalf of the space…

Funny, I thought that was because we didn’t want to piss off the ATF… :sweat_smile:

I would think that the PR committee would be authorized to do this kind of thing. Maybe I’m wrong?

1 Like

The only rule written about contacting others as a representative of DMS is:

Only persons or members that have been formally authorized to act as an agent or representative for the Dallas Makerspace, are permitted to represent DMS in any and all conversations, writing, or other communication with any public official. Failure to secure permission may result in the forfeiture of membership.

ALL of them teeheee

Fair enough. I can see I interpreted it incorrectly. IMO i still believe that there should be a process and tracking for any potential donation seeking. Yes, I understand that this is not always practical and sometimes things fall into our lap. I am specifically stating that I believe for anyone contacting an entity with the express purpose of donation and such, should have some BoD oversight.

I don’t believe the actual interactions need to be held secret with the way it’s written…just the actual interactions must be done by the DMS coronated (special fancy ceremony where they symbolically dump some motor oil on your hands and blow sawdust in your eyes…every fancy)

3 Likes

I completely agree that all donor solicitation should be run past the BoD.

3 Likes

I think it should be up to the particular committee chair and run past the BoD.

2 Likes

Bump. Can we get some info on this? The only board member who responded said he has no knowledge of soliciting donations, yet it keeps getting mentioned by someone not on the board.

4 Likes