[Noisebridge-discuss] Fundraising and membership at NB

[Josh Berkus]

So last night someone mentioned that NB was functioning at a deficit,
and that memberships were way down.

I think there's some reasons for that.  The threshold for becoming a
member is very high; it's a months-long qualification process, then
$80/month once you join.  This makes it a lot easier to lose members
than to get them.

What if we added "lay members" for the Church of Noisebridge?  I'd be
happy to cough up $50 a year or so to be a lay member and have a cute
card I could carry around.  It would get a lot of us who irregularly
visit NB and would never be full members ... like me ... paying.  I
wouldn't expect any rights in return for that, and I don't think anyone
else would either.

I think we could also be a LOT more aggressive in passing the hat at
events.  I was looking for a hat to pass at 5MOF in fact, but it ended
before I found one.  Someone at each large event should be in charge of
bringing the hat/can around and rattling it for donations.

Heck, we could even take a $5 donation at events and offer beer as the
premium.  That would net us $$$.

-- 
-- Josh Berkus
   (former professional fundraiser)

P.S. I do intend for the cooking classes to be a fundraiser, but so far
attendance has been too low to cover my cost of ingredients.