Hello Makers - first of all, I think it’s really important that everyone hear what we heard at the last board meeting, that we need $19,000 just to get our building up to code before we can move in. This is in addition to $7000 in electrical panel upgrades. Here’s what we saw:
Restrooms $2,500
Drinking fountains $2,500
Fire extinguishers $800
Heaters $6,800
Fire rated doors $3,000
Door closers $2,900
Emergency exit lights $500
HazMat cabinets $500
TOTAL $19,500
Can we go out to local business to see about donations? Of course - our fundraising committee wants to know about your connections!
For my part, I am making sure that those members and businesses will know that they’ve left a mark on MakeICT by getting our donor wall signs ready for the new building. I’m almost caught up this week… but I don’t want to be caught up, I want to hear from everyone now how much they plan to donate in the next year to support our forever home.
I don’t care if it’s your donation or your facebook birthday fundraiser - total it up! I don’t care if you donate now or need a year to get the funds together. I just want to know that your name is going on the wall. I will take these signs to the Douglas building in the next week to make sure everybody knows what’s going on.
And I’d like to extend a huge thank you to those who’ve signed up so far!
Members! Please do not go Willy Nilly to various businesses about donations. We do not want to hit the same 3 or 4 times. I experienced that in Derby previously and got fed up with the waste of my time and resources because the various HS groups were un coordinated.
The central coordinating group at Make ICT is the Fundraising Committee.
Also, and more important: Unless you know the exact specifications for what is needed, the wrong item will be furnished. Example: Heaters for 5 of the areas will be very specific due to Fire Code issues. Fire Doors have 3 different ratings.
If you have connections in local businesses, please turn those into Fundraising. BMWG will be happy to provide you with specific specifications, so you and fundraising can coordinate and successfully get this material. Irt actually has a name and is called “Gifts In Kind”.
Fundraising meets this Thursday at the Douglas location at 6 PM. We have talked about creating a “How to raise funds for MakeICT” class so we can get people on the same page and make sure we’re don’t become a nuisance to local businesses. We know we’re all eager to get what we need but please contact fundraising@Makeict.org before you approach a local business that way we can let you know if they’ve already been contacted, if not we can put you as their contact and supply you with any additional information we have.
Oh gosh yes! In fact I will edit my post… because by saying “use your connections” I meant “the fundraising committee wants to work through you and your connections” or something like that… if your twin brother works for an HVAC company tell fundraising@makeict.org and we can help.
I just know when I asked about donations before, some members asked me “why don’t we just get the stuff from companies?” so I was trying to deflect.
Speaking as Kim… my part of the fundraising committee is making this donor wall, and I personally think donations are very important right now, I just gave MakeICT a lot of money. And I really want to make more signs!
Go for it, Girl! You Rock! I knew the Fundraising was enthusiam, and the technical specs is a picky note.
Along with donations of Money, Donation of Time is valuable as well. We need your help as Makers with you skills and talents. No talent is too small or insignificant.
Specifics Now:
Good Weather Daytime: Installing glass and glax]zing to hold the replacement glass in the metal frames. The material is at 5920 and best done on warmer days, instead of cold and windy. Windows were broken before we purchased the building.
Hey makers - I would still love more names for donor wall signs, I hope to have time to work on another batch in the coming week!
I also put some out at the makerspace to get some attention about what’s going on. I put some out front, and some more in the classroom. The ones in the classroom were moved out of the way - which is fine - but anyone know where they were moved to?
