We just went through a lot of these questions ourself while founding Baltimore Node (http://www.baltimorenode.org) which is now a small hackerspace in Baltimore.
From what I am hearing from you I think what you want to do is three fold: (1) have a workshop for people to work in, (2) have a coworking facility (office space) and (3) to have a hackerspace.
The first one requires space and expensive tools.
The second requires a comfortable office space to work in.
The third requires a solid community that perceives the value of sharing ideas and having a place exclusively for workshops.
I'm not going to say that serving all three goals is not possible but as we explored them we found that without a donation of space and/or serious capital investment the first two would be somewhat difficult.
We opted to go with the third option and stick to it (some tools in the space though) and we are now profitable with 19 members at a $50 a month membership fee. I think the real benefit to a hackerspace is being part of a community that is about encouragment, sharing and doing.
It's been a blast so far and I am really glad to be part of this crew, I strongly recommend if anything that you try to establish a simple non-profit hackerspace to encourage general hackery.
Thanks for responding. It's great to hear from someone who has some first hand experience with this process. It looks like you are running a cool organization over there.
Hackerspaces.org has been a helpful resource for me as I was researching this over the last week. I encourage anyone else who is interested in it to check out some of their awesome projects to see what is possible.
My goal would be to have a serious capital injection to start this off. I don't know where it is going to come from, but I am seriously looking into government grants. I don't know what kind of strings will come attached yet, and it sickens my inner objectivist, but it seems like a great match for this kind of organization. BC happens to have a whole range of accessible grants, from the arts to small business to tech. Maybe it will be too much hassle, but it solves the problem of seed capital.
From what I am hearing from you I think what you want to do is three fold: (1) have a workshop for people to work in, (2) have a coworking facility (office space) and (3) to have a hackerspace.
The first one requires space and expensive tools.
The second requires a comfortable office space to work in.
The third requires a solid community that perceives the value of sharing ideas and having a place exclusively for workshops.
I'm not going to say that serving all three goals is not possible but as we explored them we found that without a donation of space and/or serious capital investment the first two would be somewhat difficult.
We opted to go with the third option and stick to it (some tools in the space though) and we are now profitable with 19 members at a $50 a month membership fee. I think the real benefit to a hackerspace is being part of a community that is about encouragment, sharing and doing.
It's been a blast so far and I am really glad to be part of this crew, I strongly recommend if anything that you try to establish a simple non-profit hackerspace to encourage general hackery.
Also, not sure why this hasn't come up yet, http://hackerspaces.org