Help Biketopia Community Workshop get a new space!
Donation protected
To our beloved friends and supporters,
Biketopia Community Workshop is at a crossroads and we need your help to get a new space.
Have you used our shop or gotten your new ride from us? Biketopia Community Workshop is an all-volunteer mission-driven organization that has been serving the East Bay community for eight years by educating the community on how to repair bikes and selling refurbished bicycles. For many years the workshop and sales aspects of Biketopia have run is different locations, and are now losing our sales space. The sales from these bicycles are essential to supporting to our workshop operations. We are viewing this setback as an opportunity. Our goal is to obtain a single space that will accommodate Biketopia’s needs and allow us to expand our offerings to the community. We need to raise $30,000 to take this next step. Will you help us?
Our community has lost many bicycle resources over the past two years and we want to reverse this trend. We want Biketopia’s story to be one of hope and growth in serving the diverse needs of our community and to continue spreading the joy, practicality, and sustainability of cycling. YOU can help make this a reality.
Please know that while the primary driver of our current campaign is the physical space to maintain and provide community resources, we are also very close to obtaining our formal nonprofit (501c3) status. Biketopia Community Workshop’s vision is to create community-centered and community-led programming to tackle transportation justice, climate justice, and the equitable distribution of resources. We see this moment in time as a convergence of everything we’ve been working towards. The universe giving us the push we need to move forward.
As always, we are deeply grateful for and humbled by your continued support, patronage, and care. Thank you so much for your generosity.
In community,
Biketopia Community Workshop Volunteers
=============================================================
HOW TO HELP
Since 2011, Biketopia Community Workshop has been a completely volunteer-run organization and effort. We are calling for additional volunteer-based support in the following ways:
Donate to our GoFundMe: Whatever you can contribute will go towards costs of moving, storage, and space acquisition. All funds donated to Biketopia Community Workshop gets put back into our space and our community. Keep reading for more details.Please note, Biketopia is in the process of obtaining our 501c3 status and is not currently a federally recognized charitable organization. If we are able to obtain 501c3 status before the end of 2020, we will provide tax deduction forms for all donations.
Share our Story: We welcome you to share our story and campaign with your friends, family, and community. We will be posted on Facebook and Instagram and sharing our campaign via email. Please forward/reshare our campaign. We welcome media outlets to feature our effort and support our cause. Please contact [email redacted] for more information.
Share our story through your social media channels:
Biketopia Community Workshop launches fundraiser to secure new space and expand operations. Here's how you can help. http://bit.ly/2TyLNx7
Volunteer-run bike workshop launches fundraiser to buy out bike shop and expand operations. Here's how to donate. http://bit.ly/2TyLNx7
In-Kind Services: We are looking for anyone who may be able to help with our various transitions. Specifically, we welcome support from folks who can provide:
- Legal services (501c3 incorporation, organizational growth/infrastructure)
-Moving/storage/construction (of new space) support
-Fundraising (for current campaign and future endeavors)
Organizations consulting (to help us structure future operations as we scale up)
Bike building
Contact us at [email redacted] if you are able to provide in-kind support.
Host a Fundraiser: In the past year, we’ve worked with a few breweries to host fundraisers for Biketopia. This has been a way for us to convening our community to have some fun, patronize local businesses, and raise some funds for Biketopia. We welcome these types of fundraisers as a way to help us raise funds for and create awareness of the next phase of Biketopia. Please contact [email redacted] if you would like to host a fundraiser for our campaign.
=============================================================
WHERE WILL THE MONEY GO?
Our goal is to raise $30,000. This is what we estimate we will need to support moving to a new space, loss in revenues as we transition, expanded operations requiring a part-time paid staff member, rebuilding emergency funds, and new programming. We will use all funds responsibly and transparently to support start-up costs, and have mapped out a strategy to be self-sustaining after we have been set up. Several of our volunteers are contributing their own personal funds (in addition to time and labor) to this endeavor. We still need more help, though, and that’s where you come in! Details on use of funding is given below.
Getting a New Space
For years, we have been operating from two separate spaces: the Biketopia Community Workshop where we teach and help members and patrons, and the Biketopia Annex where we sell affordable refurbished bicycles that have been lovingly restored by our volunteers. We are losing the Annex space and have an immediate need to find a way to continue rebuilding, storing and selling bicycles.We have decided to move all of Biketopia’s operations to a single centralized space, instead of just finding a new space to replace the Annex. Splitting our operations across two locations has been a strain on our volunteers and was proving to be unsustainable. Now we have an opportunity to take the next step.The good news is that we’ve located the perfect new space! It is in a great location that is accessible to the community we serve, gets lots of foot traffic, appropriate in size and open to configuration, has reasonable rent, and available in the appropriate time frame. We’ve scoured all available options in the area and are confident this is the right space for Biketopia 2.0. Moving to this space will require us to buy out the existing tenant, and we are currently in negotiations to do so. We are looking to acquire a space from an existing bicycle shop, so in addition to taking over their lease, we will also be getting tools, bicycle stands, furniture to store bikes, etc. This is all equipment we will need to scale up operations regardless. We will be spending up to $20k to support getting a new space and the associated infrastructure.
Transition Costs
While volunteers will do all the moving itself, we can expect a loss in revenue as we get set up in the new space. We will also need to keep our existing workshop space open for the first couple months we are operating at the new space to give us time to communicate changes to the community and ensure a smooth transition.
We are expecting transition costs to add up to $8k.
Expanded Operations
Moving to a single new space will free us from several limitations we currently have, and allow us to serve the community much better. Specifically:
Our existing workshop is too small for us to serve more than 3 patrons or so at once, and the new space will greatly expand that capacity.
We are currently only able to sell our used bicycles on Saturdays because we don’t have enough volunteers to support two separate spaces at the same time. Being in one space will allow us to sell bicycles during all open hours.
We don’t currently have space to refurbish more than one bicycle at a time, and the new space will increase our capacity to do this substantially.
In order to support all of these expanded capabilities, we will need more staff capacity to rebuild more bikes and support more patrons. While we plan to recruit more volunteers, we believe it is wise now to also add a half-time paid staff member. This is the first time Biketopia will ever have paid staff, but it is time!
This shift will ensure consistent and reliable operations, and allow us to have expanded hours of operation to the public. We are hoping to be open from 12-8pm M-F and 12-6pm Saturday in the new space, instead of current operating hours of 4-8pm M-F and 1-5pm on Saturday.
We are committed to paying a living wage if we have paid staff, and to that end intend to pay $18 per hour. We have done the necessary financial planning, and expect that we can support this level of staff at 20 hours per week and remain financially self-sustaining. However, in the first month or two, as we are still getting set up, we should expect to operate at a bit of a deficit.
To that end, we are expecting up to $3k in one-time costs associated with these expanded operations.
Rebuilding Our Reserves
Any responsible organization needs to have a reserve fund that serves three primary purposes:
- To be prepared for unexpected events that cannot be foreseen
- To build up savings to support future growth initiatives (moving to a new space is an example of this)
- To pay for expenses during predictably slow seasons
- We know from experience that Biketopia will be able to bring in more revenue in August, for example, than it does in February (both because of the weather and the rush of new students). But we still have to pay rent and other expenses in those slow months. As we move to a new space and those expenses go up, this becomes even more important.
Our goal is to have at least 3 months of expenses in reserves as we begin Biketopia 2.0, which is approximately $16k.
New Programming
Once we have settled into the new space, we will have the ability to host many more workshops and other programs to support the community. We have previously been limited in our ability to do this by physical and operational constraints that will no longer be there as a part of this transition. Any money left over from our fundraising that goes beyond what we need to responsibly keep in reserve will allow us to engage in new programs for underserved community members.
=============================================================
WHAT ELSE WE’RE DOING TO SUPPORT GROWTH
In addition to all of the things described above—getting a new space, expanding operations, etc.—we are moving forward on a couple important initiatives to support our vision of Biketopia 2.0.
501c3 Non-profit status. We have been working hard to obtain our own 501c3 status. We appreciate our previous fiscal sponsors for helping us provide tax deductible donations, and we are ready to do more. Becoming an incorporated 501c3 provides us the flexibility and freedom to explore programming in ways we have not been able to in the past. It also allows Biketopia to grow and expand. Biketopia has been a small 10-20 person, committed, volunteer-led crew for almost a decade. This size has been adequate to support our current operations, but leaves little resources for programming to meet our broader vision. We see ourselves as an organization committed to transportation justice, climate justice, and advocating for more equitable distribution of resources. Our programming will be community-centered and community-led.In the past year, our womxn/trans-identified volunteers have hosted womxn/trans workshops and open shop hours on the weekends. Biketopia has also hosted youth internships in collaboration with local youth programs. While these are not unique offerings, we are seeing increasingly less opportunities for these spaces as cycling resources diminish in our community. We are ready to step in and fill that gap and beyond.
Building organizational knowledge and sustainability. Things are changing fast for Biketopia! Everything we’ve described here is incredibly exciting for our team, and fully in line with Biketopia’s founding vision. As we grow, we are also setting up more formalized infrastructure for decision-making to ensure transparency, effective use of funds, and clear planning for the future.
=============================================================
ABOUT BIKETOPIA COMMUNITY WORKSHOP
We are a community-led, all volunteer-run community bicycle workshop based in Berkeley, CA. Biketopia Community Workshop’s mission is to strive to provide an inclusive, nonjudgmental community space for the East Bay that empowers all people to learn about, maintain, and ride bicycles in order to create sustainable and healthy communities.
We value:
- People over profit
- Self-reliance
- Trust
- Restore-recycle-reuse
- Curiosity, learning, exploration
- Sharing
- Community service
- Intersectionality
- Safe/brave space
- Fun
Biketopia’s value to the community:
- We first and foremost foster a space that facilitates people’s right to maintain and be informed about bicycle transportation and enable members to advocate for what they need.
- We keep cycling affordable.
- We foster a community space where people from different cross-sections of life can connect around cycling. We forge lasting friendships and relationships between our volunteers and with our community.
- We take cars off the road and promote restoration, recycling, and reuse through building self-reliance and contribute to the effort to address ever increasing transportation challenges in the bay area.
- We support our community members experiencing homelessness and economic hardships by providing sliding-scale services to address their transportation needs.
- We host womxn/trans workshops to hold a space for community members to learn about their bicycles in a disproportionately cis-male dominated field.
Biketopia Community Workshop is at a crossroads and we need your help to get a new space.
Have you used our shop or gotten your new ride from us? Biketopia Community Workshop is an all-volunteer mission-driven organization that has been serving the East Bay community for eight years by educating the community on how to repair bikes and selling refurbished bicycles. For many years the workshop and sales aspects of Biketopia have run is different locations, and are now losing our sales space. The sales from these bicycles are essential to supporting to our workshop operations. We are viewing this setback as an opportunity. Our goal is to obtain a single space that will accommodate Biketopia’s needs and allow us to expand our offerings to the community. We need to raise $30,000 to take this next step. Will you help us?
Our community has lost many bicycle resources over the past two years and we want to reverse this trend. We want Biketopia’s story to be one of hope and growth in serving the diverse needs of our community and to continue spreading the joy, practicality, and sustainability of cycling. YOU can help make this a reality.
Please know that while the primary driver of our current campaign is the physical space to maintain and provide community resources, we are also very close to obtaining our formal nonprofit (501c3) status. Biketopia Community Workshop’s vision is to create community-centered and community-led programming to tackle transportation justice, climate justice, and the equitable distribution of resources. We see this moment in time as a convergence of everything we’ve been working towards. The universe giving us the push we need to move forward.
As always, we are deeply grateful for and humbled by your continued support, patronage, and care. Thank you so much for your generosity.
In community,
Biketopia Community Workshop Volunteers
=============================================================
HOW TO HELP
Since 2011, Biketopia Community Workshop has been a completely volunteer-run organization and effort. We are calling for additional volunteer-based support in the following ways:
Donate to our GoFundMe: Whatever you can contribute will go towards costs of moving, storage, and space acquisition. All funds donated to Biketopia Community Workshop gets put back into our space and our community. Keep reading for more details.Please note, Biketopia is in the process of obtaining our 501c3 status and is not currently a federally recognized charitable organization. If we are able to obtain 501c3 status before the end of 2020, we will provide tax deduction forms for all donations.
Share our Story: We welcome you to share our story and campaign with your friends, family, and community. We will be posted on Facebook and Instagram and sharing our campaign via email. Please forward/reshare our campaign. We welcome media outlets to feature our effort and support our cause. Please contact [email redacted] for more information.
Share our story through your social media channels:
Biketopia Community Workshop launches fundraiser to secure new space and expand operations. Here's how you can help. http://bit.ly/2TyLNx7
Volunteer-run bike workshop launches fundraiser to buy out bike shop and expand operations. Here's how to donate. http://bit.ly/2TyLNx7
In-Kind Services: We are looking for anyone who may be able to help with our various transitions. Specifically, we welcome support from folks who can provide:
- Legal services (501c3 incorporation, organizational growth/infrastructure)
-Moving/storage/construction (of new space) support
-Fundraising (for current campaign and future endeavors)
Organizations consulting (to help us structure future operations as we scale up)
Bike building
Contact us at [email redacted] if you are able to provide in-kind support.
Host a Fundraiser: In the past year, we’ve worked with a few breweries to host fundraisers for Biketopia. This has been a way for us to convening our community to have some fun, patronize local businesses, and raise some funds for Biketopia. We welcome these types of fundraisers as a way to help us raise funds for and create awareness of the next phase of Biketopia. Please contact [email redacted] if you would like to host a fundraiser for our campaign.
=============================================================
WHERE WILL THE MONEY GO?
Our goal is to raise $30,000. This is what we estimate we will need to support moving to a new space, loss in revenues as we transition, expanded operations requiring a part-time paid staff member, rebuilding emergency funds, and new programming. We will use all funds responsibly and transparently to support start-up costs, and have mapped out a strategy to be self-sustaining after we have been set up. Several of our volunteers are contributing their own personal funds (in addition to time and labor) to this endeavor. We still need more help, though, and that’s where you come in! Details on use of funding is given below.
Getting a New Space
For years, we have been operating from two separate spaces: the Biketopia Community Workshop where we teach and help members and patrons, and the Biketopia Annex where we sell affordable refurbished bicycles that have been lovingly restored by our volunteers. We are losing the Annex space and have an immediate need to find a way to continue rebuilding, storing and selling bicycles.We have decided to move all of Biketopia’s operations to a single centralized space, instead of just finding a new space to replace the Annex. Splitting our operations across two locations has been a strain on our volunteers and was proving to be unsustainable. Now we have an opportunity to take the next step.The good news is that we’ve located the perfect new space! It is in a great location that is accessible to the community we serve, gets lots of foot traffic, appropriate in size and open to configuration, has reasonable rent, and available in the appropriate time frame. We’ve scoured all available options in the area and are confident this is the right space for Biketopia 2.0. Moving to this space will require us to buy out the existing tenant, and we are currently in negotiations to do so. We are looking to acquire a space from an existing bicycle shop, so in addition to taking over their lease, we will also be getting tools, bicycle stands, furniture to store bikes, etc. This is all equipment we will need to scale up operations regardless. We will be spending up to $20k to support getting a new space and the associated infrastructure.
Transition Costs
While volunteers will do all the moving itself, we can expect a loss in revenue as we get set up in the new space. We will also need to keep our existing workshop space open for the first couple months we are operating at the new space to give us time to communicate changes to the community and ensure a smooth transition.
We are expecting transition costs to add up to $8k.
Expanded Operations
Moving to a single new space will free us from several limitations we currently have, and allow us to serve the community much better. Specifically:
Our existing workshop is too small for us to serve more than 3 patrons or so at once, and the new space will greatly expand that capacity.
We are currently only able to sell our used bicycles on Saturdays because we don’t have enough volunteers to support two separate spaces at the same time. Being in one space will allow us to sell bicycles during all open hours.
We don’t currently have space to refurbish more than one bicycle at a time, and the new space will increase our capacity to do this substantially.
In order to support all of these expanded capabilities, we will need more staff capacity to rebuild more bikes and support more patrons. While we plan to recruit more volunteers, we believe it is wise now to also add a half-time paid staff member. This is the first time Biketopia will ever have paid staff, but it is time!
This shift will ensure consistent and reliable operations, and allow us to have expanded hours of operation to the public. We are hoping to be open from 12-8pm M-F and 12-6pm Saturday in the new space, instead of current operating hours of 4-8pm M-F and 1-5pm on Saturday.
We are committed to paying a living wage if we have paid staff, and to that end intend to pay $18 per hour. We have done the necessary financial planning, and expect that we can support this level of staff at 20 hours per week and remain financially self-sustaining. However, in the first month or two, as we are still getting set up, we should expect to operate at a bit of a deficit.
To that end, we are expecting up to $3k in one-time costs associated with these expanded operations.
Rebuilding Our Reserves
Any responsible organization needs to have a reserve fund that serves three primary purposes:
- To be prepared for unexpected events that cannot be foreseen
- To build up savings to support future growth initiatives (moving to a new space is an example of this)
- To pay for expenses during predictably slow seasons
- We know from experience that Biketopia will be able to bring in more revenue in August, for example, than it does in February (both because of the weather and the rush of new students). But we still have to pay rent and other expenses in those slow months. As we move to a new space and those expenses go up, this becomes even more important.
Our goal is to have at least 3 months of expenses in reserves as we begin Biketopia 2.0, which is approximately $16k.
New Programming
Once we have settled into the new space, we will have the ability to host many more workshops and other programs to support the community. We have previously been limited in our ability to do this by physical and operational constraints that will no longer be there as a part of this transition. Any money left over from our fundraising that goes beyond what we need to responsibly keep in reserve will allow us to engage in new programs for underserved community members.
=============================================================
WHAT ELSE WE’RE DOING TO SUPPORT GROWTH
In addition to all of the things described above—getting a new space, expanding operations, etc.—we are moving forward on a couple important initiatives to support our vision of Biketopia 2.0.
501c3 Non-profit status. We have been working hard to obtain our own 501c3 status. We appreciate our previous fiscal sponsors for helping us provide tax deductible donations, and we are ready to do more. Becoming an incorporated 501c3 provides us the flexibility and freedom to explore programming in ways we have not been able to in the past. It also allows Biketopia to grow and expand. Biketopia has been a small 10-20 person, committed, volunteer-led crew for almost a decade. This size has been adequate to support our current operations, but leaves little resources for programming to meet our broader vision. We see ourselves as an organization committed to transportation justice, climate justice, and advocating for more equitable distribution of resources. Our programming will be community-centered and community-led.In the past year, our womxn/trans-identified volunteers have hosted womxn/trans workshops and open shop hours on the weekends. Biketopia has also hosted youth internships in collaboration with local youth programs. While these are not unique offerings, we are seeing increasingly less opportunities for these spaces as cycling resources diminish in our community. We are ready to step in and fill that gap and beyond.
Building organizational knowledge and sustainability. Things are changing fast for Biketopia! Everything we’ve described here is incredibly exciting for our team, and fully in line with Biketopia’s founding vision. As we grow, we are also setting up more formalized infrastructure for decision-making to ensure transparency, effective use of funds, and clear planning for the future.
=============================================================
ABOUT BIKETOPIA COMMUNITY WORKSHOP
We are a community-led, all volunteer-run community bicycle workshop based in Berkeley, CA. Biketopia Community Workshop’s mission is to strive to provide an inclusive, nonjudgmental community space for the East Bay that empowers all people to learn about, maintain, and ride bicycles in order to create sustainable and healthy communities.
We value:
- People over profit
- Self-reliance
- Trust
- Restore-recycle-reuse
- Curiosity, learning, exploration
- Sharing
- Community service
- Intersectionality
- Safe/brave space
- Fun
Biketopia’s value to the community:
- We first and foremost foster a space that facilitates people’s right to maintain and be informed about bicycle transportation and enable members to advocate for what they need.
- We keep cycling affordable.
- We foster a community space where people from different cross-sections of life can connect around cycling. We forge lasting friendships and relationships between our volunteers and with our community.
- We take cars off the road and promote restoration, recycling, and reuse through building self-reliance and contribute to the effort to address ever increasing transportation challenges in the bay area.
- We support our community members experiencing homelessness and economic hardships by providing sliding-scale services to address their transportation needs.
- We host womxn/trans workshops to hold a space for community members to learn about their bicycles in a disproportionately cis-male dominated field.
Organiser
Biketopia Community Workshop
Organiser
Berkeley, CA