Hi! Want to help me develop a fundraising campaign?
(In case you missed it, I took a new position helping lead Open Coworking, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing the coworking movement worldwide. Details: https://goo.gl/9iaXmv)
Background: I’m looking for the best possible way to rally support for Open Coworking, so it can become an organization that would be able to hire people to do work on behalf of the movement. Coworking brings tremendous positive impact to the people who find it, and it’s grown a lot, but there’s so much more to be done.
The biggest challenge I see right now is that the parameters around the project are really vague. When I was building New Work City, there was a very clear need: we had to raise a specific amount of money by a specific time to be able to lease and build out a space.
In the case of Open Coworking, it’s much more open-ended. The movement is here; in many ways it’s doing great on its own. Surely many things could be better, but why should someone pony up to support an effort to make it better now?
Perhaps we can address this by creating a goal ourselves that has specific parameters, needs, and deadlines of its own. If we roll those functional-but-not-so-sexy things into something more ambitious or at least more interesting, we could get somewhere.
Like:
- “Get 1,000 new coworking communities added to a map by January 1, 2016.”
- “Get 500 new spaces on the Coworking Visa by March 1, 2016.”
- “Help 1,000 people who are just getting started working for themselves find the help they need in a local coworking community by June 1, 2016.” (We’d have to flesh this one out, but I really like where this is heading.)
- “Get 10,000 members of coworking spaces to participate in a survey that will offer unique and invaluable insight into the new workforce by the end of 2016.”
- “Get coworking to be publicly recognized by the White House as a movement that supports local businesses, job creation, and general economic development by the end of 2016.”
Something along those lines? Generally, we have some potential outcomes we want to work with:
- More people coworking
- More coworking communities
- BETTER coworking communities
- Better connections between coworking communities, their members, and local institutions and governments.
Which ideas do you like most? Least? Have any other suggestions?
Thanks!
