The goal and purpose of the Hacker Dojo has always been to form a community of thinkers, doers, and entrepreneurs. In our first year, members and supporters of our non-profit organization have accomplished a great deal – from helping people find amazing jobs during difficult times through our open-to-all reverse job fair, to offering a home to great events like Random Hacks of Kindness, Android meetups, Machine Learning classes, Twitter meetups, API Hackathons and so many others.

We are lucky to have such an eclectic and wonderful space – but, as many of you know, a majority of the building was unusable for 6 months of the year due to lack of heating and cooling. Several of us were cramming into the small spaces that do have HVAC, but others were leaving or being forced to cancel events or classes because the temperatures inside were just unreasonable.

The fantastic news: we have just finished renovating the space so that people can get their work done, host their classes, and hang out in a place designed to help us get more done. The daunting news: the final cost for this project has settled at approximately $35K.

This cost covers the cooling of 140A, heating and cooling of 140B, insulation on the roof to minimize wasted energy, electrical work required to operate the new equipment, and the long awaited doorway between 140A and 140B! But we need your help.

We are asking you to pitch-in in whatever way is easiest for you – if you’ve visited the Hacker Dojo or just want to support the concept, we gratefully accept individual donations. If you work for a generous company with an interest in giving back to the community, send them this way. Do you tweet 5 times per day? Help by retweeting, reposting, and passing this message along. The amazing community support we have always found in you is so appreciated and valuable – and we are counting on you to spread the word so that other like-minded folks know about the Hacker Dojo and can be a part of this unique, non-profit hacker space!

If you want to volunteer for Hacker Dojo media/sponsorship efforts, please email SWAT@hackerdojo.com. Thank you for helping this community grow.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can the landlord help pay for this?
A: Yes! The landlord is going to help pay for this; the actual amount dependent on how long we lease the building. This is great news. We still want to raise the full 35K, since that would be drawing money out of a general TI fund that could be spent on other improvements (such as ones required by the city).

Q: The system is installed and running now, why are we still fund-raising for it?
A: Because of the very immediate need for us to have more usable space at the dojo, we used a great deal of the general fund up front for this project, and are recovering the costs over a longer term with this fund raiser. The general fund was generally maintained with 3.5 months of runway; we’d like to not decrease this, and ideally increase it.

Q: That is a lot of money, is this financially responsible considering
we don’t own the building?
A: Even if we pay for all of it ourselves and stay here only another year and a half, if the HVAC can get us 25% more members, it will have paid for itself.

Q: My company would like to donate to the Dojo, but in a more formal
manner. Is this possible?
A: If your company would like to make a tangible, permanent improvement to the Dojo in a more publicly recognized manner, please contact finances@hackerdojo.com for a more formal sponsorship.