5:26 PM
Future Scenarios for Free Space
5:26 PMThe project I’m now working on is Free Space, a non-profit organization offering space and resources to community for free. At fir...
The project I’m now working on is
Free Space, a non-profit organization offering space and resources to community
for free. At first, our goal is helping Free Space going on, since they are already
closed in last month because of the lack of money. After several interview and
data analysis, we realized we need to re-define the meaning of Free Space’s sustainability.
What they want and what we think is more possible for them is to build a model
of their “free sharing” spirit which can be applied for different communities,
countries all over the world, since their ambition is being a burn-up (the way
they call themselves and their temporary project) to spread Free Space to all
the corner of the world.
Most NGO called themselves model don’t call their model as
business model. Because many people starting NGOs think that NGOs are not
businesses, and therefore they don’t have to be run like a business. But every organization
has the same basic challenge: in order to do things, it needs resources. Those
resources can take different forms. In NGOs, they are commonly: volunteer time;
in-kind contributions; cash contributions. The organization has to be designed
so as to be able to raise substantial resources as inputs, process them
efficiently, and deliver them as outcomes to a target set of beneficiaries.
This process can be collaborative. It can be
stakeholder-driven. But resources still have to flow. The NGO operation is very
similar with the commercial company. The very important difference here is that
the customer (now called the beneficiary) is now no longer the payer (now
called the donor). In short, whereas private sector enterprises look like a
loop, whose outcomes go back to its inputs, NGOs look like a chain, whose
outcomes stay with the customers.
So in order to
distinguish the normal commercial enterprise and Free Space, we called what the
model Free Space need is sustainable plan, and it summarized to be a tool-kit
to help other people to run their own space.
This tool-kit
includes “about the space”- how to find a empty building and convince the
landlord to help you build Free Space, “about the donation” – the principles of
getting donation and how to get them, “about the event” – how to organize
community to host some funny events to develop the goal of your space and “about
the summery” – doing the summery after each phrase and how to use your results
to help your space get donation or adjust plan.
Free Space is not a
business or a community building. It’s an idea. But it doesn’t mean there is no
limitation and requirement for this idea. Being a survivable NGO means there
will be an inside skeleton to support them. And this skeleton is what we are
working for.