Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the reply. I looked at your website and it looks like your group is doing a lot!
I live in a rural county with no bike shop. People buy parts at walmart or online, or go to bike shops in neighboring counties.
One of us is a former REI bike shop manager. Another was a mechanic at a shop in a neighboring county. Currently I volunteer with The Recyclery in Asheville, NC. Some of us are helping with a local after-school program teaching high school students to repair bikes, through the local RepairCafe organization.
I know of two established bike shops that considered opening stores in the county but ended up not doing so, and am guessing that currently, this would not be profitable for them.
The group working to open a non-profit bike shop has the intention of serving first those most in need, the general population, and mountain bikers & tourists from out of town. Our initial focus will be teaching folks to work on their bikes, and refurbishing donations to go back out in to the community. The local community college wants to partner with us to do continuing education classes.
We are taking the long-view on how to make this organization continue far down the road. Part of this is having key-holding volunteers and paid workers in on management and decision making processes. Over the years I’ve been a part of multiple non-profits, some smaller and similar to your first example, some larger and more like your second. We want to bring together the best of both options, and option-C.(I don’t know what option-C is, but am betting there are multiple possibilities!)
Does this answer your question?
What kind of management and decision making does your group use? Is everybody happy with the way it’s working?
Nicholas, we are just starting and have a group of people with a wide variety of backgrounds & skills, that really want to work together. We are looking at our diverse backgrounds as a strength, and Dynamic Governance as a way to make good use of that.
It turns out a national-level educator for WLSDNP and DG lives near here. I’m a volunteer with the Asheville Tool Library and know her from there. She’s excited about what we’re doing and has offered free teaching to get us going; am pretty sure we will end up paying her some anyway. Our first meeting is Monday.
One person who knows a good bit about all of this said two of the best things we could bring to our community are WLSDNP and Dynamic Governance.
Kevin, thanks for your thoughtful post - much to consider there. We’re working on the non-profit status. A community non-profit has already said they can accept donations on our behalf and disburse to us - they are already doing this with another group working on non-profit status.
Thanks and good health, Weogo