Richard here from Vélogik in Montreal. For the last 5 years we've been running our overhead heavy shop through large government employability program grants. We had an opportunity that we've been working on for the last two years that is becoming reality this spring. Essentially, we're going to run a regular bicycle shop with all the regular pay services and products (except no new bikes) to generate a profit and some stability and run community programs and socioprofessional insertion programs from the same shop. As a non-for-profit (charity status to come later) all our proceeds will be put back into the organisation. We have major expenses (3 salaries and growing, commercial rent for a 1700 sqft space) so we have to come up with ways of paying these and at the same time offer the services that the community desperately needs.

Our model and inspiration has definitely been Recycle-a-bicycle of New York who run two regular bicycle shops (staffed mainly by youths who've been through their programs) in order to generate funds with which to operate their several communty shops and programs. We're hoping that to run everything form the same space is going to work. It's definitely going to get messy at times to try to seperate activities from an administrative point of view and from a practical shop floor point of view as well. I'll let you know how it's working out in the fall - or if anyone is in Montréal...

Have we sold out? Well, sales will be an important part of our finances and we are going to charge regular bike shop prices for stuff and services. But we still will barter and exchange and work in non-traditional ways as much as possible. We want to be able to offer accessible bikes for people to buy or to earn, and we want them to be able to pay for our services or to trade for them. We aim to make a lot of links in the community and to deepen those links through volunteers and through other community organizations. The possibilities are there partially because there is such a vaccum of anyone doing anything that combines the commercial and the community approaches. From a socio-professional insertion standpoint (if such programs exist in your part of the world) the potential is enormous as you can have people doing all sorts of different types of work that is useful in a very measurable and concrete way to their own community. Pride and confidence is developed. It works.

2009/1/30, 1304bikes <1304bikes@gmail.com>:

Hi Alex, we here at 1304bikes also operate a completely volunteer earn-a-bike program. We are also completely run by volunteers, no paid staff. It is part of our goal to sell next to nothing. The only thing we charge money for currently is brand new cables (at $1 a peice), but we have so many good used cables, that we rarely even sell those. We like the fact that everyone can have equal and free access to our shop, parts and tools, and that everyone has to work to earn their bike. It is very important to us that folks with the privelage of having money can not buy their way out of working/volunteering for a bike.   We are able to keep our money exchange to a bare minimum becuase we reside in a space where our rent is only $50 a month. It is not the most ideal space, but its cheap. We have about 400sqft of indoor shop and mostly storage, our bikes our stored outside in a temporary shelter, and most work activity happens outdoors.

So where do we get money from? Most of it comes from people giving us a few dollars here and there. We have also found that reminding folks about our donation jar during the clean up announcement usually nets us anywhere from $5-20 each time we're open. We try not to sell any bikes unless it is absolutely neccessary to make rent (and we haven't sold a bike in almost a year!). We have also decided at a recent meeting to potentially start selling nice parts. If nice parts end up with all the rest, they usually just get taken by the cherry pickers who can afford to pay for them anyway.

We would eventually like to move into a much bigger space because we are outgrowing our current one extremely fast, but this will most likely mean higher rent.  We will then find ourselves in the same position you are in, of trying to find a way to make money for rent, etc. while still maintaining our ideals of an accessible and largely anti-capitalist shop.

Keep us updated on how things go, as this is an issue i think many of us are interested in and struggle with.



for 1304bikes,

-Doug

--
1304bikes
2419 Mayview Rd.
Raleigh, NC
1304bikes.org

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