The Dual Approach

We are both a for-profit and a non-profit. We put a lot of thought into this structure, and wanted to explain.

For-Profit

Create Makerspace Workshop Inc.

We want to be fully transparent with you, our community. Create Makerspace is registered in BC as a for-profit corporation. Why did we go down that route? Well, anyone who has worked in the non-profit world knows that there is often lots of red tape and administration. Non-profits are often beholden to their next grant and morph their goals to fit this. We wanted the autonomy to set up the makerspace quickly and efficiently, in our vision.

‘For-profit’ is sometimes equated to greed, and money-grabbing. However, this couldn’t be further from the motivation behind this project. No one starts a makerspace to get rich. Of course we hope that this will provide a decent living for our team, but the real reason we’re doing this is because we love and value arts, culture, and community.

Non-profit

Create Makerspace Society

We believe that arts & culture should be accessible to everyone, regardless of income, background, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, disability, age or anything else. That’s why we started a non-profit: Create Makerspace Society.

It’s no secret, starting a makerspace is expensive, and we are a small, self-funded startup. By having a non-profit vehicle, we can access grant funding and donations to support the kind of valuable community programming that we are so passionate about. These programs often don’t have a ‘business case’, but are incredibly worthwhile. Doing it this way means that rather than waiting until we are a large thriving enterprise, we can put them on now. We believe it’s the right thing to do.