On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:22 AM, Mari M. <strawberrypilabs@gmail.com> wrote:
> Some think we should continue as a non-profit, some think that we should try
> to actually turn the Ballroom into a money-making venue to help better serve
> the community. Perhaps a Benefit Corporation could be the bridge between the
> two?

Also, I want to unpack this: "turn the Ballroom into a money-making
venue to help better serve the community". Can you explain what you
mean by this? Who would be better served and how?

It's worth mentioning that the whole point of making money in the
ballroom is to help the Omni Commons survive as a horizontal
collective dedicated to the radical commoning of space and resources,
fighting gentrification, and creating alternatives to capitalism. I
hope we will always be mindful that we're doing it as a last resort,
it will never be the core of our project, everything will always to be
sliding scale down to zero, the community will still be able to block
events which conflict with our values and delegates can override
anything that a production collective does. And if someday we are able
to own the building and lower our expenses enough, we will return to
doing what we've wanted to do all along - offer everything for free to
the people who need it most.

This will bring changes if we are not careful. When people are making
money, they have an incentive to manipulate our processes in order to
keep making money, and new people are incentivized to join who care
more about money than about the project's values. All of our processes
are designed with the assumption of good faith, and vulnerable to
rules-lawyering unless we have a healthy, vigilant culture.

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