Will be approaching people to sponsor Crash Space very shortly, here's the letter I've put together so far. Would love any thoughts of feedback on it before it gets sent out:

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Subject:  Sponsorship for Crash Space, a Los Angeles Hackerspace

Dear [Name],

Hi. How are you doing today? We will assume your reply to that question is "Great" to which we'll quickly respond "Fantastic." Now onto business...

We are writing to ask you (or your organization) for financial assistance and sponsorship to help us build a hackerspace in Los Angeles. This is where we assume you are wondering what a hackerspace is - according to wikipedia:

"A hackerspace or hackspace (from Hacker and Space, sometimes referred to as a makerspace) is a real (as opposed to virtual) place where people with common interests, usually in science, technology, or digital or electronic art can meet, socialise and collaborate. A hackerspace can be viewed as an open community lab, workbench, machine shop, workshop and/or studio where people of diverse backgrounds can come together to share resources and knowledge to build/make things."

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace

That is a rather stuffy explanation but it does the job. For those of us who have visited some of the existing hackerspaces that have been popping up in cities all over the world we can tell you it's much more than this description. It's also about the community that develops, and actually enables the space to thrive, than it is the space itself. You can read more about this growing global trend at http://hackerspaces.org/ and the November 12th article 'Tinkering Makes A Comeback Amid Crisis' in the Wall Street Journal. ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125798004542744219.html ) A hackerspace is not about hacking in the Hollywood sense of the word, that is, we're not breaking in to NORAD or getting Bruce Willis upset at us. We break things, not laws. In fact, we intend to break things and make them better.

Now that that is out of the way, on to Crash Space specifically. There are hackerspaces in major cities all over the world - New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Tokyo, London, Vienna, etc. but as of yet, Los Angeles remains unrepresented. As proud members of the Los Angeles tech community we felt this couldn't continue and have set out to create a space here that's on par with the most notable hackerspaces around the world.

Our group currently consists of close to 20 people who meet regularly in person and over 60 active participants on the fledgling mailing list. And this is without actually having a location yet. We expect those numbers to double the moment we open our doors to the public.

Once the space is up and running we expect membership dues, and fees from the classes we will be offering to more than cover our costs, but our biggest hurdle at the moment is getting off the ground. Securing a lease on our space (currently we're in negotiations to rent a 1400sf stand-alone building in Culver City) and building out the initial infrastructure is our main priority and the thing we are looking for help with.

When I helped bring BarCamp to Los Angeles in early 2006, I asked potential sponsors to trust that the community would show up and this new kind of unstructured conference would be a success. Since then, there have been 7 BarCamp events (occurring almost every 6 months) with several thousand attendees. While BarCamp has traditionally been a 2-day weekend event, I'm looking at Crash Space as something like a BarCamp that will run 24/7, 365 days a year. And once again I'm asking you to trust me that the community will come out for it.

Sponsoring Crash Space will be all about exposure, both in the LA tech community and in the media materials we create and send out to the world. Currently we have 4 sponsorship levels available:

Benefactor - $20K

We will only accept one sponsorship at this level, and we would prefer it to come from an individual, athough a corporate sponsorship is not out of the question. This sponsorship level will get you credited, thanked and noted as a sponsor on our website, in the space itself and in all media materials we produce about the founding of Crash Space. Currently we are planning to document the entire process in both book and video format. This sponsorship level lasts the entirety of the time we are at this physical location.

Super Sponsor - $10K

This sponsorship level will give you a large size logo on the sponsor banner we will be making and hanging from a major wall in the space itself for 12 months. Given the number of people we expect to be at the space on a regular basis, and occasionally for classes and events, as well as videos that will be produced in the space, we expect this to be very high profile. You will also be listed as a sponsor on our website. We are looking for 2 Super Sponsors.

Sponsor - $6K

Same thing as a Super Sponsor but for 6 months instead of a year. We have 4 Sponsor slots available.

Enabler - $1500

We will only accept 12 Enabler level sponsors each year, one for each month. During that month the Enabler will be publicly thanked on our blog and on a whiteboard in the space itself.

With the ongoing events and classes we are planning, we expect there to be a great deal of blogging, photos and video produced in the space. We'll also be documenting as much as we can for video and later a book about the creation of the space so needless to say having your name around inside should be very high profile.

As this is the first hackerspace like this in Los Angeles we expect it to get a lot of attention and press. Last year NYC Resistor opened up in Brooklyn and you can see a small slice of the media coverage they received on this wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NYC_Resistor

With any luck, and your help, Crash Space will make a similar splash.

Because time is of the essence, and we need to get the lease signed and start moving in asap, we are looking for sponsorship commitments right away. Please get back to us no later than 11/30/09.  This is an exciting opportunity to sponsor what we hope will be an exciting addition to the Los Angeles tech community.

To find out more about Crash Space go to http://crashspace.org

Sincerely,

Sean Bonner and the Crash Space Founders