With the generous support of our community Hackforge advocates for tech talent and fosters a community of peer mentorship.

Pledge a monthly donation to support our growth, make our meetups great, and cover our operating costs.

$20 Patron & Voting Member

Pledge $20 a month to support Hackforge; by pledging at this level and committing to our success, you’re invited to engage with the leadership and direction of Hackforge.

• Voting privileges at the Annual General Meeting, where you will vote for members of the Board of Directors
• Eligibility to stand for election as a Director on our board, directly influencing the organization’s policies and attention
• Direct lines of communication with leadership and consultation on important decisions and issues that the Board of Directors faces
• Free or discounted access to any of our (admittedly rare) paid workshops or classes
• Access to patron-only Discord channels (Discord is where our online chat community lives!)

Voting Member – Monthly PayPal Subscription ($20 renewed once a month)

Voting Member – Annual PayPal Subscription ($240 renewed once a year)

$10 Patron

Pledge $10 a month to support Hackforge; the vast majority of our events (talks, workshops, meetups) are free to the public, but if you enjoy hanging out and learning with us, this is a great way to contribute and say, “thanks!”

• Discounted access to any of our (admittedly rare) paid workshops or classes
• Access to patron-only Discord channels (Discord is where our online chat community lives!)

$10 Patron – Monthly PayPal Subscription ($10 renewed once a month)

$5 Patron

Pledge $5 a month to support Hackforge; whether you come to our events or just believe in Hackforge’s mission to give tech talent in the Windsor-Essex region a community to grow in, you can support us for as little as $5 a month.

• Access to patron-only Discord channels (Discord is where our online chat community lives!)

$5 Patron – Monthly PayPal Subscription ($5 renewed once a month)

What am I funding?

Hackforge has in the past had rent and utilities, and may have this expense in the future. Currently, we are a virtual organization, and our operating costs are relatively low. They encompass subscriptions to various online platforms (such as Meetup and MailChimp among others) as well as accounting and legal fees.

In addition to our operating costs, funds help to make some events more fun and engaging, often paying for food and refreshments or offering a stipend to a speaker or a teacher for a class or workshop. We’re looking for interesting ways to enhance virtual meetups as we ramp back up in this mid-and-post-pandemic world.

Hackforge is a non-profit organization and our board and organizers are unpaid volunteers; in the past we have received grant money earmarked to pay employees to run programs and administer the day-to-day functions of Hackforge, but have not spent member funds on labor. Several months with no paid administrative staff (and the shock of Covid-19 on the lives of our volunteers) has proven that it may be necessary to use community funds for this purpose going forward, but the value of paid administrative help has been proven immeasurable.

I don’t have the money to burn right now. We’re in the middle of a pandemic!

Hackforge is not pay-to-play, and as always anyone is invited to join in our public events (which is the vast majority of them) for free. You aren’t obligated to donate in order to be a part of our community, learning and teaching each other and making friends with other techies. We have some individual paid events (typically classes with a teacher who receives payment from the money raised) and the occasional Voting Members only meetings, but those are the exception rather than the rule.

I was a member before; what happened?

Through a perfect storm of bad luck and timing, Hackforge had some hiccups with PayPal and issues with event space. Just as we were getting ready to spring back into action with meetups in a high-school classroom we saw school board strikes and then, of course Covid-19 hit, derailing everyone. We’ve had some slow progress getting back into the swing of things as a fully virtual organization (just as the shoemaker’s children go unshorn, the club for computer geeks was slow to go digital) but we’re getting there.

We’ve got PayPal back up and running, we’ve got a lot of new incoming board members with new ideas on the way, and we’ve got all of you great folks to help us make some awesome meetups and other cool things happen online while we wait for the post-covid world to arrive. I hope those folks who were members prior to now will sign back up as a Patron of one level or another, but more importantly, engage with us again and fill our meetups with your excellent brains and faces.