We've lowered our goal here because a private donor is going to match up to $25k! We still need your help. Our current and upcoming milestones will be published in our newsletter in the next few days. Gearhead Workspace is an enthusiast driven community garage that focuses on sharing and elevating the knowledge of those passionate about cars. While the most prominent service Gearhead Workspace provides is a safe place to work on your own car with professional grade tools and opportunities to hang out with and befriend fellow gearheads, we have also always been a hub for learning. From one-on-one coaching to regular classes to special interest group classes. We have taught a variety of basic car informational classes to groups such as Bank of America, DIY Grrl, Chicago Youth Centers, and the Girl Scouts. Over the years we have made connections with other companies and groups: Gold Eagle, Kelly Moss, RPM Foundation, Klairmont Kollections, to name a small few. The overarching conversation we continually have across these groups is the need for more STEM education and a greater awareness of the wide world of engineering. One thing we have learned so far in our journey is that we are uniquely positioned to fill this educational gap. A problem many of the companies that look to bring in young adults to teach them a complicated trade like vintage race car restoration, is finding intelligent and eager youths who unfortunately have never held a wrench. They are missing the prerequisite training simply because it hasn't been offered to them. We have the ability to provide this sorely needed training. .However, to be set up to properly fill this gap we see a need to restructure and work more closely with our community. Our proposed solution is to make Gearhead Workspace into a non profit company. We have already had this conversation with a number of our top supporters. We have pulled from our most active members to form a board of directors, consisting of the company's current leadership and its most prominent instructors and coaches. Already the ideas are flowing with activities that Tim and Molly could not accomplish as a team of two. We are looking at hosting more regular community building activities, like a monthly cars and coffee, a “PhD” program for those who are beyond our current MBA (Master in BadAssery) program in their need for knowledge, regular programming with the Union League Boys and Girls Clubs, designing a pre-apprenticeship program for youths who haven't yet turned a wrench, and creating an annual STEM fair to bring awareness of engineering activities and opportunities in Chicago to the public. Some of these ideas will be quickly implemented and some will take time, but we wanted to give you a big overview of what we are actively working on and exploring. To make this pivot we need your help. We are already working with an attorney who is guiding us through the complicated procedure of becoming a non profit. Please reach out if you would like to learn more about those details. We are looking to raise $42,441, ideally over the next two weeks so we have time to make this transition. The most important thing to know is that this money will go to the for profit company to help it settle out the lease as well as other expenses that it will incur while we transition to the non profit company. The non profit is a separate company called, Gearhead Workspace Education Inc. NFP. It is incorporated, but we are still working on all of the paperwork necessary to request the non profit status. After that paperwork is submitted the NFP can start fundraising through different campaigns than this one. It can take many months for a company to get the NFP status, so we want to be sure we can bridge the gap between the for profit running the shop and the NFP taking over. Barebones operational costs for the shop are about $12,000 per month. There are no employees, so that does not even cover any salaries, just operations. We hope you will join us in pivoting what started as a community center for urban gearheads to a learning center for gearheads and aspiring gearheads throughout Chicago.
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