We believe that everyone should have access to a family-friendly community where all ages can be part of the energy and collaborative learning where we as a society deal with new technology and life skills.
The ratio of adult-students and volunteer-participants is a crazy number. There is no way that this can be paid for by the typical family. These are experts in their fields, people who want to be involved with all ages learning and exploring science, technology, engineering, art and math. How does one pay them for their time other than by huge thanks and providing an environment that works.
Last year, we had 20,000 of adult volunteer hours. If that was charged at an average of $50/hour (low for a software engineer!), that would be $1,000,000 just for staff.
To keep the cost down, we count on:
Family membership fees for those who can afford it ($350/year for the whole family)
Program fees to cover some of the costs of the programs (total cost of materials plus minimal overhead fee divided by the number of member participants)
Grants and sponsorship from companies like GoogleFiber, Lenovo, United Therapeutics, and MetLife.
Donations from individuals -- many of whom are members. Our donations have ranged from $5 to $65,000 but most of our donations are in the $50 to $1000 level from people like you and me who see how their family's lives have been impacted.