Who are we?
The London Bike Kitchen is a not-for-profit in Hackney that teaches you how to fix your own bike through classes and drop-in sessions. We also run a Women and Gender-variant (WAG) Night for people who aren't generally encouraged to pick up tools from a young age. We believe that the more you understand how your bike works, the more likely you are to ride it - and we want to see more butts on bikes!
Why are we crowdfunding?
We're celebrating our 4th birthday this March, so we know we're doing something right. But the winter season is still a financially difficult time for us (as it is for most bike shops), and we are looking to diversify our income streams in order to thrive during the colder months.Our landlord has offered us a second shopfront a few doors down from our current space. It's an offer we can't refuse but we can't do it without you. A second workshop would help us teach more classes, including our very popular Build Your Own Bike classes, as well as start doing repairs for people, and sell more parts and accessories. We also have plans to start doing parent/child classes, as well as OAP drop-in workshops.
What do we need?
We need to raise at least £15,000 to make sure we cover the majority of our costs. LBK is a not-for-profit and doesn't have this kind of money in our savings! We're conservatively estimating that it'll take us 2 months to get the shop cleaned out, refitted, and up & running.
Here's a short breakdown of our major costs. Some of these are estimated and are variable costs (e.g. dependent on how many rewards we sell)
Deposit £2250
Legal fees £1320
Waste disposal £300
Lighting/Electricals £700
Birthday Party Event Costs £300
Clean up/decorating/hardware £300
Tools/Vice/Truing stand/Workstands £4000
CHANGE :( New Shopfront £1500 New Door £700
Volunteer expenses (covering lunch and travel for 5 volunteers at £10/day, 3 days/week, 8 weeks) £1200
Project manager to oversee and work (reports to the director, 3 days per week @£10/hr, 8hrs/day for 8 weeks) £1920
Fulfilling Rewards (costs will vary based on uptake but estimated) £2800
Crowdfunder fees 6% of total so £900
Credit card / debit fees (will vary by usage, est. £700)
If you add this all up you get approx £18,190, which is more than the £15k we're asking. Fulfilling rewards and credit/debit card fees will also be a variable cost, based on how many rewards we sell. We're going to aim to get more than £15k but want to start somewhere reasonable that would still cover the majority of our costs.
Help us help you fix your bike - pick up some LBK swag today!
NEW REWARDS!
Meet the Team:
Jenni Gwiazdowski
Seb Achaibou
Zooey Miller
Chris Nelson
WAG Volunteers
Monika Zamojska
Juliet Chard
With special thanks to Laurie Garnons Williams for filming our rad video!
To find out more about us visit our website: www.lbk.org.uk
You can get in touch with us via email: [email protected]
LBK is open for drop-in on Thursday 1 - 9pm, Friday/Saturday 11 - 7pm, and Sunday 2 - 7pm. Come by anytime!