New Generation Climbing Fitness and Education Center

Hey MP folks. I am planning on building a climbing gym and environmental ed center in Denver Metro. I am also going through the hoops to see what it takes to make it non profit 501 C3 status or co op, or I'll just do some pro bono work. We are in the foundational stage and are funding the facility on donations. We feel that donations are the best way to go seeing as how we are not taking out any loans, that's right NO LOANS. By avoiding loans we avoid interest which means we avoid expensive prices. We want to not only be a place to go for a quick fix after work but also prepare the next generation for being stewards of the land. If we want to keep our climbing access, we need to do everything in our power to keep future bone heads from disrespecting the areas that we all love. Our .org site is under construction and what seems to be a well thought out business plan is on its way. We will post this B plan on the website once it is up and running (it exists but only has a single page, no interaction, but feel free to see that it is actually there newgenerationclimbs.org). So, if you would like to see a Denver Metro climbing facility, feel free to donate, even a single dollar, it all helps. Let's make it happen.
If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me. Donor Link at bottom.
Jon Sullivan
970 221 7197
newgenerationclimbing@gmail.com
jon@newgenerationclimbs.com
pledgie.com/campaigns/16237

what of returned donations if the dream is not realized? is there a time period on this?

When will you have your P&L statement, cash flow statement, and balance sheet available for view?

A common misconception is that debt for business is evil and avoiding debt by paying it off immediately or not going into it is the best option. You have to think about your cost of capital. If the money that you borrow allows you to make more money over a period of time than you could have made without going into debt (a practical example for a climbing gym would be if you had to borrow, say, 3000 bucks or something for climbing holds, which allowed you to make 8000 dollars your first month, as opposed to never even getting off the ground without borrowing money. I don't know what the actual costs are but that's just to give you an example), then going into debt is actually a good thing. I am very close to someone who runs a successful wealth management company, managing close to 150 million dollars every year for the past 5 years or so, and he is still paying off debt from the start up (which can be seen from his balance sheet). Yes he could very easily pay it off in a single payment, but it doesn't make financial sense to do that. It would ruin his budget for the year, not allowing him to make nearly as much. Sometimes debt can actually help to keep overhead lower, not raise it.

I'd like to make some sort of donation, but I'd like to see those statements first. How much do you project you'll need and how much do you already have? The best thing to do would be to stop acception donations until you allow people to see what they're actually donating. It's a good idea for the gym, but an investor/donator deserves to see what they're getting into

All remaining donated funds if we were to abandon ship will be donated to something of similar cause i.e. environmental, educational or climbing oriented cause (Access Fund?). I do appreciate the feedback and will agree with you. The write up on the business plan is to be finished sometime tomorrow and I will seize the donations until it is ready for people to read.
I do appreciate your input. I only have a vision I believe can be turned into action, I am not a business man.
Please keep a lookout for our website! should be up pretty soon.
Jon S.

Jon-I'll be looking forward to reading it. In all reality, you probably should have finished the business plan before you put up the website or started accepting donations. Sometimes writing up a business plan can show you how good or not the market really is, and will help you to avoid figuratively flying an airplane into a mountain (meaning being unable to see potential obstacles. Obstacles will always be there, but a solid business plan can help avoid them).

Probably the most important part of your plan will be your balance sheet. Projections of potential customers and the market is all well and good, but if you can't sort out potential financial disasters and have everything organized things will never even get off the ground. As you probably already know if you're almost done with your business plan, seeing that your total liability and equity equaling your total assets shows that the financial planning portion of your business plan is solid (assuming your numbers are correct)

If you do consider getting loans, a solid amoritization schedule will sort out lots of confusion in the future, and is necessary for your balance sheet also.

Good luck, if you want any help with anything I'd be glad to.

One last piece of advice that just popped into my mind. Make sure you know what to file as an expense and as an asset. With a climbing wall that may be difficult because some things are expensive as a whole but inexpensive individually. With the previous example of climbing holds, you could break them up individually and file as an expense or count them as a whole and file under assets. Ropes are the same way. Make sure you hire a good accountant or financial advisor, because making a mistake on your initial P&L (if under expense) or balance sheet (asset) could mean hundreds of dollars of taxes. I'm no accountant, but I'm almost positive filing under assets and getting that depreciation value of the assets could help you in the long run. You don't have to pay taxes on expenses, but i think you get more benefit from paying taxes of assets. I may be incorrect on that last sentence though.

So where's the B-plan?

What does it cost to insure a gym?

So are you going to buy a facility with donations or pay your rent with donations?

??

Answers to the last three questions: Business plan had a market analysis revision. Insurance can cost between 2-4% of annual revenue. We would of course love to build ground up to create perhaps the most successful climbing facility between Colorado Springs and Fort Collins (excluding Boulder gyms because Movement and BRC get mad props for their facilities, we can't even touch them). In case folks don't know, Denver Metro has no climbing gym worth writing home about. There are two facilities within the metro area that really do not see a lot of attention. Denver is begging for a premier facility and we are ready to offer one with the added bonus of hopefully declaring non profit 501 (C3) status, in depth after school programs, childcare and some of the most radical wall designs by Eldorado Climbing Walls. Finding land or buildings for sale has not been very challenging and most are in the downtown area. Of course our biggest concern is financial. We are looking at a cost range between 600,000 and 2m depending on what route we take. Hope this answers your questions and it means the world to us to see people from other parts of the country expressing an interest. Please keep an eye out for our formal business plan, it has been delayed due to some things we learned about Denver Metro demographics.
Thanks again!
P.S.
If we do continue the route of raking in tons of donations (which will be the case if investors are not interested) and don't see any prospect of coming close to our monetary goal, then we have decided that %50 goes to Access Fund and the other %50 goes to a local public school district. Hope that works for all of our future donors!

Jon,
Why not partner with already operating non-profits that do similar work in the area and have boat loads of experience with all of the logistics? I understand the appeal of starting something new and I believe Sir Isaac newton said it best: "If I have seen further then those who have come before me it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants"

Here are a few non-profits to keep in mind:
bigcitymountaineers.org/
citywild.org/
educoadventures.org

Also just realized that this post is from 2011.

Maybe consider getting in touch with Yishai and Kristin Horowitz. They own SLO-OP Climbing Gym in San Luis Obispo, CA and if I remember correctly, they are running it as a 501 (c). I loved climbing there, and it was definitely a strong community place to hang out and climb. Here's the website:
slo-opclimbing.org/
Good luck.

You can find info on Slo-Ops website to how they run it. Great Business. K&Y are awesome people!