2024 Annual Report

Letter from the Executive Director

Dear Makers,

Wow, what a year it’s been! Reflecting on 2024, I’m struck by the incredible momentum we’ve generated for Make Santa Fe. This year, we broke records in membership, class attendance, donations, and community events. It has been a year of growth and reach. We grew to over 170 members working in 15+ disciplines. Through our badge classes, we introduced the industrial and prototyping arts to over 1,000 participants, and we welcomed almost 40 instructors teaching everything from printmaking to blacksmithing. 

2024 has also been a year for community building. Fundraising events like Powertool Racing, The Maker Olympics, our Annual Yard Sale, and our Artist/Maker talks helped build a community that supports learning and practicing the industrial arts and crafts. We also partnered with other organizations to help introduce making to young people, provide opportunities for entrepreneurs, and inspire those new to it.

Looking ahead to 2025, I’m excited to deepen our impact and provide new ways to engage with Make Santa Fe and the broader community. Our theme of “Leveling Up” will help guide our decision-making. In 2025, we aim to refine our programming so it is easier to reach more people; we strive to invent new systems that enable our staff and volunteers to maintain the makerspace; and we aim to launch new ways for members to interact with Make to start businesses, or continue their maker journey, and we’re dreaming of ways to improve and expand our space. 

2025 will also be the first year Make Leadership engages in long-term strategic planning. As we look to the next 2, 5, and 10 years, we’re building a roadmap that will enable Make Santa Fe to thrive and positively impact our community. I’ll be excited to share our plans as they develop. I cannot wait to see what we make in 2025. I’m excited about Make’s future and proud of our achievements. 

Thank you for helping to create a shared resource that is a third place for so many individuals. 

James W. Johnson
Executive Director

Mission Statement

MAKE Santa Fe is a 501(c)3 non-profit community workspace where people can access tools, resources, and workshops to make, repair, invent or create anything they can dream.

Impact Highlights

All of this data is as of Dec 31, 2024.

Membership

  • Volunteer Memberships (in kind): 31
  • Student/Educator Memberships: 13
  • Team Memberships: 13 (Families and businesses)
  • Individual Memberships: 115
  • Total: 172 members (141 paying members)

Classes/Workshops

  • Badge Classes: 772 attendees (+- some because of attendance)
  • Workshops: 279 attendees

Space Use

We accommodated over 4,300 total sign-ins. The top three disciplines were Woodshop, with 614 sign-ins; Ceramics and pottery, with 557; and laser cutting, with 510. This is the first year that laser cutting has not been the most popular discipline. 

Financial Information: 

Contributed Income (24% of total income)

Earned Income (76% of total income)

Expenses

  • Administration: Office expenses, accounting, taxes, and payment processor fees. 
  • Payroll: Staff pay. In 2024, Make employed one full-time executive director and two part-time employees: Facilities Coordinator and Education Coordinator.
  • Facilities: Includes rent, utilities, building maintenance, tool repair, and new tool acquisition. 
  • Education: Instructor pay and instructor professional development. 
  • Professional: Advertising, website, payment systems, travel. 

Program Descriptions:

Memberships

The “All Access Maker Membership” at Make Santa Fe is designed for a wide range of creative individuals, including artists, makers, engineers, hobbyists, educators, and more. This membership offers several benefits, such as access to shops and equipment during regular business hours, the ability to reserve shops and equipment, access to member meetings and events, and inclusion in the member listing directory. Memberships are available on a monthly or yearly basis. 

Membership costs are subsidized by fundraising and earned income. Current memberships cover just under 40% of the total annual costs. 

Volunteer Program

The Make Santa Fe volunteer program is designed to offer an alternative to paying for a membership. Memberships can be gained for free through our volunteer program, which requires 12 hours of volunteer time per month. Volunteers complete projects that benefit the Make community and help upkeep and clean the space. Some recent volunteer projects include:

  • Extending the outdoor shade structure (Welding, fabrication, metalwork)
  • Building organization containers for various shops (laser cutting, woodwork)
  • Upgrading electrical systems for various tools (electrical, wiring)
  • Helping to invent new kiln controllers for our small kilns (prototyping, electrical, small circuits, programming)

Badge Classes and Workshops

Badge classes and workshops comprise most of our educational programs and are designed to onboard makers into the disciplines at Make Santa Fe. We offer badge classes in all of our permanent disciplines: 

  • 3D Printing
  • Blacksmithing
  • Casting & Mold Making|Casting & Mold Making
  • Ceramics
  • CNC Plasma
  • CNC Router
  • Electronics and Circuits
  • Laser Cutting
  • Metal Lathe and Mill
  • Metal Shop
  • Sewing
  • Software & Design|Software & Design
  • Wood Lathe
  • Woodshop

Workshop classes are in subjects we do not have permanent space for, or technique classes that build upon the skills taught in the badge classes. Some recent workshops include:

  • Glass fusing and slumping
  • Monoprint making
  • Bookbinding
  • Knot tying
  • Brazing
  • Ceramics and Pottery
  • Intermediate woodworking and metalworking

Advanced Long-form Classes

Introduced at the start of 2024, our advanced long-form classes are designed to build skills in the various shops at Make Santa Fe. Our first long-form class, “Fundamentals of CNC with the ShopBot, ” will teach students how to use our 4×8 CNC router to craft complex objects. These classes will utilize more than one discipline and are a deep dive into fabrication and crafting at Make. 

Track Courses

In January 2025, we launched a new way of engaging with our curriculum. Track Courses are a collection of badge classes designed to be taken together. These courses will onboard members and the community into multiple disciplines that work together. For example, the woodworking track class will cover the woodshop, x-carve cnc, laser cutter, and wood lathes. 

Service Contracts

Make Santa Fe has assembled a facility ideal for complex fabrication. As a result, various organizations often ask us to complete their fabrication projects. So, in 2023, we decided to create a program that enables us to say yes to these offers. To maintain a functional working environment for members and continue to pursue our mission, we decided to work only with mission-driven organizations with similar goals. Some recent service contracts include:

  • Set construction for Santa Fe Playhouse. 
  • Signage construction for Commonweal Conservancy
  • Laser engraving for the Museum of New Mexico Foundation