Construction Building the oven and the surrounding space is something that needs to be planned out well. It’s important to consider who is going to be building the oven and what sort of experience they have. The main choice is to either hire a contractor, or else to try and find volunteers that have these sorts of skills. There is also the opportunity to have the community come together to help in the build, which can be excellent for a sense of ownership in the project, but also brings in a number of logistical challenges. Whatever route you decide to take, be sure to map out all elements of the construction and ensure that you have the funds to acquire materials and that they are available when you need them. It can also be worth considering whether the project can be built in phases and if this is a viable option. For the Front Street Community Oven, it was decided that we would: 1. Build the oven and have it operational. This meant that the oven could start to be used by the public in which to gain more community support. 2. Build the timber frame structure with a roof. This provided shelter from the elements and allowed for the planning of more events with more reliability. 3. Put walls up around the building in which to keep out the elements. This expands on when the oven can be used throughout the year, while also providing the opportunity to lock up the space and all the equipment when the oven is not in use. Other considerations: ● Building code and permits. (Make sure you check in to see what needs to be done to meet any local regulations.) ● Whether it is a contractor or volunteer builder, ideally there should be a lead builder or project manager; it can be confusing to have many people trying to coordinate the many moving parts in which to get the project complete. ● Put the word out to your community about materials needed; many things could be donated and incorporated into the build. ● Shop around on Kijiji (or similar) well in advance and see about finding savings this way. ● Make sure insurance is in place before building starts in case anything happens during construction; ensure that the society is covered and all legal elements are in place. Fundraising Below you’ll find a selection of fundraising options we tested. ● Online options: ○ We started with a Kickstarter, but set our timeline to be too short to reach our goal. We stopped it at $2500 as we weren’t going to make our target number. If we did it again, we’d use kickstarter, but set a lower goal that we’d surely make in the amount of time we set. The rewards system that Kickstarter offered worked well as contributors could buy things such as: $100 - name on a brick, $250 - two pizza making workshops, etc. We raised money at a quicker speed than through GoFundMe. ○ GoFundMe gives you the ability to raise donations, but not to set specific rewards for amounts donated. For the Front Street Community Oven, the lack of rewards is why we think we raised money slower on this platform than kickstarter. ● “Buy a brick” type of campaigns; we did this as part of the Kickstarter campaign and directly selling bricks at the market. Selling in person was quite time consuming, but it was most useful for building awareness and getting people to understand the concept. We raised around $650 this way before moving on to other 11
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