Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
YokyWorks is constantly looking for people that can bring their skills to bear
on potential challenges, and keeping those people engaged until a project that
matches those skills arrives.
8.5.2 Funding
YokyWorks uses four approaches to funding its work: Seeking grants, ac-
cepting donations, managing expenses, and (at some point in the future)
developing passive revenue sources. The principal near term sources of fund-
ing for the organization include a combination of grants and donations. The
organization has consciously avoided the traditional funding source of com-
mercial investors to avoid the concomitant requirement that the organization
provide those investors a financial return on their investment. Grant funding
is used where feasible and is expected to be a long term funding source for
the organization. Private donor funding has been critical to launching the
organization. Organizing the entity as a non-profit assists in the fundraising
challenge by providing significant tax incentives to donors.
YokyWorks' volunteers make an invaluable contribution to meeting the
funding needs of the organization. These volunteers contribute to funding by
attacking and reducing the expense side of the business. It is perhaps obvious,
but still worth stating: The lower the organization's expenses, the less time
and energy must be invested in raising money for the organization and the
greater the number of projects the organization can undertake.
It is conceivable that at some time in the future a third funding source
may arise if the devices YokyWorks develops benefit enough people. People
who benefit from YokyWorks devices may be willing to financially support
the organization either directly or indirectly. That support may take the form
of purchasing an industrially hardened embodiment of a YokyWorks device
or making a direct donation to YokyWorks.
8.5.3 Liability Management
YokyWorks creates devices that people use in the real world under harsh
and unpredictable conditions. The solutions we develop and test are often
prototypes that have not been industrially hardened. These devices are faced
with situations and factors that our team of volunteers could not possibly
have imagined during design, and we design for some pretty amazing envi-
ronmental conditions. For example, one YokyWorks project is developing a
device to assist an individual whose ability to walk is severely compromised
because he contracted poliomyelitis (polio) as a youth. Using the device, this
