The real core of my Zen about hackerspaces and makerspaces is that it's easy to think that it's about the tools and money and space and rules and voting, but the real most important tasks of all are:

• Socializing people in from off the street so they get to understand this different way of being that you're creating.
• Being an inspiring leader that people not only want to follow but makes them want to lead in a similar style as well, and cultivating them / passing the torch to them. Not dictating too much as leadership, but bringing average people into daily decisionmaking and execution.
• Bootstrapping and cultivating a sort of "benevolent do-ocracy"* ethic where people aren't just sitting on the sidelines waiting for leaders to do everything, but joining in the work and creating the space they want, even though that's necessarily more work and more political. working together and resolving conflicts is incredibly empowering and radical, and some of the most important work of our time.
• Creating a space that funnels people in from random members of the public who maybe just want to use a tool for free, through being able to use that tool somehow, to wanting to be a contributing member, to taking the reins and becoming a core leader, to sticking around and advising the next generation of leaders. if at any time that funnel isn't flowing, the organization will eventually wither or die.

* The phrase "benevolent do-ocracy" isn't really defined anywhere so I should explain it. What I mean by that is if you read the note "On Structureless Groups" and the sources/critiques it links, and remember that Burning Man purports to be a structureless "do-ocracy" (1,2,3) where those doing the work decide how it gets done, you can kind of envision a new structure that prioritizes Working Groups and breakout subcommittees who are empowered to achieve results without "design by committee" bikeshedding stalemates, and decision-making that is more bottom-up democratic instead of top-down dictated in board meetings, but also doesn't hand over so much power to "the do-ers" that marginalized voices are unheard and ignored. The people doing the work of building the bikeshed should perhaps get to decide what color it's painted, but perhaps the board or democratic membership express their preferences beforehand somehow, and maybe there's a process by which those most affected or marginalized are consulted and their concerns addressed. A motorized wheelchair user who needs to charge their chair in the bikeshed may care far more about a lack of obstructions to get in and out, than the color of the paint, yet may be unable to attend meetings or be new/quiet and thus otherwise unheard unless explicitly asked. This comes even more to a head if you have able-bodied straight white male computer nerds filling out the leadership of a makerspace while still trying to make that makerspace a comfortable place for a new member who is a disabled queer woman of color who wants to build a pottery studio in a corner and not be harassed by That missing stair guy: "just show up to meetings, make your voice heard, and join in the work" may not be the neutral reasonable equitable requirement it sounds like. Maybe by "bending over backwards to cater to the needs of one 'troublemaker' who hasn't even joined yet" we actually make a better situation for everybody via the Curb Cut Effect.