Silent Barn says it needs to raise $20k by January 1 or it may close

2017 was another tough years for small/DIY venues in NYC, with Shea Stadium, Don Pedro and more closing for good. Hanging in there is Bushwick's venue/community center Silent Barn, which opened its Bushwick location in 2013 but is in desperate need of a cash influx to survive into 2018. As The Village Voice reports, Silent Barn is currently holding a crowdfunding drive with a goal of $25,000 and say that if they don't raise $20,000 by January 1 it will have to "begin planning to shut down this iteration of the project":

“It’s like we’re on a boat going down a river, and my job as the financial manager is to tell people, ‘Hey, there’s a waterfall coming up, we need to all get together and paddle,’ ” Silent Barn financial manager Jordan Michael Iannucci said over the phone last week. “This is the first time where it’s like, we can see the waterfall, we can hear the water, [and] we know there are rocks under it.”...

...“When we opened our place, we had basically about a month of cash on hand, maximum, at any given moment,” said Joe Ahearn, one of the original Silent Barn’s longtime residents and a founder of the new space, when the Voice spoke to him over the phone on Christmas Eve. “It’s basically just gotten harder every day since then.”

Unforeseen circumstances, like the fire and bureaucratic problems that delayed the venue’s new liquor license, ate into this already thin cash reserve. “We are [now] operating at less-than-zero-days-to-live margin,” Ahearn said. The collective expected a loss of $28,000 for 2017; at the end of the year, the actual figure is looking closer to $69,000.

As of this posting, Silent Barn's fundraising is at $11,481. You can contribute by becoming a monthly or yearly Silent Barn member.

UPDATE: They met their goal! You can still buy a membership which includes entry to shows.