A BetaBuilder is a New Yorker who sustains the city’s civic infrastructure. Membership is earned. Most of our members got here by showing up to a class, an event, or by being a sustaining community member.
Freedom, liberty, and democracy are not given. We build and sustain them.
What you are joining
The BetaNYC Discord is our online community space. It is where our classes, fellowships, and open data work get planned, and where we develop questions, projects, post job openings, and share civic insights.
What stays free: the weekly newsletter, our public events, our classes, every open data resource we publish, and all of our research. None of that moves behind a membership.
Our Slack workspace closes on October 16, 2026.
Five ways to become a BetaBuilder
Here is every door, and they all lead to the same room. Whichever way you come in, you land in the same place, with the same channels and the same people.
Every BetaBuilder gets access to the BetaNYC Discord, the weekly newsletter, and invitations to events and classes. FYI – sustaining donors and community partners have access to a special channels.
1. Give monthly
$5 a month, or $60 a year. This is the Informed Neighbor tier, and it makes you a BetaBuilder for as long as it runs. Your gift funds School of Data, Mapping for Equity trainings, Open Data Week, CityCamp NYC, and the weekly newsletter.
2. Give once
Still in development. Any one-time gift of $15 or more will eventually open 90 days of access. If you would rather not commit to a recurring plan, this is a real path, not a consolation prize.
3. Show up
Attend a class or register for a flagship event. We firmly believe in active participation, online and in-person. Attending one of our classes will earn 90 days of access, at no cost. Make sure you register for our events with the email address you want the Discord invite going to.
You will need to attend an event prior to a Discord invite being sent, then we will send invites within a few days after the event.
Flagship events like CityCamp and School of Data will grant you access upon ticket purchase. We will offer selected special builder events where you will gain access upon ticket purchase.
We hope to see you at CityCamp NYC on Saturday, September 19 at Hunter College. A ticket purchase to CityCamp will grant you access to Discord. If you don’t have the invite in your inbox, send us a message.
Upcoming Events
- August 10, 2026 · 6:00 pmDiscovering NYC Open Data: Online Session: August 2026Virtual
- August 12, 2026 · 8:30 amBetaBagels 016: Meet the OTI PIT CrewThe David N. Dinkins Municipal Building, 19th Floor | 1 Centre St, New York, NY 10007
- August 20, 2026 · 5:45 pmCivic Tech Summer ShowcaseBrooklyn Public Library – Brooklyn Heights Branch
4. Serve
Fellows, alumni, open data ambassadors, associate board members, select volunteers, and community partners are invited directly. That includes staff and the Associate Board, Civic Innovation Fellows, NYC Open Data Ambassadors, volunteers and working-group members, and community partner organizations.
You do not need to give. We reach out to you directly with your invitation. If you don’t have the invite in your inbox, send us a message.
5. Scholarships
If cost is the obstacle, let us know. We believe cost should not decide who takes part in civic work, and our Code of Conduct commits us to prioritizing access for those traditionally excluded from the civic process. If $5 a month is the thing standing between you and this community, we are exploring launching community scholarships in Q4 2026.
Questions
- Is BetaNYC charging for its community now?
- Where does my money actually go?
- What if I cannot afford it?
- Which email address should I use?
- I used a different email address. What now?
- I donated but I am not in the Discord yet.
- I bought a ticket but never got the email.
- I already have an account. Does donating create a second one?
- Can I just look around first?
- Is there a higher tier? A patron level?
- What happens if I cancel?
- What if I need to pause?
- How do I come back after my window ends?
- What if I leave the Discord server and come back?
- Can I get a refund?
- How does the link between my Discord account and BetaNYC actually work?
- What data do you hold about me?
- Do I need a Discord account?
- Is there an age minimum?
- Are my Slack messages moving to Discord?
- Why Discord and not Slack, Matrix, or Signal?
- What happens to eleven years of Slack history?
- Does the Code of Conduct still apply?
- Who do I go to with a problem?
Is BetaNYC charging for its community now?
No. Our weekly newsletter, public events, classes, every open data resource we publish, and all of our research stay free.
Where does my money actually go?
Your gift funds School of Data, Mapping for Equity trainings, Open Data Week, CityCamp NYC, and the weekly newsletter. BetaNYC is a 501(c)(3) and your gift is tax-deductible.
It does not go to Discord. Discord takes nothing from us. Payments run through Donorbox or Ti.to (via Stripe, PayPal, or another payment processor), the same way they always have.
What if I cannot afford it?
Attend a class or an event, which earns 90 days of access at no cost. Flagship events like CityCamp and School of Data grant access upon ticket purchase, as do selected special builder events. We are looking to explore and launch scholarships in the fourth quarter of 2026.
Which email address should I use?
The same one, everywhere. Use the same address when you donate, when you register for an event, and on the account we already have for you.
That address is how we connect a gift, an event ticket, and Discord. A donation from a personal address and a ticket bought on a work address look like two different people to us, and neither one will find the access the other earned. If you need help, fill out our member support form.
I used a different email address. What now?
Send us both addresses through our member support form and we will join them up. It is a quick fix on our side and it is worth doing rather than working around.
Doing it sooner is better than later. A gift from an address we do not recognize starts a second record for you, and the longer two records run in parallel the more there is to merge.
I donated but I am not in the Discord yet.
(Note: If you donated after January 1, 2026, we are slowly inviting people into the community.)
Your invitation link is separate from your receipt and does not arrive with it. If you do not have yours, ask us through our member support form and we will get it to you.
Check the address you donated from first. If it is not the one you normally use with us, that is almost always the reason.
I bought a ticket but never got the email.
(Note: we are offering access to the online community for events starting in Aug 2026.)
Tell us through our member support form and we will sort it out. Check spam first. It comes from a notification.civimail.org address with BetaNYC in the sender name, which some filters treat unkindly.
I already have an account. Does donating create a second one?
Not if you use the address we already have for you. It adds member access to the account you have. If you donate from an address we do not recognize, we will start a new record, which is the situation the question above solves.
Can I just look around first?
Not at launch, and we would rather say so plainly than let you discover it after clicking. Every member arrives through one of the five doors above. We are starting this way deliberately. A community where everyone arrived on purpose is a different room, and that is a large part of why we are moving at all.
We will revisit opening a free public tier after CityCamp NYC on September 19. In the meantime, the best way to get access is to attend an event or become a sustaining donor.
Is there a higher tier? A patron level?
Sustaining members have access to a member channel, and community partners have access to discrete project channels. In general, we’re trying to keep this pretty flat.
What happens if I cancel?
You keep full member access through the period you have already contributed for. An annual gift runs to its anniversary, a monthly gift to the end of its month, with a 30-day minimum in every case. You are not removed, and you can pick back up any time.
What if I need to pause?
Donorbox lets you pause a recurring gift without canceling it.
How do I come back after my window ends?
Attend another event or start a monthly gift and you are back in. Your membership lives in our records, not in the server, so there is nothing to rebuild.
What if I leave the Discord server and come back?
Your membership lives in our records, not in the server. If you leave and rejoin while your gift is active, write to us, and we will restore your access.
Can I get a refund?
We do not offer refunds on donations. If something has gone wrong — a duplicate charge, a plan you did not mean to start, anything else — tell us through our member support form and we will make it right.
How does the link between my Discord account and BetaNYC actually work?
We email you a personalized link. You click it, Discord asks whether you want to authorize BetaNYC, and if you say yes we record your Discord user ID against your record in our system. That is the whole connection, and it only exists because you chose to make it.
We cannot look at the server’s member list and match it against our donor records. That is not something Discord permits, and it is why the emailed link exists at all.
What data do you hold about me?
Your name, your email, your giving and event history, and once you link it, your Discord user ID. Payments are handled by Donorbox. We never see or store your card details. Our member records live in CiviCRM, which we run ourselves. See our Privacy Policy for the full picture.
Do I need a Discord account?
To be in the community chat, yes, and it is free to create. But membership is not only on Discord. The newsletter, our events, and everything we publish reach you by email whether or not you ever link an account. If Discord is not for you, you can be a BetaBuilder anyway.
Is there an age minimum?
You need to be 13 or older, which is Discord’s own minimum. We ask you to confirm it when you join. We do not collect birthdates.
Are my Slack messages moving to Discord?
No. Nothing you posted in Slack is being copied anywhere. You create a Discord account yourself, and it starts empty.
Why Discord and not Slack, Matrix, or Signal?
The short version: Slack’s free plan was deleting our history on a schedule we did not control, and it gave us no way to make membership mean anything. Discord’s roles do exactly that, and it is a platform most of our community already has open.
We looked seriously at the alternatives. The honest constraint is that we are a small team, and we needed somewhere our community would actually turn up. We are aware Discord is a company too, and we weighed that. Your membership lives in our own CiviCRM, not in the server, so if we ever have to move again, we move with our records intact.
What happens to eleven years of Slack history?
Most of it is already gone. We are on Slack’s free plan, which shows only the last 90 days, and under Slack’s own terms anything more than a year old is permanently deleted on a rolling basis. Over eleven years, that is most of it, and it went long before we decided to close the workspace. It is part of why we are moving.
We won’t be preserving conversations in public channels. Direct messages are not ours to export, and we would rather tell you that plainly than let you find out by asking.
Does the Code of Conduct still apply?
Yes, unchanged, and it applies to every member regardless of which door they came through. Giving money does not buy latitude.
Equality and community equity are core to building a vibrant civic hacker, civic technology, public interest technology, open data, and service design community. These documents are our community foundation — living documents we review annually with public input from staff.
Who do I go to with a problem?
The same ombudspeople as in Slack. Their names and how to reach them are listed on our Code of Conduct page and pinned in the server. To report a Code of Conduct concern, write to saferspaces@beta.nyc, which the ombudspeople monitor and acknowledge within two business days.
For anything about your membership or access, visit our member support site or write to builders@beta.nyc.
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