Slack Demands $50,000 from Nonprofit Teen Hacking Club, Threatens Message Deletion
========================================================================================
A nonprofit hacking club for teenagers recently faced a frightening ultimatum from Slack, which demanded a hefty payment of $50,000 within a week or face the deletion of its message archive. This alarming scenario was disclosed in a Thursday post by Mahad Kalam, a volunteer at Hack Club—a nonprofit dedicated to running coding clubs in high schools.
Slack's Role in the Hack Club Community ----------------------------------------
Slack has been a vital component of Hack Club’s offline community. The organization emphasizes the importance of collaborative coding, stating on its homepage: > "Coding doesn’t have to be a solitary activity. At Hack Club, we make remarkable things together, and in our Slack you’ll find awesome people to hang out with too. Code together, find your programming community, dream up something wild, or just #lounge."
History of Slack Support for Hack Club --------------------------------------
Kalam recounted that several years ago, when Slack transitioned them from a free nonprofit plan to a paid plan costing $5,000 annually, they agreed to it gladly, valuing the service's role in their community. However, the situation changed drastically just recently.
The Ultimatum and Its Impact ----------------------------
On Tuesday, Slack unexpectedly notified the Hack Club that unless they agreed to pay an additional $50,000 this week and a subsequent $200,000 annually, their Slack workspace would be deactivated and all message history deleted. Kalam expressed concern over the short notice and the massive cost increase, stating:
> “A six-month grace period is the bare minimum for such a drastic hike if not more.”
The sudden financial demand forced Hack Club to reconsider their platform choice, leading them to migrate to an open-source alternative called Mattermost.
Operational Chaos and Reflections -------------------------------
The short timeline and abrupt change caused significant disruption. Kalam described how staff and volunteers scrambled to update systems, rebuild integrations, and transfer years of institutional knowledge. He emphasized the importance of owning one’s data, especially for small organizations, advising others to consider data ownership seriously.
Response and Future Precautions ----------------------------
Slack CEO Denise Dresser reached out to Kalam, offering to rectify the situation with a better deal than the previous plan. Despite this, Hack Club is now reevaluating its reliance on external SaaS providers, emphasizing data ownership and control.
Kalam concluded with a call to others:
> “This ordeal has made us think more deeply about entrusting data with external SaaSes and ensuring that we own our data is definitely going to be a very big priority going forward. I’d encourage you to think the same way!”
This incident underscores the critical importance of data ownership and the risks associated with dependency on third-party platforms for nonprofit organizations.