I have been a member of the Boulder group for over a year and the sponsorship is relatively new. Before then there was no website, just an email list, and lunch was just pay as you go (which, with 15 people, was a bit of a pain when we got the check).
As far as I can tell, the influence of the sponsor is limited to a thank you at lunch and a shout out on the website. But I understand your concern about the tension. This is something that every volunteer organization or meetup group struggles with:
1. It usually costs money to put on an event worth going to. Not a ton, but food, beverages and space aren't free.
2. People prefer free (and tech people tend to expect free).
I know another meetup that struggled for years trying to solve this problem, and never found a satisfactory answer.
The answers I have seen work for groups are:
1. Find sponsors and thank them
2. Charge a membership fee
3. Only do free stuff (meet in the library, or a park)
4. Have the meetup organizer pay out of pocket (a different kind of sponsorship)
5. Be lucky enough to have already acquired some kind of income generation (typically an older established gepup like a fraternal order)
These are all ostensibly people with high-upper-quintile incomes at minimum. Is it really out of line to just have everybody pay their own lunch check?
No, that's fine, and how things operated for years. Not sure how free lunch really helps attract more folks. However, that doesn't help with other infrastructure like the website, unless you want to ask organizers to pay out of their pocket.
You'd have to ask Miles (who commented above) why he made the switch to sponsorship.
I replied directly above, but the other reason sponsorship is attractive is because it's hard to host a group of 20-30 people for lunch usually.
We've lucked out in Boulder & Denver where we can make a reservation for that big, but a lot of places I've talked to want event fees, so I'm still going to avoid that, but it'd be nice to have the option.
I would give up "free lunch" to have the sponsorship funds going to improving the community interaction. Lunch is ephemeral yet peer mentorship is priceless.
It's definitely not too much to ask for people to pay their own bill at lunch, but my goal is to continue to add value to the group, which I think will become easier if there are more resources at the group's disposal. More cities, more engineering leaders to get advice from or make connections to, etc.
How is the Boulder group? I've been meaning to come that way - I'd pay at this point to have strategic rather than consistently tactical technology discussions. Every other meetup group devolves into frameworks, "cool tech", language talks, devops, etc.
There was a good discussion on impostor syndrome at one of the lunches. And once we had a great roundtable lunch discussion on Security (I learned so much that day).
Someone else mentioned"war stories" and I have definitely heard some. But I have found it to be stimulating and interesting conversation, with some different perspectives (for instance on hiring).
However, the best bang for the buck, in terms of strategic insight, is probably the email list.
I'd agree about the email list. The lunch format is great for non-awkward socializing, but people are busy and travel a lot, and the email list gives a way for people to write out long form advice and experiences to give to the group.
That's a big part of what I'm trying to help scale for the group.
As far as I can tell, the influence of the sponsor is limited to a thank you at lunch and a shout out on the website. But I understand your concern about the tension. This is something that every volunteer organization or meetup group struggles with:
1. It usually costs money to put on an event worth going to. Not a ton, but food, beverages and space aren't free.
2. People prefer free (and tech people tend to expect free).
I know another meetup that struggled for years trying to solve this problem, and never found a satisfactory answer.
The answers I have seen work for groups are:
1. Find sponsors and thank them
2. Charge a membership fee
3. Only do free stuff (meet in the library, or a park)
4. Have the meetup organizer pay out of pocket (a different kind of sponsorship)
5. Be lucky enough to have already acquired some kind of income generation (typically an older established gepup like a fraternal order)
It's a tough problem.