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Or, more plausibly, because it introduces additional middlemen and tax obligations to a straightforward donation drive?

Why would a non profit be paying taxes?

edit: turns out they're not a non-profit.

Where do you see that they're a 501(c)(3) non-profit? I don't see that on their site; given the services they offer for sale, I would have expected them to be a B-corp or something similar.

Either way: 501(c)(3) status exempts a nonprofit from Federal income tax, but not necessarily state taxes. I don't know enough about California taxes to say whether or not that matters for them, but it's plausible that they'd have tax obligations from accepting securities.

Edit: Based on this search[1][2], there's a Benefit Corporation, not a 501(c)(3).

[1]: https://rct.doj.ca.gov/Verification/Web/Details.aspx?result=...

[2]: https://rct.doj.ca.gov/Verification/Web/Details.aspx?result=...

HackerLab is a for-profit corporation. The CTO expressed regret for not having explored that path a long time ago[1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32227718

I just assumed (since they're a hackerspace, and most hackerspaces are).

Looks like I was wrong.

It was a perfectly reasonable assumption!

It's the law.

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