Four years after insurance crisis, non-profit RPG Research resets operations

Spokane-based charity RPG Research has survived the financial collapse of its physical venue and renewed its Washington State legal registrations, four years after suspending frontline operations during an insurance crisis. Founder and executive director Hawke Robinson confirmed the organisation is restructuring its volunteer training and mobile trailer fleets ahead of a planned public return in 2027, despite donations dropping to a fraction of previous highs.

The recovery follows years of administrative strain that began in May 2022. RPG Research leased a two-building headquarters and public museum at 101 North Stone Street in Spokane, then mothballed programmes immediately as liability insurance premiums soared. By February 2025, the monthly overheads of that brick-and-mortar space proved unsustainable, forcing the charity to abandon the property entirely to stave off insolvency.

The Collapse of the Spokane Community Centre

Leasing a permanent public facility in 2022 created immediate liabilities for the volunteer-run non-profit. Running the East-Central Spokane building required ongoing rent, utility bills, and strict insurance stipulations that mandated multiple background-checked staff on site during opening hours.

When local fundraising failed to match those monthly commitments, operating deficits mounted. The broader Spokane gaming community saw similar venue pressures during the same cycle, with long-running regional convention SpoCon folding under post-pandemic financial headwinds. RPG Research formally shuttered the Stone Street building in early 2025 to stop the financial drain, retreating to volunteer-managed storage and administrative survival.

Hawke Robinson, Founder and Executive Director at RPG Research, said in a statement:

We are now mostly recovered from the community center shut down, and working on booting up our new Fourth Edition of our programs.”

Annual compliance paperwork with Washington State agencies, including the Department of Revenue, Department of Labour and Industries, and the Charities Program, has now been renewed for another year.

Server expansion and the Fourth Edition overhaul

Rather than maintaining a physical storefront, the organisation is redirecting its resources into digital systems and mobile trailers. The charity has overhauled its technical back end, moving from seven servers to a self-hosted network of more than 65 machines running custom tools, blockchain provenance tracking, and private artificial intelligence software.

Frontline work remains restricted while volunteer curricula undergo revision:

• Volunteer Training Rewrite: Work is progressing on the Fourth Edition Role-Playing Game Professional manuals, which must be completed before new public volunteers are inducted.
• Mobile Outreach Fleets: Volunteers are repairing wheelchair-accessible trailers and buses to deliver mobile sessions rather than paying commercial property rent.
• Software Tools: Active development continues on accessibility utilities, including the GameConsent App and a brain-computer interface project designed for players with severe physical impairments.
• Working Hours: Active administrative schedules have expanded from a single weekly session to three days per week, with full community sessions projected to return by 2027.

Parallel non-profit and commercial operations

The rebuild also highlights the entwined relationship between the non-profit charity and Hawke Robinson‘s commercial business, RPG Therapeutics LLC (also trading as RPG.LLC). Both entities share the same technical backbone and the upcoming Fourth Edition standards.

While RPG Research provides unpaid training and community sessions, the commercial counterpart licenses the material for paid corporate workshops, runs a subscription learning platform at RPG.Education, and plans enterprise tiers for the GameConsent App. Separating unpaid volunteer contributions from commercial software products will remain an operational priority as both sides of the business ramp up activities over the coming year.

The public can support the non-profit’s administrative recovery and mobile fleet repairs through the RPG Research Patreon.