If you’ve ever encountered a Burner, chances are you’ve been schooled on a few things: the packing lists that rival military ops, the degree of enlightenment achievable through libertine excess and the revelation that in Black Rock City, Nevada, money is virtually useless. The annual Burning Man gathering forbids commerce, so for nine days each late August, almost 80,000 people get by on supplies they’ve brought and gifts from fellow attendees. There might be a two-story fire-spewing octopus or a jetliner fuselage tricked out like a rave cave, but except for a few authorized sites where one can buy ice to keep food from spoiling in the heat, not so much as a dollar bill is exchanged.

Money, however, is something Burning Man Project, the nonprofit that runs the event, can’t do without. And lately it’s been an increasingly urgent concern. Last year, after Burning Man Project spent around $59 million throwing the bacchanal, tickets failed to sell out, putting the year’s revenue on track to fall $20 million short of expenses. Its leaders stumbled out of the desert and found themselves staring down a financial cliff. “Everything is now at risk,” Chief Executive Officer Marian Goodell wrote in a series of online missives sharing the news last fall.