Ain’t no party like a Worldbuilders Party cause a Worldbuilders party don’t…

As I start typing this, It’s around 10:30 on Dec 17th. It’s the final day of the 11th annual Worldbuilders fundraiser.

We are rapidly closing in on three-quarters of a million dollars.

And that’s excellent. I’m over the moon. I want to talk about that. So much.

But here’s the thing: I have news…

And rather than work up to it slowly like I normally do, I’m going to switch it up an little and jump straight to it. Imma gonna spring the news, then go back and tell you the why and the wherefore.

You ready?

(Bam!)

Or, for those of you who prefer more info in your info-graphic:

Simply said, tomorrow, December 18th, I’m going to be streaming for 14 hours straight to celebrate the success of this year’s fundraiser. We’ll have guests stopping for discussions, I’m going to play Minecraft with Oot, we’re going to show off videos for the stretch goals we’ve achieved, tell some old, beloved stories…

…and talk about the amazing things Heifer does, like give away goats…

Here’s the schedule:

(All the times [except the multifarious midnights] are CST.)

And, since we’re doing all that, it only seems to make sense to leave the doors open for people to donate throughout the day.

The reasons we’re doing this are manifold, but here are the main two:

1. Tradition.

Those of you who have been following Worldbuilders for a while know that our end-of-year fundraiser used to look a lot different than it does now. For one thing, it used to be exclusively run off of my blog, and it used to run for an entire month.

Except it didn’t. For years and years, we ended up extending the fundraiser out past our initial ending date. Sometimes it was because we had a last minute sponsor we wanted to showcase. Sometimes it was because some chaos or catastrophe threw us off schedule. Once it was because we got offered some matching money and we couldn’t bring ourselves to say no to that. Once things got so out of hand we extended *past* Christmas and the whole fundraiser spanned over seven weeks…

And some times we did it just for fun, or because we’d gotten into the habit.

This year, we’re deciding to continue the tradition in a different way. We’re taking one final day just to appreciate how lovely this community is. To put a bow on it. To show off some of the lovely things people have done. To relax and have fun and enjoy our success.

And, of course…

2. To give the latecomers one last chance.

What usually happens the day after the fundraiser is that I go into a deep, healing Odinsleep. When I emerge, I peek on social media and I invariably see dozens of people saying, “Oh no! Worldbuilders is over?!? Did I miss it? Can I still donate?”

And I get that. This is a busy time of year. Finals. Holiday planning. Family travel. Or maybe you’re just like me and tend to put things off to the last minute and then kinda forget about them.

But still, it breaks my heart to see those messages.

So. One extra day. If you were meaning to donate. Now’s your chance. If you were going to tell your friend about us, you’ve got a few more hours. If you were going to spread the word on social media, now you can use this amazing gif to do just that.

(Ooontz Ooontz Ooontz Ooontz Ooontz.)

*      *     *

So yeah. C’mon over and take one last chance to win fabulous prizes while making the world a better place…

Every $10 you donate still gets you a chance to win all manner of coolness. And if you donate on my team page, you’ll be eligible to win even more.

Look forward to seeing many of you over on the stream tomorrow.

But for now? I sleep…

pat

 

Later Edit: I meant to ask this last night, but forgot because I was tired.

If any of you have stories about worldbuilders, I’d love it if you shared them in the comments below. Here’s an example from a previous year:

“I started a new job as a barista for an Independent cafe in Philadelphia this year. I saved up all the change that people tipped to me. I was so surprised at how much i had when I counted it up! Thanks for all that you do!”

It warms my heart to hear those stories, and I might share some of them on the stream.

This entry was posted in Achievement Unlocked!, Ask the Author, baby ducks, Because I Love, being awesome, Worldbuilders 2019. By Pat17 Responses

17 Comments

  1. Posted December 18, 2019 at 2:31 AM | Permalink

    To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure I was logging on for this until I saw the gif.

  2. Recanna
    Posted December 18, 2019 at 6:24 AM | Permalink

    Welp. Guess I know what I’m listening to at work today.

  3. Jeremy Henrickson
    Posted December 18, 2019 at 6:27 AM | Permalink

    Go go good team! Thank you for all that you do. Except the Ooonz Ooonz part. Now it’s in my head. Thank you to everyone who helped, donated, thought about doing a good deed, made a really great sandwich—keep it up.

  4. Jason
    Posted December 18, 2019 at 11:09 AM | Permalink

    “Ooontz Ooontz Ooontz Ooontz Ooontz” may be the best onomatopoeia ever.

  5. Steve
    Posted December 18, 2019 at 3:59 PM | Permalink

    I’ve been donating for a few years now. This year, I asked my girlfriend what we were giving her sister for Christmas. She said they were going to both donate to a charity like Heifer or something similar. I said, well then. What if I do the combined donation to worldbuilders? It will go 100% to Heifer. Also, my corporate overlord matches 100%. So by filling out an online form, voila, instant extra goat. So, merry Christmas to us and to H&C. Goat donated and matching goat request submitted already.

    People, look to see if your company matches. Two years ago I missed out on an extra village getting clean water and bees because I didn’t realize they’d match if I submitted the request within the match window (which closed literally 4 days before I finally got around to looking it up). And it’s often really, really easy (minutes, maximum, at my job. Seconds, if you’ve already donated to that charity).

    Not the most uplifting story, but the comments have been sparse this far, and you deserve a thank you and well warmed heart Pat. I was afraid it was a down year without a bunch of the regular updates (Stardust – did somebody finally keep it?) or random silliness (like make Pat kiss a llama), so I’m glad to see the flurry of posts. Happy holidays and happy new year everybody.

    • Unwashed
      Posted July 5, 2020 at 4:04 AM | Permalink

      So I was looking through Worldbuilders’ publicly posted tax returns, and… in 2017 (the latest available) the company’s total donations to charity totaled $26,080 of its $703,122 revenue.
      A whopping 3.7% of all proceeds.
      By contrast, $87,450 were paid to “Elodin Holdings LLC”, which as far as I understand is just… Pat.
      Unless things have changed dramatically in the last 3 years, the world being built by Worldbuilders is mostly confined to Rothfuss & Co. Your donation is infinitely better spent by giving it to Heifer directly.

  6. Samantha
    Posted December 18, 2019 at 9:56 PM | Permalink

    True to form, I was late and almost missed it. But also true to form, you anticipated us late arrivals. Thank you!

  7. Nick
    Posted December 18, 2019 at 9:56 PM | Permalink

    So, in 2016 I was having a rough time, feeling like I was losing the fight with my depression and generally questioning my place and with in the world. I decided that I needed a reminder that even if I’m broken and don’t fit where I once thought I belonged, there is still somewhere in the world I will fit perfectly. So, I got a tattoo on the inside of my wrist of Auri’s brazen gear. The day I got the tattoo I read Pat’s blog about Worldbuilders and decided that if I can spend 120 bucks getting a tattoo of something Pat created that I hold dear, the least I could do is spend another 120 bucks on something he holds dear. I discovered another wonderful thing in the past 3 years since my first donation: on my bad days (which still come, though less frequently), when I question my worth and my existence, my tattoo reminds me that someone somewhere got a goat or a chicken or some bees because of a choice I made. It reminds me that, in some small way, the world is a quality better place because I’ve been in it. This is now my fourth year donating to Heifer International during the Worldbuilders drive, and those feelings of connection and fulfillment grow every year with my donation, even if it’s not as large as I’d like it to be. So, for that I owe Pat some extra gratitude. Thanks.

  8. Sky Luke
    Posted December 19, 2019 at 12:48 AM | Permalink

    So, back in 2010 my wife (then fiance) and I were living most of a state apart while she finished some stuff up for school and I started at the first soul crushing job of my career. Every night we’d have a long phone call, and I started telling her about my ideas for a story. Finally I’d told her enough that she got annoyed and told me that if I wanted to keep telling her about this, I needed to make it an actual story.

    So I did.

    The next night I read her the first chapter of my book. The night after, chapters 2 and 3. And so on, until I actually had enough of a story to think, “Hey, maybe I should turn this into a book.” About a year later, I self-published my first book, and got the rest of the trilogy out a year after that. Somewhere during that time I read the Name of the Wind, and found out about Worldbuilders, and I decided that I was going to donate all of the money those books made to Worldbuilders every year.

    It was probably because I was already making the world a worse place working for an insurance company, so maybe I thought I could balance the scales a little bit. Still not sure I’ve balanced that out, to be honest.

    Since then I’ve had better jobs, and those indie books have chugged along. I noticed this year that, in total since 2012, those books have raised 36 cows. That’s technically 3 flinks of cows!

    All from a story that I annoyed my wife with 9 years ago.

  9. rardFaice
    Posted December 21, 2019 at 3:09 AM | Permalink

    i am from Italy hello. Can you help me translate? /rardor

  10. Disappointed reader
    Posted December 26, 2019 at 6:50 PM | Permalink

    So after expenses and salaries how much of the money goes to help people/

    From my research not much percentage wise. I feel very disappointed this holiday season.

  11. Posted February 5, 2020 at 11:35 PM | Permalink

    Hey Pat, I was wondering if you have any date for when you’ll pick up Unattended Consequences again! I really liked listening to your podcasts with Max and miss them sorely. Thanks!

  12. Ryan Philbrick
    Posted April 15, 2020 at 7:46 PM | Permalink

    I just heard the jester on audible, and what I heard was amazing. You helped someone through your work in Unfettered. I think that it was one of the kindest acts I have heard. I don’t know if karma exists or not, but when people do things like this I sure hope it does.

  13. froma
    Posted June 24, 2020 at 6:27 AM | Permalink

    thanks for sharing, it`s great, i`ll be listening it right now

  14. Fleur
    Posted October 3, 2020 at 1:45 AM | Permalink

    Hello,
    Writing here as don’t know how to send you something otherwise…
    But I wanted to thank you for your 2 books. This is some of the best writing I’ve ever read and satisfied my readers mind on so many levels: in the wise choice of words, in your sensitivity illustrated through being able to project into various characters each different from the next, in the sense of adventure with the multiple twists and turns and regular ‘boring’ parts for the protagonists, in the realism (that makes sense for a student of life and people) mixed in with full on fantasy that pulls us away into an alternative word… and I could go on… ultimately I wish to thank you for these 2 books which have carried me through a rough month.
    I’ve seen a part of the suffering in the world and sometimes quipped with the mafia movie character who said “crime, prostitution, corrupt politics… Work, work, work… why can’t we have some entertainment in the movies” well that would be books for me but all the same, too much realism is quickly exhausting.
    Thank you for saving my sanity this last month.
    All the best to you and yours !

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