Hey there everybody. We’ve got an announcement to make… but we figured we’d do it in video format.
That’s right. It’s almost time for Worldbuilders.
This year’s fundraiser and Carnival of Delights will be November 10th through December 8th.
You’ll note two differences from last year.
1. We’re starting earlier.
Those of you who have been around since the beginning might remember that Worldbuilders was originally a November event. But over the years, as I became increasingly busy and decreasingly organized, the fundraiser slowly got pushed back a little at at time until it wasn’t even starting until December.
In some ways this was nice, as people tend to feel generous around the holidays.
But the downside is that everyone tends to be insanely *busy* around the holidays, too. Students have end-of-semester chaos. Parents have holiday shopping. Most everyone has some sort of family gathering. All of that means it’s really hard to get people’s attention.
Luckily, now I have the Worldbuilders team.
(Not pictured: the monkey who took the shot, Brett)
Not only are they handling more and more of the heavy lifting of the fundraiser themselves, but they’re delightfully well-organized.
So this year, we’re getting back to our roots and moving the fundraiser a little earlier.
2. The fundraiser is going to be faster.
Last year’s Worldbuilders was a huge success. We raised more than 700,000 dollars for Heifer International.
However, the fundraiser itself went from December 3 to February 4. It was nine weeks long.
Not only was it like running a marathon, but it overlapped the holidays. That made it hard to keep the momentum of the fundraiser going while at the same time making me feel like an absolute scrooge of a boss.
It occurred to me that the length of the fundraiser was mostly a holdover from when I was organizing things myself. Which is to say I was mostly *not* organizing them. These days the Worldbuilders team is a well-oiled machine. They have meetings and timetables. They use a calendar and everything. Seeing them using these revolutionary tools, I realized we really didn’t have a *reason* for the fundraiser to run as long as it has been….
So earlier this year, we tried an experiment. We ran an Indigogo campaign for one week to see if we could make a short fundraiser work.
And it did. We blew the doors off and raised more than $200,000.
So this year we’re going to keep it short and sweet. Or at least shorter and sweet. It’s going to be like an avalanche of awesome. We’ll be posting up new stuff pretty much every day.
So stay tuned, lest you miss something.
- Donations.
Why yes. We’d love some donations. Thanks so much for asking.
We’ve had books, games, and cool ephemera coming in for a couple months now. But this is your fair warning: since we’re doing a more compact fundraiser this year, we need things to arrive by the middle of November if we’re going to make good use of them.
If you have something you want to kick in, like geeky memorabilia, or signed books, or you should email us at donations [at] worldbuilders.org.
If you’re a member of the geek glitterati who wants make a donation or help us spread the word by doing an act of whimsy, email us at donations [at] worldbuilders.org.
If you have an idea for an author or other cool person you think would be a good addition to our fundraiser but you’ve never seen featured here, maybe drop them a line and ask them to email us at (you guessed it) donations [at] worldbuilders.org.
- Volunteer and Other Offers of Help
I’m well aware that some of you would love to help with the fundraiser, but cash is hard to come by. No worries. I understand completely. I’ve spent most of my life in that position.
What can you do to help other than chip in money when the time comes? Well….
- If you live in central Wisconsin, you could stop by Worldbuilders HQ and help us work our magic. We have a lot of work and never as many hands as we’d like, so we’re always looking for volunteers to help out around the store. Email us at volunteers [at] worldbuilders.org
- If for some bizarre reason you don’t live in Wisconsin, you could start planning an act of whimsy of your own for when the fundraiser starts. We’re encouraging everyone to play this year.
- Run a blog? Write for a paper? Are you huge on Facebook, Twitter, Ello? We love it when people help us spread the word. So start warming up your click fingers.
- If you’d like to do an interview or set up some type of more formal press or event with the Worldbuilders team. Drop us a line at Questions [at] worldbuilders.org.
That’s all for now. Stay tuned for more tour announcements and other sundry things.
Brace yourselves, folks, together we’re going to change the world.
pat