Category Archives: Worldbuilders

Losing Wagers, Doubling Donations, and Playing a Beautiful Game…

So for today’s blog to make sense, you might want to go back and read the one I wrote a couple days ago.

It’s was my favorite blog I’ve written in a while, with some quite nice faerie-tale flavor in parts. So even if you don’t care much about the charity stuff I’m doing, there’s something for you to enjoy there.

For those of you who can’t be bothered, here’s the gist: A couple days ago, I wagered the community that they couldn’t raise $333,333 on my team page before I beat the Ender Dragon in Minecraft.

And… well… y’all did it. Handily.

More than that, once I posted the blog and shared it, y’all stormed so hard I didn’t even have time to hit send on a tweet I’d typed up using this graphic:

The Details of The Wager

(Made by the fabulous E’lir Lisa.)

Truth is, this is exactly what I was hoping for. That people would hear the news, get excited, then come in and make it a race. Then we’d play together, have some fun, raise scads of money to feed hungry kids, and make the world a better place.

But… it kinda worked *better* than we’d anticipated. Y’all came in and just trampled things to the extent that we burned through *all* our stretch goals within hours, leaving us without more cool stuff we could immediately offer. Let alone graphics to show them off.

Pat's Streaming Schedule for 12/14

(Graphics like this.)

And so while it was cool, it was also a bit of a shame. We were left with nothing else to offer up despite the fact that the fundraiser is still going on and all donations are still being matched.

First off, let’s be clear. Y’all won the wager. So:

  1. I’ll be reading the prologue of Doors of Stone and doing a Q&A on my Twitch Channel.
  2. I’ll be showing off some of the finished pages of the The Boy That Loved The Moon.
  3. I’ll be releasing a chapter of Doors of Stone into the wild. (When? I’ talk about that below.)

But it seems a shame to stop there. For one thing, I still haven’t beaten the Ender Dragon.

And also, we still needed more stretch goal prizes for the team page.

And also also, I really liked those graphics that E’lir Lisa came up with, and we barely got to use them…

So here’s what we’re doing:

(Warning, this graphic on the blog won’t be updated as frequently as over on Twitch Team Page.)

You see the stretch goals on the left? Those are going into the prize draw as soon as folks hit the donation amount.

That said, if y’all manage to hit those goals *before* I beat the Ender Dragon, I’ll donate TWO of each prize.

“But wait!” I hear you cry. “What’s that thing way down at the bottom there?

Here’s the thing, I’ve met a lot of cool folks over the years. Voice actors, comedians, musicians, audio narrators, performers, actors, puppeteers….

I think that sounds like a fun way of releasing the early peek of the book. I’m hoping some of my friends will like the idea too.

So I’m going to cast my net among my friends and see who might like to come help me read the chapter of Doors of Stone for y’all. Then, if we hit $666,666, I’ll  assemble the Geek Glitterati equivalent of the Avengers and we’ll record it for you. It might take a bit to assemble, as cool people tend to be busy, and there’s no way I’m going to ask them to do it during the fundraiser. But I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to get it done early next year. February at the latest.

Okay. We ready? Here we go.

My team page is already over $420,000.

All donations are currently being matched.

The Fundraiser runs until midnight on the 14th.

Race you to the end…

pat

Edit: 1:31 pm – In the last 12 hours, through the dark hours of night when I was mostly asleep, the team page has raised another $60,000 unlocking double sets HeroQuest and the cool, Wooden-box version of Risk from Avalon Hill. AS WELL AS two copies of the limited edition cover of of Vault of Magic from Kobold Press that I wrote a part of, personalized by me, with some of the rare D&D cards.

Y’all are amazing…

Also posted in Achievement Unlocked!, Acts of Whimsy, Beautiful Games, Book Three, calling on the legions, contests, cool things, Worldbuilders 2021 | By Pat50 Responses

Concerning Minecraft, Faerie Bargains, and an Early Peek into The Doors of Stone.

Okay. There’s a story I’ve been wanting to share here for a couple days, but with all the chaos of the fundraiser, I haven’t been able to manage it.

Sorry it’s taken so long, as it’s related to Book Three, and I know that’s something everyone here is interested in to some degree or other.

So here we go:

Once years and miles away, there was a man who loved books, and games , and stories. He did not consider himself wise, but was still wise enough to know he was happiest when he was being a bit of a fool. He was an odd sort, beset by melancholy, and often felt as if he didn’t fit into the world. He was uncommonly lucky, and uncomfortably honest, and he always kept his word.

All of this taken together led some folk to wonder if his mother had been visited by the sort of odd folk who always seem to be showing up in the dark hours just as children are being born. The sort of people that leave no footprints, and speak oddly, so it’s hard to tell if they’re good oracles, bad poets, or merely self-important busybodies who lack proper jobs and have too much time on their hands.

Other people suspected it had nothing to do with events surrounding his birth. Instead they thought perhaps he had a demon riding in his shadow, or a single drop of faerie blood, or that one of his long-forgotten ancestors had lay down among the Gorse…

His name was Patrick Rothfuss. Those who knew him, knew he enjoyed a good wager. But those who knew him better knew the truth, and that was that he *loved* a wager, especially if it was reckless and unwise….

*     *     *

About a week ago, we fired up our yearly Worldbuilders fundraiser.

It’s going pretty well so far, by the way. As I write this, we’re just on the cusp on unlocking a new chunk of Matching Money….

As you can see from this year’s swank thermometer, it’s not just direct donations that will help us hit that goal. We’re also factoring in bids on our vast array of auction items and all the holiday shopping y’all are doing over in the Worldbuilders Market.

And as many of you know, I’ve been doing a lot of streaming over the last week. Talking about the charity. Playing games and doing various promotional events.

None of that is particularly new, of course. I’ve streamed a lot to promote the charity over the last 5 years.

What *is* different is that this year, I decided to kick off the fundraiser with a Marathon Minecraft Stream (TM) where I vowed to keep playing until I beat the Ender Dragon or my actual human real-world body failed me.

(Fig 1. promotional graphic.)

It was just some goofy fun. I enjoy Minecraft, but I’m not great at it. I’ve never beaten the Ender Dragon, or even made it to the end. I’ve never even found to the Stronghold or made an eye of Ender, now that I’m thinking of it.

And I knew it beating the game would take longer than normal because I’d be pausing to give away prizes and talk about charity. And I hadn’t played Minecraft much in the last six months, so I was pretty rusty….

Even so, I was pretty sure I could do it. I mean, I’ve seen people beat the whole game on youtube in under twenty minutes.

I know I’m no speedrunner, it might take me 8-9 hours. But that’s nothing. I’ve streamed 14 hours straight in previous fundraisers. Plus, I knew that me struggling and sometimes failing would be just as fun for people to watch as me succeeding, if not more so….

Fast forward. Charity is going well. Money coming in. People watching the stream. My Minecraft run was…  unimpressive. I was playing the long game, and making methodical progress. Hadn’t died. But I had no diamonds. No enchanted gear. No real lucky breaks. My base was a haphazard hole in the ground. The opposite of a hobbit hole. My farms were like something Dante would have written about if he wanted to scare cows into being better Christians.

Fast forward. More money. More stream. My boys came in to cheer me on. They brought me water and cuteness and comic relief. Perfect pit crew.

Fast Forward: I read the boys their bedtime story live on the stream (a chapter from Something Wicked This Way Comes). Then I went to tuck them into bed and came back to do charity and search for diamonds. I was fully prepared to play straight through the night until I had to drive them to school in the morning, then come back and keep soldiering on until I finally won or collapsed.

Then came the first wager. In a fit of hubris, I bet the chat that I could beat the Ender Dragon before they raised $100,000 on my team page. I dared them. I taunted and cajoled….

…I told them if they won, I’d read them the prologue of Book Three.

And thus the deal was made.

(Would you buy a used car from this man?)

But life is what happens while you were making other plans. My boys had been vaccinated that day, and over the next 4-5 hours, when I went in to check on them, they were increasingly sweaty and restless. So after 12 hours I bowed out of the stream with the blessing of the chat so I could go be a good dad. Because when you wake up sweaty and sick in the middle of the night, it’s nice to have your dad right there ready to take care of you…

And then, packing lunches, and school, and organizing and promoting the fundraiser, and scheduling events and being a dad…

… and I honestly I forgot about the wager.

But forgetting doesn’t make a wager go away. And, to make a long story short, after picking up my playthrough on my stream two days later, I lost.

So I brought to bear the fullness of my power. I summoned up the fullness of my will and wit, my terrible persuasion. All this and more I focused on the folk who were tuned in to the stream. And thus I spoke:

Yes they’d won wager. I would read them the prologue. Absolutely. They had it. Fairly fought and fairly won.

But a prologue. What is that, really? Just a taste. A tease. A paltry page. It’s barely a bite. A meager morsel for those whose hearts are hungry for a story.

Wouldn’t they like a chance to win… more? To wager what they’d won in hope of greater gain? Wouldn’t they like the chance for More? More secrets? More story?

Thus I offered them a second wager.

Their stakes: the prologue they had fairly won.

My stakes: Three things. Three secrets from Temerant:

  • I’ll read the prologue of The Doors of Stone live on stream.
  • I’ll provide a full, self-contained, spoiler-free chapter of Doors of Stone.
  • I’ll share some early, finished pages of my the comic I’ve been working on for years with Nate: the illustrated version of the Boy That Loved the Moon.

This is what I offered the chat of the livestream. A chance not just to win, but to win so much more….

But only if they raised more money for charity. Only if they got the donations on my team page all the way from $100,000 to $333,0000.

BEFORE I beat the Ender Dragon.

And then we took a vote:

I’ll embiggen the relevant portion myself so you can see…

(As you can see, the folks who follow my stream enjoy a wager too)

And so the deal was struck.

And now, even if you weren’t there, you know the story.

And t’know what? As a gesture of good faith, I’ll give you the first page of the comic right here and now, out of the goodness of my heart…

(Never let it be said I do not bargain in good faith.)

So. If my team page hits $333,333 before I beat the Ender Dragon. You win three things.

If I beat the Ender Dragon first, you lose.

That’s the Wager.

I’ve taken a break off from my playthough to manage the fundraiser and run other events. Also, I promised I wouldn’t continue my run until I’d made the announcement here on my blog to let y’all know the whole story. To let you know what was happening. What the stakes were. And as you all know, I keep my promises.

But I’ve done it now. Shared the news. Told told story.

As soon as I post this, I’m jumping back onto my livestream, and will be heading for the Ender dragon with marked determination. Because I *do* love a wager. But I also always play to win.

So. The clock is ticking.

Here’s the link to my Team Page.

Come at me.

pat

Also posted in Beautiful Games, Book Three, calling on the legions, cool news, graphic novels, hubris, My brilliant ideas, my dumbness, My Iconoclastic Tendencies, Nathan Taylor, side projects, Stories about stories., upcoming publications, video games, Warning: Mild Literary Faffery, Worldbuilders 2021 | By Pat39 Responses

Love, Money, and Milk: Geeks Doing Good

Hey there space cowboys. I’ve got some exciting stuff to talk about today…

Those of you who have been following the blog for a while, probably know about the work I do with a charity called Worldbuilders.

(It delights me when people don’t know I actually started Worldbuilders on this blog, by accident, back in the day. But that, as they say, is another story.)

Worldbuilders does a lot of things. But most notably we raise money for Heifer International during our big End-Of-Year fundraiser. Over the years, we’ve raised more than $11,000,000 for Heifer, helping parents feed their children, helping little girls go to school, helping communities drink clean water, helping people have the training, tools, and education that they need to take control of their lives.

It’s a big teach-a-person-to-fish thing. Except with goats and chickens and cows and bees and trees. No. Not fishing for goats. And no, you don’t fish *with* a goat. You milk them. The goats, not the fish…

Okay. Let me start again.

It’s like this: If you give a hungry family a goat (and the tools and training to care for it) they’ll milk that goat. Then every day this happens.

(I’m writing this on father’s day. And this picture makes me weepy.)

That. That right there. That’s what Worldbuilders does. We help. We want to make the world a better place.

We’ve raised money for charities other than Heifer too: we’ve helped with Puerto Rico’s hurricane relief, with Syrian refugees, with children’s literacy, and medical supplies to marginalized communities during the pandemic…

(We kinda do a lot, actually. Kinda too much to list here. But if you like, you can go look at the map of our projects over here.)

What not as *many* folks know is that Worldbuilders also runs an online store full of delightful geek treasures: Signed books, comics, cool games, original art prints, T-shirts, Jewelry, and other assorted bits of lovely geekery. We make and sell those things to help creatives make money while giving their communities a chance to show their support (and do the geek equivalent of showing their gang colors.)

(Throws underthing gang sign.)

[Side Note: I support creators making money off their art and merch, as artists need to eat. That said, a lot of the folks who partner with Worldbuilders let them keep the royalties they would otherwise earn, myself included.]

The items we sell in the store help generate money for Worldbuilders, too. This is kind of a big deal, as Worldbuilders needs to do things like pay its electricity bill and buy paperclips and stuff. We also like to pay our employees so they can do things like buy food and clothes so they can… y’know… keep being alive.

This is one of the big reasons Worldbuilders is different from a lot of other charities. When we run a fundraiser, say, to support Mercy Corps, we pass along 100% of what we raise to that organization. Most other pass-through charities keep a small percentage of what they raise, then use that money to keep themselves running, which is important because if the business side of things fails, then no charity happens. (Of course, as you know, some charities pass along almost none of what they raise. But Worldbuilders doesn’t work with folks like that. And ultimately, that’s a story for a different day.)

Here’s the thing though. I love that Worldbuilders gets to pass along 100% of what it raises. But it *does* make things kinda tricky on the business side. It means we can raise two million dollars to feed hungry kids… and then have trouble paying our water bill or fixing a computer when it breaks.

That’s why several years ago, we started running the Geeks Doing Good fundraiser.

The purpose of GDG is manifold:

  1. We need to make that munny, yo. We gotta keep the lights on.
  2. We experiment with new products and creative partnerships.
  3. We make weird, fun stuff we might not normally have in our store.
  4. We offer limited-time deals to reward the folks on our mailing list.
  5. We raise awareness of the fact that Worldbuilders makes and sells cool stuff.

So. Here we are. Now you know why we’re doing this.

(You can just click and go over there right now, if you want.)

It’s a big week-long fundraiser where we try to raise awareness of the fact that *yes* we’re a charity, but we also run an online store full of cool stuff that you simply can’t find anywhere else.

What kind of stuff, you might ask?

How about cool Kingkiller art prints from Marc Simonetti?

Or for you Dresden Files fans out there:

A bargain on the only comic I’d ever compare to Calvin and Hobbes?

We also have some rarer stuff, too.

We’re also bundling things together to save you money, and bringing out things that haven’t been for sale in ages…

 

 

(So. Much. Stuff.)

Many of the Kingkiller-specific items have a “7” in the price, so they’re easier for y’all to spot.

Anyway. There’s SO much stuff over there. Way too much to mention here. You should go look yourself.

Fair Warning: many items are limited quantities, so they might sell out. But the good news is: new stuff is getting added every day. So there are always more reasons to stop back in and take a look around.

Also, and I can’t stress this enough, remember that unlike Kickstarter, you can buy more than one item. 

So you can go hog wild in there.

So go…

pat

P.S. Oh. Also, I’m doing a 12 hour promotional stream today on Twitch, so if you want to see me play games, answer questions, and explain some of these items in more detail, you can tune in there. (I’m streaming all this week, and we’ll be updating this graphic with new items as they’re added.)

I’m super excited about this one in particular….

Okay. Thanks much for caring. Help us spread the word!

Also posted in College Survival Guide, cool news, cool things, Geeks Doing Good, hodgelany | By Pat6 Responses

Final day of the Fundraiser! Come see the celebratory Stretch goal videos!

Heya everyone!

It’s the final day of our big Worldbuilders Fundraiser, we’re at $900,000 already, with almost twelve hours to go, and I thought I’d share a bunch of the cool stretch goals that have been unlocked where cool people have been helping us spread the world about what we’re doing.

Check them out. Feel the joy, and please share them around on your social media. Today’s our last chance to get the word out….

(Here’s a link to my Team page, if you’re interested.)

Unlocked Worldbuilders Stretch Goal Videos:

 

If any of these brought you joy, and you’d like to help us make the world a better place while winning cool prizes, you can donate over here:

Also posted in cool things, videos | By Pat1 Response

Seven Words: Or Stay Home And Save the World(builders).

Hey there everybody,

I’m guessing a lot of you are like me, in that you spend Black Friday huddled inside your house, wrapped in a blanket with the lights off, vowing not to go outside for hear of dealing with the worst elements of humanity.

It’s pretty much the same way I’d behave if The Purge were a real thing, come to think of it.

Luckily, Worldbuilders Market online store is running its own sale that you can participate in from the safety of your own house, or even from under a blanket, if you so desire.

(Check out our fancy graphics)

Pretty much everything in the store is on sale:

The sale is running from today until December 2nd, but the quantities of some items are limited, so if you’re interested you might want to get in there sooner rather than later.

I’m going to start with the stuff I’m most worried about selling out, so those of you who read the blog regularly have the best chance of getting in there in time…

 

Those of you who have been around for a while know that our online store used to sell personalized books. But after years, I had to stop doing it because it was eating up a huge chuck of my time at a point in my life where I was already way too busy and behind schedule.

But this year, to help out with the Black Friday Sale, we’re offering these up in the store again. But just a limited number, and only for a limited time.

I’m going to be personaizling both the gorgeous 10th Anniversary Edition of The Name of the Wind, and The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Now here’s the thing, part of the reason I had to stop doing this is because back in the day people used to ask for really long, detailed personalizations. Not only is there not enough space to write several sentences on the title page of the book, but the longer and more detailed the quote, the more likely it is that I’ll goof part of it up and then we pretty much just have to throw that book into a fire.

To solve that problem, here’s the rule: Keep your personalization to seven words.

For example:

“Kevin, Hope you have a great birthday!”

“Merry Christmas, Jennifer!”

“For Susan, Congratulations on your parole!”

“Happy Bris, Geralt! Sorry about your dick!”

As an interesting note, while typing up this blog, I misspelled both “Congratulations” “Anniversary” and “Parole” on my first pass. And that’s *typing* where I actually have muscle memory working for me. (You can understand why it takes me a while to sign these. )

As part of the black Friday sale, we’ll also be throwing free change jar stickers in with your orders. And folks who pick up the 10th Anniversary editions will get a free bookmark, too.

(Like so.)

I also have added some random quotes a limited number of the standard blue hardcover of The Name of the Wind.

To be clear, these books aren’t personalized, but I’ve written a bunch of my favorite quotes from NOTW in them, like so…

(Click to Embiggen)

Those of you who love Julia Maddalina’s depiction of Auri will be delighted to see that we’ve made a cool new poster in two different sizes  and a greeting card based on her art.

I’m not saying this is my favorite depiction of Auri ever, because there have been some amazing ones over the years. But I did buy the original art…

The Fabulous Nate Taylor has also thrown his hat into the ring with a bunch of cool cards for the store this year, including these three new kingkiller-themed ones

As an interesting note, not only are all the cards discounted due to the Black Friday Sale, but the more you buy of *all* the cards available in the store, the more of a bulk discount you get. That includes all the cards in the store, including Julia’s new Auri card.

Lastly but not leastly, this year we’re also very excited to be offering products made by artisans in Heifer programs

It’s something we’ve been wanting to do for *ages* and I’m delighted we’ve finally pulled it off.

Stay safe today, folks. And while you’re binging on leftover stuffing, take a wander over to the store and check things out. There’s hundreds of other products from so many different creators, and for the next couple days, all of them are on sale…

pat

(I might be streaming later on to show off some of these products live. If you wander over to my channel and follow it, you’ll get a notification when I go live.)

Also posted in fan coolness, Nathan Taylor Art | By Pat19 Responses

Taking some extra money off your boss…

Hey there you delightful, good-smelling paragons of humanity.

Thanks to everyone who tuned in to the Fundraiser warm-up blog I posted up last Friday. And double thanks to all of you who chimed with companies who match their employees donations to charity.

I’d said I was going to keep a running list at the end of that blog, but that blog was looooong, and it would require a lot of scrolling to get to the list at the end. So instead we’re going to put it here in its very own place.

Here’s the list so far of places we’ve heard will match your donation to Worldbuilders:

  • Mastercard (Matches 2 to 1)
  • AT&T
  • Most Berkshire Hathaway companies
  • Expedia Group
  • Intel (up to $10,000)
  • Salesforce (matches donations over $50 logged in their Volunteerforce app)
  • Oracle
  • Lending Club (up to $200)
  • Apple
  • Cigna
  • Microsoft (up to $14,000)
  • Avanade
  • Cardinal Health (matches at 50%)
  • Global Payments
  • BP (up to $5000)
  • Illumina
  • Boston Scientific (up to $500)
  • Google
  • Boeing
  • Alaska Air
  • Dress for Less
  • Bank of America
  • Starbucks
  • Bandcamp
  • VMware
  • Keen (up to $1000 annually)
  • First Interstate Bank
  • Adobe

We’ve also heard from some folks whose companies match donations, but who don’t recognize Worldbuilders…. yet. These are great contacts for us, as it means we can start a conversation with that company and move toward getting on their approved list. (Which is typically *super* easy, as we’re all manner of legit, have been around for years, and at this point we’re *real* good at filling out this paperwork.)

So yeah. If you want to help us reel in your corporation, or if you ARE a corporation and want to become a sponsor, feel free to ping us at the following e-mail.

*Ahem*

[email protected]

(If you want to know the story behind how that address came to be, read the previous blog.)

Thanks so much to everyone who has been sharing their knowledge and helping us build this list. Your help has been invaluable. If you’re just tuning in now and know your company matches donations, please drop us their name in the comments below and we’ll use that information to keep updating this list.

This might seem odd to say, but it actually feels good to be writing blogs again. I’ve missed y’all.

Stay tuned for the upcoming black Friday blog. We’ve got a bunch of sales and items going up over at the Worldbuilders Market.

Also, I’m starting to livestream more often over on Twitch in preparation for the fundraiser. Right now I’m playing Minecraft for the first time, and it’s been… eventful. Which is a gentle way of saying that when I play a game like this, I typically start a stream as a pacifist who wants to build a beautiful aquarium, and I end the stream drowning a horse in a fit of pique.

So… yeah. If that’s the sort of thing you’d like to watch. Feel free to wander over there and follow the channel, then you’ll get a notification when I go live.

pat

Also posted in signing books | By Pat17 Responses

Bracing for Impact…

Hey there everybody – long time no blog.

This year has been… a year. It feels like it has stretched on forever. Endless and interminable. Like I’ve been living Zeno’s year.

In other ways the time has blurred by. I feel like I’ve spent the whole year running from emergency to emergency, trying to put out fires.  And now, after all of it… the fires are kinda still there? They’re not worse for the most part, which is nice, I suppose. But it feels like I should have more to show for this than singed hands and a collection of not-as-bad-as-it-might-otherwise-be crises smouldering sullenly around me.

It’s kinda like treading water, except with all that burning talk in the previous paragraph that analogy doesn’t work, does it? I’m mixing a metaphor really badly. Maybe I’m treading fire instead.

Anyway. What I really mean to say here is that I feel bad that I’ve been… away. Absent for a longish while. I haven’t streamed as much on twitch. Haven’t gone to as many conventions or signings. Haven’t completed a lot of projects I was hoping to finish and share with y’all. Haven’t finished any of the blogs I’ve started. Hell, I haven’t hardly been tweeting this year.

But time and tide wait of no man. And whether I lost this year to fire or water, whether it was fast or slow – It’s November now, and that means Worldbuilders is nigh upon us.

I feel unprepared, and overwhelmed, and… oddly grateful.

Here’s the thing. There’s a lot of stuff in the world I can’t fix right now. A lot of stuff in my life I can’t make better, try as I might.

But I can do some charity. I can feed some hungry kids.

You guys want to come along with me and make the world a better place?

*     *     *

This year the Worldbuilders fundraiser will run from December 3rd to the 17th.

If you’ve been around for Worldbuilders before, there will be a lot familiar there. We have thousands of prizes, fabulous auctions, videos about goats… I’ll be livestreaming and hosting discussion panels with other cool geeks and luminaries. We will have surprises and spectacles galore…

Before the madness sets in, before it all starts, I want to make sure you know how much you all mean to me. So many of you show up for this every year, and that is one of the few constant and unswerving joys in my life. One of the few things that never fails to warm my bitter old heart.

You are my people. Cut from a similar cloth and yearning to do something good in the world. You don’t know how much that means to me.

(Just remembered this picture someone made for me, based off a blog I wrote.)

Now to be clear, this blog isn’t the announcement of the beginning of the fundraiser. It’s just a heads-up. I’m letting you know you should brace for impact.

The fundraiser is only two weeks long now where we used to run it for an entire MONTH. That means once it starts, it’s going to come on hard and fast. If you miss even a couple days, you’ll miss a lot.

If you’re excited about what’s coming up, and you’d like to lend a hand or to start preparing for the coming storm, we have a couple ideas:

  • Wanna help us spread the word?

This is always a challenge for us. How do we get more eyes on the coolness that is Worldbuilders?

We’ve got two ways you can help:

1. Bring a Friend.

This is the simplest thing we’re going to ask people to do. Not just bump things around on social media or share links. (Though that *is* a lovely help.)

This year, we’re asking those of you who already love Worldbuilders to recruit one person and bring them into the fold. Like a cult.

Nope. Wait. I’ve just been told we’re not going with that. Not like a cult. Our branding people are 100% not cool with me comparing our charity fundraiser to a cult.

Mabye we’re more like a secret new Hogwarts house? No… they’re saying no. Copyright issue there. Maybe a gang? They’re there scowling at me now. How about a club? A cool club that you love and you want to share with other large-hearted people who enjoy winning cool prizes and making the world a better place?

So yeah. I mention that we’d like to bring more people into the fold now, so you can start to think about who your best target might be. So you can study them. Track their movements. Make a list of their weaknes…

Nope. Wait. Again. They’re shaking their heads very firmly. Not that.

Just give it a bit of a think. Odds are, I’m guessing you know someone out there who would love the chance to do some good in the world while also having the chance to win cool books and games.

And if you happen to know a *bunch of people…

2. Plan your own page.

This year, we’re letting people create their own fundraiser pages as part of the main Worldbuilders Event.

This means you can create a place to rally a group of people around. You can make a page for your book club, your church, your local co-op or Comic Book store. You can make a page and tell your family that for Christmas, you’d like a donation there instead of a gift. You can make a page and tell your friends if they manage to raise $300 (enough for clean water for an entire village) you’ll *finally* run that Call of Cuthulu game they’ve been bugging you about for years.

You can do anything you want with your team page, really. We’ll be throwing the doors open for you to create them on the first day of the fundraiser.

But you can start your planning now….

  • Want to Leverage your donation?

Every year we get some folks who donate large chunks of money, but don’t care about winning prizes. Sometimes they’ve approached us directly and asked if we wanted to use their money for matching donations to encourage other people to donate.

It’s a great strategy. So this year we’re inviting people to do that if they’d like to. To effectively come in as sponsors to the charity in the same way a publisher or a game company would.

But before I give you the contact e-mail, I have to explain something.

Many of you may remember Thera from Last year’s fundraiser. She’s the one that rallied my own people against me and pushed for this abomination as a stretch goal:

See, Thera is a big fan of John Mulaney, which is right and good, as the man is brilliant.

Anyway, I mention all of this as context so you understand why she chose this particular e-mail as the way to contact us at our very professional charity if you’d like to offer up some matching money:

[email protected]

So… yeah. There you go.

  • Help us take some money off our corporate overlords?

Guess what? Turns out a lot of big businesses offer corporate matching money if their employees donate to official, federally recognized charities.

A charity like, just to pick a name off the top of my head, Worldbuilders.

Mastercard, for example. Offers a *double* match. So if one of their employees makes a $100 donation, Mastercard kicks in $200 of its own making it $300 total.

I’d like to compile a list of businesses that offer matching deals like that. I’m guessing a lot of you work for places that would gladly back your charity play and you don’t even know it.

So. If you work somewhere that offers something similar, and they recognize Worldbuilders as valid recipient, can you mention it in the comments below? We’ll dig through our records too, and start a compiling a running list here at the bottom of this blog?

What’s more, if you check and discover your company needs something from Worldbuilders to get officially recognized, ping us at the address above and we’ll jump whatever hoops they require so we can get hold of that sweet, sweet corporate honey.

That’s all for now. Thanks for sticking with me to the end of the blog, and until the end of the year.

I’m looking forward to surprising you over the next couple weeks.

pat

Also posted in How to be a Worthwhile Human Being, musings, trepidation | By Pat57 Responses
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