Worldbuilders is a Force-Multiplier for Your Donation

One of the questions we get asked a lot goes like this:

“It’s great that you raise money for Heifer – but why shouldn’t I just give directly to that organization?”

And our answer is always the same: You absolutely should give money to Heifer, and any other charities you care about.

And then we add: if you give money to Worldbuilders, you also get a chance to win cool prizes, support your favorite creators, and help us in our work.

Which sounds good, and isn’t a half-bad elevator pitch, but leaves one question:

What is “our work”, anyway?

Many of you know all the usual answers to this: Worldbuilders creates and licenses cool merchandise with creators and sells it on Worldbuilders Market. Or, Worldbuilders runs big fundraisers at the end of the year where they raise a million dollars and give it all to Heifer International. Or maybe even you’ve heard us mention Worldbuilders is a pass-through fundraiser.

But people sometimes focus a little too much on the “pass-through” part – we’re lucky enough to be able to give 100% of the money we raise to the charities we support – and not enough on the fund-raise.

In particular, on that last part: raise. In the “to make greater” sense of the word. Worldbuilders is a “force-multiplier” for your donations. But…that’s a phrase often used for violent ends. An “impact-amplifier”?

(sigh) Words, they are hard.

Let the Numbers Talk:

In late 2020, we agreed to work with SFWA on their auction, since we raise money in the same way as part of our end-of-year fundraiser for Heifer. We already pay our staff with what we earn from the Marketplace and what you donate, so our only real outlay was $600 for the auction platform.

We turned that $600 into $25,000 for SFWA. We “raised” that money by 4066%.

In 2020 we received about $100,000 total in donations towards our Worldbuilders General Fund. It ain’t much as nonprofits go, but again with the help of sales on the Worldbuilders Market we were able to squeak by and keep our small-but-mighty staff of ten working through the pandemic.

And then at the end of the year that staff organized “Something to Look Forward to”, S2LF2, that raised just over $1 million dollars for Heifer International. We “raised” those donations to our organization by 900% just for Heifer.

As SuperPowers Go, It Ain’t Bad

We do other things at Worldbuilders, of course. We raise awareness of underrepresented authors, we create cool stuff in an ethically-sourced way, we do our best to bring delight and joy with a distinctly geeky flavor to the world in general.

But if you really need a reason to donate to Worldbuilders, it’s because that money you donate is going to grow. It’s going to have a dedicated team of people making sure it has the biggest impact possible towards solving the problems out there – providing clean water and a sustainable food supply, fighting poverty and systemic racism and more.

Why should you join the thousands of Worldbuilders donors? Because, to quote one of our favorite geeky writers, Octavia Butler, you can be

“…like me – a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying.”