Starting a Warhammer Fundraiser, need opinions

[Kefka]

Hi everyone!
I have, for a long time, wanted to run a fundraiser for a good cause. After much planning, creative thought, and talking with friends and GW employees, I am starting up a fundraiser by playing warhammer!

The general idea is like this:
- a large battle is being prepared between Chaos and the Space Marines, however, both sides need support from the warp and the imperium.
- You need to help them by donating! every $1 sent to support our fundraiser will increase both sides points limit by 50 points.
-at the end of the fundraiser, the game will be played. We will set up a live-feed on our site, as well as a detailed battle report after.

However, there are bonuses to people who donate more!
- $5 donations or more will get characters named after you in the game. though $5 will only get you a sergeant, higher donations will get HQ's, monstrous creatures, even tanks named after you! Find out how your character does on the battlefield!
- WE ARE GETTING PRIZE SUPPORT! I have talked to a few of my local hobby shops and GW locations, as well as my GW regional manager. We will be getting a few box sets that will be raffled off to donators. Working out details, I think every $5 or $10 donated will get a raffle ticket in your name. The draws will probably also happen during the live feed and be mentioned on the website after.

This is all the basics to my fundraiser. I am looking for general ideas, suggestions, and an idea of the support we will be getting. At this point we are getting ready to set up the website, the legal/bank stuff, posters/adds, and a bunch of other stuff. If all goes well, the website will be set up this weekend.

As I said, I'm looking for suggestions and interest right now. Any help would be appreciated.


P.S. I forgot to mention the charity which we are raising for. At this time, we are thinking of "Child's Play" You can check out the information on it here: http://www.childsplaycharity.org/
It's a charity for childrens hospitals around the world, donating supplies and entertainment for children in the hospitals. Again this is just an idea, if there is a more worthy cause we are definitely open for suggestions.

Thanks again

--Kefka

[imperialsavant]

:cool: One thing that could work for you & could be run in conjunction with the Game would be a Painting Competition.
You could charge say $10 to enter & have prizes from the gear donated from the stores.
You could also have the players enter their own choice of models from the Game.

[Ivarr]

Sounds like a great idea. Are you planning on Apocalypse rules. I can imagine that this game could wind up very large. Gamers tend to be a giving bunch and I cannot imagine the BOLS community being any different. I for one would love to sponsor a Space Marine Fellblade or something of the sort...maybe a titan...

I really think it is cool that you want to do it for a charity that benefits kids.

[Just_Me]

I like the sound of this. If I might ask, what charity are you supporting?

[Kefka]

Thanks for the input so far.
The painting contest is a great idea, I may well think on it. I know plenty of online communities that have big turn-outs for painting contests, even when there isn't a prize. I'll certainly think about it!
There will probably be a section where we, the players, put up the current army list. From there you should be able to choose what character you want. We are limited to what we have in our possession (unless someone is generous enough to donate a titan or three...). So, unfortunately, there won't be many large models around, maybe a warhound and giant squiggoth or two. But there will be plenty of formations if we get the points for it. 2 battle companies, 1st company, pretty much all the CSM formations, and so on. As the points get bigger, the armies will start to change, so it wont be SM vs CSM after a point, it will become a miss-match of a lot of things as I call on my friends for support.
I'm trying to set this up quickly, but most of it's floating around in my head, so bare in mind if things sound or seem different, or if I'm more incoherent then normal. There is a tournament in my city next weekend and I'm setting up a 50/50 draw to get started on the project and get our name out to the local gamers here.

also, I do have a facebook group set up right now with all the planning details being talked about and help being asked for. Feel free to join up and add you opinion there,as I check it just as frequently as here:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=170987572525&ref=ts

[Ivarr]

There will probably be a section where we, the players, put up the current army list. From there you should be able to choose what character you want. We are limited to what we have in our possession (unless someone is generous enough to donate a titan or three...). So, unfortunately, there won't be many large models around, maybe a warhound and giant squiggoth or two. But there will be plenty of formations if we get the points for it. 2 battle companies, 1st company, pretty much all the CSM formations, and so on. As the points get bigger, the armies will start to change, so it wont be SM vs CSM after a point, it will become a miss-match of a lot of things as I call on my friends for support.

also, I do have a facebook group set up right now with all the planning details being talked about and help being asked for. Feel free to join up and add you opinion there,as I check it just as frequently as here:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=170987572525&ref=ts

I joined the facebook group. And if there are not many "large" models, I am certain that I will find something fun to sponsor. Again, I think this is a very cool idea. In fact, I would be a lot more interested in this than the latest tournament. I like the idea of being involved even if just from a distance. Heck, you might even start a "fad" in the 40k hobby. I love Apocalypse, and I think I would enjoy it even more if I were playing to raise money for a good charity.

[Kefka]

Haha, I do have far off dreams that this becomes an annual, international thing.Were people around the world get sponsors to raise money for them to play in a world wide game or something. But then again, I do dream big.
But I can assure you that if this works out well this year, I will do it again next year. And if the international community likes it,then maybe games in different parts of the world COULD be played. It would take some more organizing, but I would be excited if it got that big.

To be honest, I got the idea from a tournament a few years ago. It was a fundraiser for cancer research: "WAAAAAAAGH ON CANCER!" yeah, itwas pretty awesome. However, the money raised was based off of how many people joined the tournament. So I fiddled with the idea (a lot) recently and thought that this would turn out more patrons. As I said, I really do hopethis is big, and can continue to grow next year. However, even if we only raise $50 or something, I will still be glad we helped with something nice.

[N0rdicNinja]

Love the idea man, if you were to follow through with it I would certainly donate!

[entendre_entendre]

i definitely like the idea, go for it!

[Aegis]

Love the idea behind this. Only thing that may cause problems in my view, though, would be the $1/50 points. If you get a large response, you may find the numbers of models you need will spiral out of control. Besides that, I would love to sponsor enough to allow for some form of Inquisitorial presence on the field...

[Xas]

I think you should set a maximum points vallue on the basis of people who are going to take part.

the internet is hughe and what is if you happen to net 100.000$ ? playing a 5mill point game could be tough.


I'd suggest that you rather run it more often than let it get too hughe.

you could also base the amounth of additional footage on the amounth of money you net.

say (numbers are purely made up as I have zero clue) the first 1000$ "build" up the armies and basic battle report.
the next 1k could bring high res pictures of all the armies in "parade" formation as well as close ups of the most outstanding mdoels and paintjobs (generally I'd keep this game to painted only to rise the quality).
next 1k would bring interfievs with the participants and background info for their armies.

a total of 5k might bring a live netradio stream, 10k makes this video and a bazillion other ideas/possibilities.



if the quality of what you deliver is hhigh enough you can do great things because wargaming isnt really a cheap hobby so you have a good chance of reaching people who at least have the financial background to afford to donate for charity.


If you think about that people monthly shell out ~7€ for the collection of comercial adds the current white dwarf is it isnt hard to assume that many people whould be willing the donate ~5€ for getting a top notch battle report and loads of high res photos of beautiful armies. add "the good cause" and you are in for a default win... again IF quality delivers.

[Kefka]

Thank you again for your suggestions.
I am not too worried about points. I will be calling upon many of my friends to join in as the points go up. About 2 years ago we played a 50k game, and that wasn't using all our models or having everyone join in. My guess is, now, a 75k point game, or maybe even 80k shouldn't be a problem.
$1~50 points was just an idea, honestly, I was thinking more like $1-10 points of there was enough interest, but I am just testing the waters right now.
The problems with it being continual and not annual is
A: the charity we are giving the money to only runs annual, november to end of december.
B: I don't really have enough time every month to run this, I am a student/apprentice/boyfriend/full-time employee. I am pretty much spending every free moment I have getting this set up and talking to you guys. Doing this full-time every month may kill me :P
C: To be honest, I doubt there would be enough support from the community every month. I prefer to make it one big one. Again, this is the first time trying it out, if there is enough support, then I will gladly be proven wrong and make some adjustments.

Right now, there will be player profiles, background, high res photos and battle report. I don't think there needs to be donations for that. It will be money out of my own pocket, but I am willing to do it if this is big enough.

[Kefka]

So, this weekend, There is a tournament in my province that (should) be rather big. I have managed to get some prizes from a local hobby shop I used to work at to help me raise some money. On Saturday, I will be raffling off the new Skaven book to all participants. I will also have the Planet Strike book and a few other small prizes to hand out. This will be the start of my fundraiser and I don't expect a large sum of money here, but enough to get us started.
Well people, lets see where this goes!

[BuFFo]

Don't bother.

GW will probably sue you.







Seriously, best of luck to you! :)

[Kefka]

I'm not giving it out till sunday, the day after release. and there are rouge trader stores that are already selling them as of yesterday, I think GW is more concerned about them then a little fundraiser.