#Charity Fundraising Expert

[chrisstoddardfundraisinguk]

Chris Stoddard: The Authority on Small Charity Fundraising with Over £20M Raised Globally

Chris Stoddard is an international speaker, author, and charity fundraising specialist with a focus on small charities. As the CEO of RaiseMore, Chris has helped raise over £20 million globally for charitable organisations. With unparalleled expertise in the sector, Chris offers insights that transform small charity fundraising strategies. Visit: https://chrisstoddardfundraising.co.uk/

[tiredguyswag]

one of those masterposts for Sudan 🇸🇩

Disclaimer: I am not Sudanese, and am in no way an expert on the ongoing crisis. Corrections, if any, are welcome.

LAST UPDATED: 26th April 2024 [Please try to reblog the original post as much as possible]

~

So what's going on in Sudan? Sudan was under the rule of the military dictator Omar Al-Bashir for thirty years. He came to power through a military coup in June 1989. His rule saw extreme economic decline, repression, and conflict. In the December of 2018, a democratic revolution began that eventually overthrew the dictatorship on April 11, 2019, and saw the beginning of a military rule by militant parties SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces) and RSF (Rapid Support Forces). This unrest is, of course, funded by western governments.

On the 15th of April, 2023, fighting broke out in Khartoum between the SAF and RSF. Clashes spread across the nation of Sudan, and the civilian populace is still caught in the middle. According to UN officials, Sudan is in “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history."

There is an ongoing war in Sudan, and it's getting worse. There is a health crisis along with the humanitarian crisis as well: around 2/3rds of the population do not have access to healthcare services. Around 15-20 millions suffer from hunger. There are 70 non-operational healthcare facilities in conflict zones. Thousands killed, millions displaced, and a dramatic increase in sexual violence and rape cases.

~

Links for Learning Resources:

Hadhreen: Hadhreen started as an initiative by a small group of Sudanese youth in 2015. Since its inception it continued to work in a variety of sectors, most notably Emergency response, health, and in supporting vulnerable groups.

Talk About Sudan: Learn more about what's happening in Sudan and actions you can take. Also has donation links for those who are able.

Keep Eyes On Sudan: A website run by Sudanese diaspora to amplify the calls of the Sudanese people. Has donation links, actions you can take, upcoming protests and events, resources, FAQs, etc.

#SudanSyllabus.docx: An extensive and well-sourced document, providing English language resources about Sudanese history. It's really long and has got lots of links to books, articles, and more. Curated by Razan Idris.

Human Rights Watch

~

Donation Links:

List of verified charities providing humanitiarian assistance in Sudan

Help Sudan Tarada Initiative: The aim is to deliver emergency basic needs, food and medicine. Funds will be transferred directly to local charities and organization who are managing those shelters to make sure that the funds are well received and is spent on the needs specified.

One Million Sustainable Pads Campaign: Fundraiser to help provide women in IDPs camps with reusable pads

Zubeyda Adam and family (Sudan)

Our home bombarded and destroyed

Help my family escape Sudan's war

Save a transperson in african Refugee camp from starvation [Unsure about the legibility of this one since its not from the person themself, but if someone can verify this for me that would be great]

Hope For Sudan

Darfur Women Action

Doctors Without Borders

Fill A Heart: Financial Assistance to Sudanese Hospitals

Hometax: Sudan Relief

Cairo Sudan Aid

Amal For Women

Sudan Solidarity Collective

Sadagaat

UNICEF

~

These are all the links I have so far. Please spread awareness about Sudan! Let me know if there are any links I should add to the post and I will update it.

[comicaurora]

Sorry to drop a hella irl-political question on your mostly webcomic blog, but have you/any of the OSP gang heard of/been participating in the week-long strike for palestine that's been (presumably) all over tumblr/the internet?

For some background info: Following the attack on Oct. 7th by the hamas militant group (a terrorist org. Or resistance group, depending who you ask), the state of israel (which is practically a mass colonial settlement on Palestinian land since '48) has taken the attack as an excuse to indiscriminately bomb the homes of thousands if not millions of homes while forcebly displacing almost all of the ~2.3 million people crammed in the gaza strip with no escape.

'Israel' has also tightened it's blockade on the strip of land such that a growing majority of people there are experiencing catastrophic starvation, disease from sewage-infested drinking water (as water aid is too scarce). Soon even deaths by preventable causes such as diabetes will occur since insulin pens for children have been blocked from entering by israel, who controls gaza's borders, water, power, food supplies, and shoreline. Civilians in Gaza are very frequently and indiscriminately killed often in places they were told were safe zones to evacuate to. It's agreed upon by both experts and laymen worldwide that what is happening (and has BEEN happening before Oct.7th) is nothing short of genocide.

In the occupied Palestinian west bank, where there is no hamas whatsoever to use as an excuse, Palestinians are still arrested without a fair trial for years, abused, prevented from using certain roads, shot, and often straight-up have their houses stolen by armed or military-backed israeli settlers (many of whom have no ancestral connection to the land at all) in a system often compared to or outright stated to be apartheid.

Very recently, a journalist in Gaza by the name of Bisan Owda called for a strike from January 21st to January 28th. The conditions of the strike can be paraphrased as:

Cease all unnecessary purchases or payments, avoid generating ad revenue when possible

Do not go to work or school if you can possibly avoid it

Pay for things only in cash if you must

Use social media exclusively to flood the internet with palestinian voices and resources about the ongoing genocide against the palestinian people

Attend protests if you can

Be visible.

It's the 26th now, but joining late would be far better than to not join at all and stay silent.

I figured I'd ask since since OSP has covered various topics about history and/or politics and we're kinda watching some awful history unfolding, the kind of history where neutrality doesn't really work and a side needs to be taken.

Opinions? (Sorry if I'm coming across as condescending! I just really want my favorite blogs to be aware and take a stance rather than being silent hhhghf)

Okay, here's my answer.

OSP has been supporting calls for a ceasefire for months, and we were fundraising in direct support of it via Doctors Without Borders all through November and December. Total, we raised over $30,000. If we include the UNICEF fundraiser we ran on the Spider-Man streams, the total is over $40,000.

During our charity livestreams, we have made our positions clear – we support a ceasefire, Israel is perpetuating settler-colonialist violence and has been for decades, Hamas is a terrorist organization that endangers Israelis and Palestinians alike, the innocent people of both Palestine and Israel deserve safety and peace. We concluded that the best thing we could do under the circumstances was empower those who are in a real position to actually help by providing funding for their work. We believe this is significantly more beneficial than adding Another Angry Internet Post to the pile of insular outrage on Internet Land. Fundraising for the organizations with boots on the ground feels like it does a lot more good than being loud online for the benefit of other online people.

This is not the first time I've heard reference to the strike, but it is the first time I've seen the parameters of the strike laid out, which to me indicates that it wasn't spread as widely or effectively as it could've been.

I understand and appreciate why you sent this ask, but your premise worries me. I know this may surprise and startle us denizens of the internet, but being extremely loud on the internet is not the only or the most effective form of activism, and people not being extremely loud on the internet with every account they have is not the same thing as silent complicity in war crimes, and people acting like those two things are the same thing has been unbelievably frustrating to watch.

If we act like everything is a binary moral choice between "scream your loudest, most angry opinions online every time you feel angry about them" and "not doing that is literally the same thing as participating in genocide", we are creating a very strong pressure to flood the internet with our angriest, most unformed thoughts, lest we be branded as complicit in war crimes. Social media sites live and die on engagement, hence why twitter has rapidly trended towards doomscrolling and encouraging inflammatory clickbait - angry shouty people are traffic and traffic is money. The cynical part of me is utterly unsurprised that social media encourages the idea that the only true form of activism is being loud on social media.

It sounds like you had the feeling that sending me this ask was weird and a boundary overstep, and you were correct. My platform is not world-changing or in any way politically powerful beyond our ability to create charity fundraisers for causes we believe in, and we are doing what we can to help in the tiny ways that we can from halfway across the world, from a position of absolutely zero political weight beyond emailing our representatives. You are just asking me to also shout about it online loudly enough that I measure up to an artificial loudness metric, because my existing shouting was not already loud or omnipresent enough.

You are not entitled to know every thought in my head or every action I take in my life. I am not online to perform outrage and live up to an arbitrary moral standard of Shouting Enough. I am especially not online on my fantasy webcomic blog to do those things. Please understand that what you see of me is what I choose to share, and I am under no obligation, moral or otherwise, to share more.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

…..that will not land the way she wanted it to.

The people who will have watched it are pissed off, the people she wanted to watch could careless and the people who don’t know it happened won’t know they missed anything because she’s a non story now. People think she’s fake and especially with the election cycle coming up, people have a lot less tolerance for fake people.

Yep.

There's been a slow but mighty shift in how the public treats, sees, considers celebrities and influencers in recent years. It started in the late '10s, but really kicked off in March 2020 with the hypocrisy of pandemic response (Gal Gadot's "Imagine" video played a huge role and some consider it to be an inflection point) and hasn't let up since.

Pre-cultural shift, celebrities and influencers had a pretty high status in society. They could be all and no action, as long as there were pretty pictures on social media. They could be preachy without much backlash because we didn't know any better. The public wasn't as educated on fake news and misinformation so we bought their PR as fact. There was more tolerance for famous people's bullshit because we couldn't hold them accountable and because we didn't know where the PR started and reality began.

But post-cultural shift? We've been educated on fake news and misinformation and we can tell when we're being lied to. We know enough about PR and media relations to read between the lines. We know how to use media (traditional and social) to hold people accountable. We require celebrities and influencers to commit to their promises and follow-through on their actions. We're hyper-aware of the disparities and incongruities between us that we have no more tolerance for preaching and other Famous People bullshit (aka entitlement).

The easiest, biggest, best way to see this public shift is in celebrity humanitarian aid, celebrity activism, and celebrity philanthropy. Pre-pandemic, celebrity humanitarian aid was exclusively about the celebrity and giving the celebrity credit. The celebrity doing good. The celebrity donating big money. The celebrity raising awareness. The celebrity being recognized for raising awareness. Think of the Ice Bucket Challenge from 2014: where famous people were praised for dumping ice water on themselves and name-dropping their friends. All good times, but dumping ice water on yourself doesn't actually fund or support ALS research. Yet here we all were, cooing over the latest celebrity to take an ice bath and namedrop their friends, all in the name of charity. In hindsight, it doesn't make any sense, right?

(Obviously there's one exception here, and that's the "in the arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrms of the aaaaaangelllllllllllllll" SPCA commercial. Sara McLachlan, keep doing what you're doing.)

Post-pandemic, celebrity humanitarian aid is totally different - it's about the people being helped and the community being impacted. The celebrities use their platforms to elevate the involved experts who do the advocacy instead. The celebrities have (mostly) taken themselves out of the story. The celebrities are having, and focusing on, actionable success before they promote their involvement. It's about using media to elevate others, not yourself. They put their money where their mouths are. They (mostly) punch up to corporations, conglomerates, politicians, and other Famous People (instead of always punching down to the rest of us).

Consider the Maui Fire disaster relief last year - Oprah and The Rock put together a pre-pandemic fundraiser where they told the general public to donate their money. It was immediately panned because they were preaching "do as we say". It was made clear to them, via social media backlash, that if they wanted this fundraiser to be successful, they needed to put up their own money first. This wouldn't have happened without the cultural shifts in accountability, media, and how we want our famous people to serve us (for lack of a better phrase).

Anyway, circling back to Meghan. Meghan is still riding on the early '10s celebrity train that she became famous on, when celebrities could be all talk, when she could be preachy, when she could be "do as I say and not what I do." She hasn't evolved with the times and that's why all of her charity work and advocacy falls shorts, every single time. Because we know better. We see right through her. We know she isn't giving her own money. We know she doesn't support the actual work, and if she doesn't support the work enough to back it up with her own money, then why should we care? Why should we listen? We know she only wants the credit, and we know that because she buys an award for everything she does. She's in it for the attention and the credit.

If Megehan actually used 2024 strategy - having actionable success before self-promotion, taking herself out of the story, investing with her own money and disclosing that she invested her own money, and elevating the experts or the community instead - then she could be very effective in the charity world. She would be a legitimate player, or influencer, in global charity and philanthropy.

But she only wants credit. That's not inspiring in the least.

And Harry's no different. Two peas in a pod, using the '00s "Oprah's couch advocacy" concept in a 2024 world that has left them so far behind in the dust that not even Mad Max can find them. Why should we pay them any attention?

[the-catboy-minyan]

"They can't set up gofundme's in gaza, so they get a relative or a friend to set it up somewhere else"

question, how do they then get the money to them then? moving lots of money across country lines is expensive, can take time and is likely to draw attention. also a lot of the time these GFM's put the situation the families are in as bottom of the barrel doomed, so... does it just wind up on a card that works still?

I never had a GoFundMe page and I'm not an expert on these things, this is just what was written on their website

You're welcome to raise funds for almost anyone; however, if that person is in a country where we don’t operate yet, you'll be personally responsible for receiving the funds yourself, then delivering the funds outside of GoFundMe. You'll also need to outline a transparent plan for the transfer of funds on your fundraiser story so supporters understand how the funds are being handled.

not only is it the individual's responsibility to get the money to the unsupported country, but they also have to be very clear about how they're planning to get it there on their donation page.

again, if you receive an ask in your inbox begging for money, it's almost always a scam, because that's how the internet operates. unless it's someone you know, and even then you have to be extremely careful because people can lie about their financial situations online. these are the guidelines for online safety that existed well before the Gazan GFM accounts, you shouldn't throw them out the window just because the scammers suddenly claim to be Gazans.

if you accidentally refused to donate a real Gazan? well, sorry, they should probably find another way to advertise their funding campaign.

if you accidentally donated money to a scammer? you lose money that could have gotten to a real charity organisation, your money funds a scam organisation, that could be a single person, or an operation that uses the money for neferious purposes.

I'm not saying "every single person online claiming to be gazan is a bot", but ffs, it's much safer to donate to trusted charities than random people who are begging you for money in DMs.

[nuroful]

ACCOUNTS TO FOLLOW (SUDAN WAR)

bsonblast (insta/twitter)— daily updates on what’s going on in Sudan; boosts charity fundraisers. Has English-language updates in written format on her Twitter and as reels on her Instagram, and she’s very consistent in translating and verifying first-hand accounts, having done so before the war.

darfurwomenaction (insta/youtube/facebook)—nonprofit org bringing attention to conditions facing the historically marginalized women of Darfur, though they also report on wider Sudan. They post infographics and hold multi-expert educational panels online and in-person + their founder regularly livestreams updates on Darfur and Sudan which are uploaded to YouTube under ‘Darfur women action group’.

project.taghyir (instagram)- provide weekly war updates translated in English and Arabic + background info on Sudan; boost charity fundraisers. Their information is very well organized and is primarily in slide format.

qoga12 (twitter)— journalist from southern Darfur/ Nyala posting first-hand accounts on the situation there; occasionally writes articles on his experiences and amplifies other Sudan war coverage. He is one of the few people from this region able to provide consistent updates on what is happening in one of the hardest-hit parts of the country, especially as militias have taken over Nyala and many of its citizens have been disconnected or displaced.

yousraelbagir (insta/twitter)— Sudanese journalist for SkyNews. Typically covers Africa at large but currently amplifying Sudan, with forays into Gaza and other regional crises. Her team recently negotiated their way into Sudan to do some ground coverage, which has been increasingly rare for journalists to do since the war started.

[thelibrarian1895]

Martha Wayne Enterprises

Martha Wayne was 100% the one who built Wayne Enterprises up to eventually become essentially Gotham's best/only employer and employer of a lot of the DC world. Thomas was busy being a doctor. Martha was a genius in the realm of finance and general business. Given that presumably the vibe of their timeframe, and I say vibe because comic timelines are really more of a wibbely wibbley ball of timey wimey stuff that imparts a vibe to a general generation, and given the vibe of the Wayne parent era was presumably more overtly sexist than later vibe times, most thought Thomas the brains behind the operation.

This is not true.

It was Martha.

Thomas had surgeon stuff to do. If Martha told him to sign something, he signed. Anyone who asked him about a business venture was directed to Martha. I insist that Thomas Wayne was a simp for his super genius wife and anyone that argues otherwise will be ignored. Even if he wasn't devoted to her, he was smart enough to know to listen to an expert in their area of expertise regardless of societies preconceived notions. Yes the Wayne Family had generational wealth built up and Thomas contributed to some degree with being a doctor who had no student debt but Martha had charities to run and needed a way to fund them and it was just easier to make WE into a quadrillion dollar company than host galas and fundraisers all the time. Those were really more for Thomas to get funds for the clinic anyway. I am going to claim that Martha was, like her son, more introverted than not.

[a-very-tired-jew]

Manipulation of Westerners by Hamas - A conspiracy that's not so much a conspiracy

Since the inception of the current war I have seen a number of people try to identify why Leftists are so quickly to defend Hamas's action and embrace/justify varying degrees of antisemitism. Often I see right wing authors point to DEI programs, safe spaces, and other such things. To me this is just another attempt at discrediting academia and they're using the guise of "fighting antisemitism" to push their narrative. I have found several neutral Jewish writers on the subject, such as Feldman from Harvard, who have addressed the long standing antisemitism within academia, politics, and culture. However, I have not seen anyone address the manipulation of Leftists by extremists as long standing tactic. What do I mean? Shortly after this began, Dr. Lorenzo Vidino of the George Washington University put together a small document titled The Hamas Network in America: A Short History. Dr. Vidino is considered an expert in these type of terrorist groups and has advised governments around the world for years. As such there is some contention regarding him and things he has said. However, this document is fairly clean of bias and lays out this network based upon evidence that the FBI collected through wiretaps and presented in a court case in the 00's. While it is a short document, I will not go over everything and just discuss the highlight. In 1993 a meeting was held in Philadelphia, PA, USA by senior Hamas members. The members of this meeting discussed how they could garner support from the West and protect themselves from scrutiny. One quote that stands out and highlights their intent comes from Shukri Abu Baker "I swear by Allah that war is deception, we are fighting our enemy with a kind heart. . . . Deceive, camouflage, pretend that you’re leaving while you’re walking that way. Deceive your enemy.” This statement of deception underscores the rest of the meeting and their subsequent plans. How do we know what was said? Well, the FBI had wiretapped the room the meeting was held in, so we have transcripts of their intent straight from their mouths. The strategy that the members come up with and discuss in the document has three approaches. 1) Charity & Fundraising.

In the meeting the Hamas members discuss how to raise money for their cause. They would fundraise inside and outside their respective communities, and that for every 5,000 that they raised for others they would send 100k to their allies. This type of behavior culminated in the USA's case against the Holy Land Foundation and associated groups. Many other charities have followed suit and have conducted similar behavior, hence why many charities focused on the I/P conflict are viewed suspiciously. There is not a good tract record of these groups actually getting the aid to the Palestinian civilian and instead funding terrorist groups.

2) Politics.

The members of the meeting stressed the need to influence Congress, the general American public, and to garner political support. They emphasized that they needed a neutral organization that would not publicly state it supported Hamas or other terrorist organizations and could deceive the general public into thinking they didn't. They would use neutral language and simply try to sway politics. Members of this meeting then went on to help found CAIR (specifically Omar Ahmed and Nihad Awad).

3) Research and Outreach.

Within the meeting they repeatedly emphasize that their violent rhetoric would upset the Westerners that would likely support them. As such, they needed to change the way they spoke to outsiders, change the perceptions of them, and influence progressives through coopting their language. They state that you need to use the language that the American progressive sympathizes with and couch things in terminology such as "oppressor", "colonist", and so on. One method that was suggested, and employed, was to infiltrate academia and produce research that was biased towards their ideals.

“This can be achieved by infiltrating the American media outlets, universities and research centers." - Omar Ahmed For example, The United Association for Studies and Research was created by members of this group and is a think tank outside of Chicago. The organization is considered defunct now, but its members went on to other positions in politics, academia, think tanks, and research. Think about that. Members of Hamas's network have become professors at colleges and universities. These are institutions where many young adults go to round out the beliefs they began developing in their early teens. This means that they're extremely passionate, but also easily manipulated. I personally remember the anti-GMO craze of the 00's and 10's and how every college campus was full of anti-GMO student activists claiming wild conspiracies about the danger of them. Now? That movement mostly gone and relegated to the corners where anti-science and pseudoscience believers dwell. But more importantly, a lot of that activism was manufactured by outside agitators with malicious intent disguised as benign activists.

In regards to the current group of young adult activists in the West (the majority are Zoomers and Millenials), they have been consuming material from academics with questionable intent that has been wrapped in language they resonate with. That makes the 3rd tactic of the Philadelphia Meeting the most dangerous one to me. For all the concern about academia "brainwashing our youth" there is a very real element of manipulation by academics who have allegiances and/or sympathy to terrorist groups and ideals. But they hide it in academic speak to make the general public think that they're not endorsing violent and hateful rhetoric. All of this feels like a conspiracy theory that has me linking red string to photos like Charlie from Always Sunny... but this is real. The FBI wiretapped a meeting and presented their transcripts back in the 00s. So some part of the USA knew that this was happening, knew that this manipulation was going on...and just allowed it. Bringing awareness is just a small step into addressing something that, to me, is quite scary to consider.

[brian-in-finance]

Video 📹 from Instagram

Instagram Equal Means Equal

Givergy USA

Remember… founded in 2009, Givergy is an award-winning fundraising platform which offers a range of cutting-edge fundraising solutions and expert advice. With offices in London, New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Hong Kong and Sydney, Givergy has helped raise over $1.1 billion, supporting some of the biggest names in the charity world. With a system, service and price offering to suit every client, we’re on a mission to change charitable giving worldwide, for good. — Givergy USA

[angelsaxis]

"focus on the charities!!" So I won't claim to be an expert in these things but even if you do donate to something like Care for Gaza, which is donating food and is verified and ABSOLUTELY deserves your money, Care for Gaza or the PCRF or any UN affiliated anything is not evacuating people. Like the goals are completely different. The charities are not helping people flee the genocide. I don't expect them to but to act as though every single Palestinian fundraiser is accomplishing the same goals is so lazy and annoying.

[redhoodie1723]

since i posted the fundraiser for a family in gaza, i have had a few more requests in my inbox to repost other's fundraisers. i've seen a few posts warning that a lot of these are scams, and i don't want to advertise any scams and am not sure how to reliably sort through them.

however, i have done some research into other charities and organizations that are helping in gaza and have listed them below. i am not any expert on this conflict, and this is just based on amateur research, but i hope this helps anyone who is looking for a way to help!

Save the Children - sending a lot of essential supplies and support

Doctors Without Borders - sending doctors and medical aid

Gaza Funds - donating straight to individual families in need

if anyone else has any reliable charities that they want to be shared, reply or repost and i'll make sure to repost back to my page!

[mrghostrat]

*knocks on your blog with shaky hands* thank u for making me read first class (hons)!! the mutual pining was absolutely precious. and the two of them getting to know each other over time was so so soft and gentle and the fic just gave me all the wholesome winter feels (the christmas market, the fundraiser, everything!!) these silly adorable professors have my heart (and so do you for recommending this one to me, thank u again!!) *leaves you with a bouquet of flowers to express my gratitude* 🌸🌷🌼🌹🌻

YESSSSSSSSSS

i'm already leaping at every opportunity to rec this fic to people, and when i saw your (beautiful) post about the markets i was so happy i had the perfect fic for you!!! 😍

do you see why i had to print this story with all the christmas love and spirit it deserves!!!!

First Class (Hons) Christmas, University of Tadfield (M) by heloluv

Dr. A.Z. Fell is a renowned literature tutor at the prestigious University of Tadfield. December is upon the University, and Dr. Fell is leading the Christmas Charity Drive. He needs volunteers. Dr. A.J. Crowley is a skilled plant ecologist who recently began his tenure at UoT. He can't stand Christmas, and nothing at all could ever possibly convince him to partake in "festivities". Until a certain literary expert catches his eye.

[fruitlion]

WE ARE THE LIONS.

https://livingstonelions.com/

10 years ago, the African Lion Environmental Research Trust/Lion Encounter gave me the time of my life in the Mosi Oa Tunya national park, Livingstone, Zambia. Before my health turned and I became bedbound, they allowed me to join an African Lion conservation project, to help give captive bred lions a second chance, and an escape from their backgrounds of canned hunting and the pet trade. While the lions were too socially used to people to be released into fully wild environments, they were granted large reserves of their own - the next closest thing - with sanctuaries for those physically unfit for release.

Unfortunately the team fell victim to the financial troubles Covid caused so many, and had to close down. In an emergency response the Livingstone Lions charity was created by the same team.

These people are near and dear to my heart, and they want to get back into the conservation they were so expert in before. If you can spread the word, or even sponsor one of these lovely beebees, it would mean the world to us!

And of course they're always open to ideas for fundraisers. You can nominate them as your charity on Amazon Smile for example, or reach out to them for an event on their twitter/facebook pages.

I'm also on hand for questions about the lions and the Mosi-Oa-Tunya park and reserve if you have any. These lions are very near and dear to my heart, and forever my big babies! <3

[wayfarers-ger]

Wayfarers' Ger in 2024

I'm going to make an effort to actually make use of this Tumblr. \o/

What Is Wayfarers' Ger?

It started out as a weekly storytelling RP event with a steppe theme ICly set in a ger/yurt on the Azim steppe, then we started adding bigger events every so often, like our summer event "Steppes on the Beach", but as altaholics, we've also tied in some of our other projects like The Approving Seal and The Ankhai Tribe.

I am an enthusiast of steppe culture & really want to bring some appreciation for the real-world steppe cultures and base a lot of my RP around its culture. I am far from an expert & I take some artistic license like the devs did because it's Mongolia-influenced, not a re-creation.

What's The Plan?

More events in 2024, starting with Tsagaan Sar, the new year. More use of the Approving Seal and the Ankhai Tribe.

I also want to make better use of social media (like Tumblr here), the wider community and our website.

Plans for the Approving Seal

The Approving Seal is a Terncliff-themed cafe & charity and we just did our Starlight event with it. With the Approving Seal, we like to try and offer a more wholesome kind of RP and this year we want to use it for actual charity fundraisers for real-world charities.

We have a charity page set up for it for people to give their own donations to our selected charity (we'll have separate pages if we do a fundraiser for a different charity): https://www.justgiving.com/page/approving-seal

Plans for Wayfarers' Ger

On the Wayfarers' Ger side, I want to lean more & more heavily into the culture stuff, this seems to be the stuff people respond best to, which I am happy for because it's the part I care most about & want to dive deeper with.

As much as I would like to keep a fortnightly RP, we do find they get a variable turn out and I have mused on it & I know we've tried getting them working again, like in the early days, but my energy may be better placed in themed events with more attention to quality.

And I have a few ideas I am toying with for things we could do, including opening the floor for more people to get involved with contributing, because I realise I can sometimes do things on a bit of a whim.

Plans for General Steppe Stuff

I also found some of my "The Real Steppe" blog posts get some popularity and even got a mention in Mirkes Menagerie for my comments about magic on the steppe. So I want to put out more things like it & share them with the Wayfarers' Ger & general Steppe RP community. And I want to go back & spot-check my old blog posts to make sure they're to a standard I am happy with & that I triple-check any facts.

The motivation for triple-checking is that I have learned that not all sources on Mongolian culture are reliable. For example: UNSECO has information about tuulis and the practice but the information confuses different types of Mongolian storytelling & other sources seem to give similar info & frame it in totally the wrong way. And I have better sources who don't mind me asking questions.

Plans for the Ankhai Tribe

The Ankhai tribe is a custom tribe inspired by Tuvans, Mongolians and Siberians, who come from north of the tail mountains and the Dalvalan Grath. Like with how FFXIV approaches cultures, there is still artistic license, so not all ideas/customs are grounded in the real world, but include FFXIV-appropriate flair, to keep it within the realms of fantasy.

We spent some time introducing some of the characters into the general community & ran individual RP's & events to establish IC connections and working through the story arc that allows us to open up the tribe to more people to create their own characters. For 2024, I want to do smaller RP's & events where the tribe is a focus, with room to recruit people into the concept.

Closing Note

I realise I made it a long post. But the new year brings new opportunities and I am still passionate about the RP's we run and want to not neglect things I've started and instead not only keep doing what we do, but aim for something cooler. Plus, with my focus on visiting Mongolian in 2025, learning the language and spending time in groups relating to Mongolia, it's traditions & culture, I hope to work with you all to create greater RP experiences this year and clear out the crickets & cobwebs from both our Tumblr & Discord.

If I don't keep up my promise, hunt me down and slap me.

Peace and love,

Yesunova Hotgo and many, many alts

[elpida]

@shelbysdevil

To Eris Amorello this was just another job, that's what it was meant to be. Nothing more than a job that was paying well and it didn't matter who's life would be on the line, money was money and people were disappointing. There wasn't a single person walking this Earth that she trusted, that she considered safe. She was her own safety because that's how she'd had to be, but when the job came up to infiltrate and gain trust? She saw it like it was some fun challenge, a leisurely past time, plus the name given? She knew the name. Thomas Shelby. Gain his trust, infiltrate and then betray. It'd be a feat to pull this one off and.. to date there was no job 'the wraith' had not accomplished. In and out, never seen, her true name never known. She was just the woman you hired when you wanted something done and done well, her price reflected as much.

She knew he'd be at this event, invitation only and in her words, posh. She had to look the part and she did, not that it'd matter, nobody knew Eris by look or name. Only by her esteemed title and record. She didn't fail her jobs. She knew she didn't have means of getting in by just walking in so she waited for the party to be in full swing and scaled the building to the third story bathroom, in through the window and nobody would know she had not walked in freely at all. She left her black coat in the bathroom stall, flattened out her dress. It was by all means lovely on her, she had to have a dress that synched the waist and then flared, hide the knife she had strapped to her thigh. She always carried at least one knife on her and most times that would extend to two. It was just unfortunate she couldn't wear two here. What was more lovely on her, was the wild and thick auburn curls that hung down the length of her back. She was dainty and delightful, secretly deadly. You'd have never have known a woman like her could be the wraith.

It wasn't hard to locate her target, the man she had to make trust her, like her. The man she had to betray, to make it hurt. The man that paid her to do this had some clear vendetta against him, but who didn't? She'd heard the rumours of him herself. By all accounts she would not enjoy his company or him in general, from what she'd heard. For now though, it was time to play flirty fool. She made the assumption this was some sort of charity event, fundraiser perhaps and as she made her way to him she lifted a drink from a silver plate. She lingered nearby until he took a step and she did such an expert job in making it seem as though he knocked her. In turn, splashed some of her drink on herself and gasped. Her hand came to reach for his as if to steady herself but internally Eris was cringing at touching him, it was what had to be done but she didn't like it, she just needed to seem like a clutz in heels.

"Mr Shelby—" she gasps, looking herself over and then feigns her wide hues up at him. For someone so deadly she had such soft brown eyes, pools of melted chocolate, warm velvet on a winters day. "Oh I'm so sorry, was that me? Forgive me I'm a little out of sorts, this venue is simply gorgeous, not my usual Friday night." She'd have made a fantastic actress in another life, the foolish girl that didn't belong, lucky to have an invitation, swooning over everything, and over him. What she really thought was that he'd seem the same as every other asshole she killed, nobody proved her wrong. All these rich men were the same, egotistical and chauvinistic pigs. They weren't gentleman, they didn't know respect, they thought they could take anything and that was something she despised. "I didn't hurt you did I?"

[dezendant]

Prompt: Pairings (could be questionable)

1) Prisoner x Guard

2) Terminally ill patient x Doctor

3) Hero or Villain x Sidekick

4) Lawyer x Judge

5) Police x Forensics

6) CEO X Door Guard

7) Team Principal x F1 driver (F1 Reference)

8) Mechanic x Team Principal (F1 Reference)

9) Coach x Player (Sports Setting)

10) Therapist x Client

11) Politician x Politician (from different countries)

12) Farmer x Famous Person

13) Soldier x Politician

14) Animals Expert x National Geographic Reporter

15) Space Science x Astronaut

16) International Hacker x Computer Designer

17) Police Officer x Worldwide Criminal

18) Games Designer x Fashion Designer

19) Architecture x Engineer

20) Costume Designer x Cosplayer

21) Photographer x Artist

22) Pilot x Cabin Crew Member

23) Liblerian x Surgeon

24) Head Chef x Waitress or Waiter

25) Dance Teacher x Dancer

26) Actor x Director

27) Antique Dealer x Book Shop Owner

28) Journalist x Photographer

29) Writer x Actor

30) Brewer or Vintner or Distiller x Taster

31) Astronaut x Astronomer

32) Marine Biologist x Zoologist

33) Serial Killer x Doctor

34) RAF Pilot x Airline Pilot

35) Priest x Scientist

36) Funeral Director x Pathologist

37) Social Worker x Counsellor

38) Daycare Teacher x University Lecturer

39) Billionaire x Charity Fundraiser

40) Interpreter x International News Reporter

41) Writer x Proofreader

42) Cafe Owner x Flower Shop Owner

43) Ballet Dancer x Gymnast

44) Voice Actor x Animator

45) Barista x Bartender

46) Professional Gamer x Developer

47) Backup Dancer x Idol

48) Construction Worker x Architect

49) Adrenaline Junkie x Scaredy Cat

50) Manager in a Fast Food x Manager in a High-End Restaurant

51) F1 Driver x F1 Driver

52) Fan x Celebrity

If you think about it, these pairings do work together.