Chris Wallish
SF3 Communications Committee

We did it!  YOU did it!!  Yesterday, we met Jed Hartman’s matching donation.  In just five days’ time, we raised $5,000 for the WisCon Member Assistance Fund.  This means that in the 10 days since Wrdnrd announced their matching donation, we’ve raised a total of $7,300!  This is completely unprecedented for the Fund and just shows what a strong and caring community WisCon has.

This year, WisCon made a very deliberate effort to raise awareness of the Assistance Fund, because attending a convention like WisCon can be quite expensive (Madison is not cheap to fly into, and the Concourse is a very nice hotel).  WisCon does what it can to make attending the convention more economically feasible — from providing Childcare for just $1 to offering free snacks and meals in the Con Suite — but by far the most valuable is the Fund, which puts money exactly where recipients need it.

And now, thanks to the outpouring of support from the WisCon community (and beyond!), the Fund will be assisting almost 30 people attend WisCon 40 this May.  Many of the recipients will be attending their first WisCon!

Our active fundraising is going into hiatus for the time being, although you can donate to the Member Assistance Fund at any time.  All money donated to the Assistance Fund from yesterday afternoon (Madison time) will go toward seeding the Fund for WisCon 41.  And at WisCon in May this year, we’ll be continuing to raise awareness of the Fund for potential nominees and also talking more about various ways to keep the Fund funded on a regular basis.

We are deeply grateful to Jed and Wrdnrd, and to everyone who donated in the past few weeks — especially to the donor who took us over the finish line yesterday.  We’re thankful for everyone who signal-boosted our fund drive and for everyone who worked in the background to encourage donors from all corners.  Thank you for helping to make WisCon a reality this year for more people than we ever thought possible.

See you in May!