I want to host a charity event and my local game store is on board. I would love some advice or suggestions from folks, especially those who have helped run or participated in them before.

In particular I'm trying to figure out:
What entry fee did you charge?
What prizes did you offer?
What format?
Other than entry fee, what other means did you use to raise money during the event?

Any and all suggestions welcome, or I'd be happy to talk with anyone who has ideas off line.
Thanks!
Matthew

I'm going to preface this reply by saying that the store I helped organize the following event is a large GP vendor and is the kind of store where you buy tarmogoyfs and they have a box in the back filled with them that they go and them pull from, not just a set in the case. They spent a few thousand on this event and didn't bat an eye.

That being said, about a year ago, this store put on a charity tournament for a local stalwart who had passed away and who had done a lot of work for an animal shelter in the area. All the proceeds from the event went to that shelter.

They ran the event the same way they ran 1ks with the pay out being in store credit rather than cash. So thats 30 dollar entry with 400 to first, 200 to second, 100 to 3/4, 50 to 5/6/7/8. They also ended up paying out 30 to 9-16 because the event ended up being about a 100 people. It was a modern event being ran at Comp REL. This was done for two reasons. One because the guy's favorite format was modern and two because there is a lot of modern love in the area so we figured that would be the most effective.

There were three judges, one L2 and two L1s. All three of us worked for free. I will note that all three of us volunteered to work for free after they did offer their standard compensation of 100 bucks for the day. They did provide us a fairly decent lunch though as a thank you (The owner's parents own a fantastic italian place and we got our pick of the lot).

In addition to the tournament, which was the main draw, they also had a silent auction in a side room (it is worth noting this location is massive). The stalwart was a pretty serious player and his family offered a good selection of his collection to the auction. The store also donated some legacy and vintage items and a few local players donated some lower tier stuff as well. I recall a local judge also donating his exemplar packet for that rotation as well.

Hey there,

I have done a couple of charity events in the past, you can find the write up from one here…

https://dhthomas-tournaments.blogspot.com/2010/03/charty-event-on-20-march-2010.html

As to your specific questions….

In particular I'm trying to figure out:
What entry fee did you charge?
Always a sticky wicket, but I tend to go with $25-$30. It seems to get the best turnout of players /donation. Depending on your charity, you can do things like a canned food donation as well.

What prizes did you offer?
I have put in boxes and foils in the past from my own collection and the rest has been opened up to the community to donate whatever they can. Many of the local stores chip in with items and gift cards. Lots of different people come up with some cool stuff to add in to the prize pool. We got a REALLY big surprise with the first one in the above write up.

What format?
Always try to stick with what is the most popular in your area in order to maximize your player participation. We have always gone with Standard since it has the most following locally. And of course, Constructed is going to get you the most bang for your buck.

Other than entry fee, what other means did you use to raise money during the event?
So we decided to do prizing based off of record following the last round of Swiss. This made the most sense to me so that the Top 8 could choose which prize that they wanted and then move on to the Single-Elimination Rounds(which was an Onslaught Draft donated by one of the stores) to play off for the Trophy.

We had enough donations so that everyone there got to pick something. I had kept a posted list online for everyone to see what was available as it came in. After the last person had made their choice, we opened the rest of the donated items up for bidding and did an impromptu auction.

I also had a great many people just make cash donations and even one talked the company that he worked for into cutting a check which was fantastic.


In General…

Be open to just about anything. Talk to all the local stores and see if they are interested in helping out. The worst that they can do is tell you no.

Talk to any of the non-Magic shops in the vicinity of your play space, especially the restaurants. They may ship you some gift cards or even run a special lunch deal for your event.

Try to keep it casual and remind everyone why you all are there and the charity that you are supporting.

If you are lucky enough to have an artist close by, be sure to talk to them to see if they can make it out. If you don't but you travel the GP circuit, talk to the artists there and see maybe if there is anything that they might do to help. Make sure you do your homework so that you know all of the charity information and it is best to have fliers and literature at this point to make sure you don't look like a scam.

Give recognition to all those that have worked to make the event happen. I made a little hand out to give to players at the event. It had a life total area so it was functional, but it also listed all of the organizations and individuals that spent time and effort to make a great event.

Make sure you stay relaxed and take care of yourself too.

Anyway, even my Quick Hits versions of things tend to stretch on a bit. Feel free to shoot me an email or something if you have any questions or just want to chat about it.

As Always,
Lloyd Dodson
d_h_thomas@hotmail.com

I have started an annual charity event in my hometown which is a smaller LGS (20 people Fnm 40 to 60 for pptq). We just had our aecond annual event. Year one saw us raise $650 and this year we hit $1075. This past year we ran both a standard and modern, ten dollar entry fee. There was a total of theee peize boxes, one donated by the store and two by me (judged events for boxes then donated them). We had around thirty entries which netted $300.

The rest of our donations came from an auction we ran. At GP vegas I recieved donations from several vendors including mtg original art and cardboard crack. I also purchased playmats and art prints and dice bags from artists that we auctioned as well. A few of the store patrons donated items for the auction as well. Signed playmats, signed dice bags, tend to do well. One year I also had several artists at a gp agree to doodle on a drck box for ten dollars each (for charity) which later auctioned for $160.

My best advise is 1.) Keep it casual. 2.) Look for multiple streams of donations, just fees or just an auction wont often be enough. And most importantly 3.) Plan wayy ahead. It takes a long time to accumulate donation items and goods. We ussually start approaching vendors and asking for donations five months in advance.

Advertise well and make it worth it to the players. Many will come just to support charity, but many need to be incentivized. Make sure your prize pools etc are good. If you have any specific questions ask and ill do my best to answer.

Edit: if you are in a smaller market, dont look for high dollar items to auction, the average kid doesnt have hundreds of dollars to drop, aim for lots of smaller to medium items, at least in my experience.

Tyson Bollinger, L1
Huntsville TX

Edited Tyson Bollinger (Oct. 25, 2017 01:58:45 PM)

There's an episode of JudgeCast on this very topic.

We did a charity event in benefit for Suicide Zero a suicide prevention organisation based here in Sweden a few weeks ago.

The way we did it and the idea it was based on was basically.
Have a entry fee that goes to the charity, and reach out to for donations for prizes.
This said we have a lot of gaming associations and such in Sweden, which kind of makes it doable and not sure how to pull it off without them.
So we got some donation from that, we got from some bigger names, from the two LGS and private donations.
Amongst the things received was a few displays of standard legal sets, this we used as prizes.

The entry fee was 100 SEK (About 12$)

We used some of the donations a prizes, so three displays in total.

The format we choose was Gentry ( https://gentrymagic.com/ ) as we wanted a format that was budget friendly and accessible, that could make people to attend that maybe would not attend if “normal” formats was chosen and we had about 15-20% of the players cause of this.

To raise more money,
Sold some of the things donated on site
Had a auction on the others things received as donation
Took donations on site
And we had a stream running that also raised some money

We were really lucky to have a local production company donate a post production that can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg35hPZQ5ug