GWJ Donation Drive 2019!

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Due to some big changes coming up for GWJ we’re launching the annual Gamers With Jobs donation drive a few weeks early! This is the one time of year where we ask for your support in keeping the site running smoothly and creating awesome new stuff.

Your donations keep the lights on and allow us to remain one of the few ad-free sites on the internet. It gives us the time and space to nurture this amazing community. Your help also allows us to pump out great content like the weekly Gamers With Jobs Conference Call podcast, Let’s Play videos, streams, RPG podcasts and more! Please go to patreon.com/gwj to kick in a few bucks!

[One important note -- if you do support the site and want the rewards make sure the email you use for Patreon is the same one you use for your GWJ account. See below if you have different emails.]

While Patreon is our preferred and primary way of supporting the site, we understand some folks still prefer using Paypal. Your donation will still count! You can click on the Paypal button below if you’d prefer that route. Please include in the notes your forum name so we can associate the payment with your site name and make sure you get tagged.

2019 Has Been Wild: What to Expect for This Year’s Donation Drive

Since many of us here at GWJ are in transitional phases in our lives, we’re going to focus on the work that brings us joy, which we think translates into content you’ll love too! To give you an idea of what we’re continuing to work on as well as ideas for what we’d like to do next, here’s a few key things we’ve been focusing on:

Gamers With Lives:

We will continue supporting Sean McKenna in creating new episodes of the Gamers With Lives podcast series! We love Sean would and want to help expand his interview pool to include members of the GWJ community as well as potential guests within the games industry. The world needs more of his uplifting and heartfelt conversations!

Yearly Game Charity Streams:

Last year we began running an annual charity fundraiser for organizations that help people in need. We will continue to run these charity streams, the next to-be-determined in late winter/early spring. Though we’ve been tossing about ideas for charities, we’re more interested in what causes our community would like to see us support. Your input is valuable, so please reply in the thread if there is an organization we should take a closer look at!

International Gamers With Jobs Day!

Years ago there was a time when we got together in local, in-person groups and celebrated the genuinely good, amazing people that make GWJ so wonderful. It was an excellent excuse to get together to play some videogames, boardgames and meet new people! We called it International Gamers With Jobs Day. Or Goodjer Day, if you insist.

Let’s start doing it again! In the past that happened in October, so we can work on locking down a date soon. We’d like to gauge interest in who is interested in forming groups and get that ball rolling if folks are into it. It would be wonderful if we could put on a Conference Call podcast on that day, stream it, and possibly have a few people available for us to call on Discord so we can say hi to the groups and celebrate together!

Story Roost

Story Roost will continue with an upcoming D&D 5th Edition adventure starring Sean Sands, Julian Murdoch, Karla Andrich and Game Master Michael Zenke! Alongside them will be a rotating cast of new and familiar voices. More details soon!

A Personal Note From Amoebic/Amanda

Gamers With Jobs is my home. It is where my heart lives online. By bringing me on as an employee to run things while Shawn is on sabbatical (more info in this week’s podcast), I’m allowed more time to care for and nurture this space. To start, I’m planning to dive in with researching, creating and putting together fun content for the podcast and streams. It’s my hope to build momentum with this modest beginning and come on strong in 2020!

FAQ

How do I donate to the site? Go to Patreon.com/GWJ, enter an amount you’d like to pledge each month, enter your payment information and you’re good. If you are an existing patron subscriber, now is a good time to make sure the details are all up to date. Thank you, you’re awesome.

What If My Patreon and GWJ Emails Don't Match? - Please email [email protected] with both email addresses and your forum name and we'll make sure you get on the list! When donating with Paypal please note your forum name in the notes section!

Can I Change My Donation? -- You can always adjust your donation, up or down. We activate our monthly rewards based on whomever is in that tier at the time, so if you want to get a reward you can bump up your donation and receive that. Alternatively if you need to trim some expenses feel free to drop it down.

But, I really want to use PayPal. – All good, just use the button up top! Please note your forum name with the Paypal submission so we can tag you in the forums!

Cool, now what do I get for my money? -- Mostly, you get an awesome community. That and articles, videos, podcasts, RPG stories and a bunch of other stuff that hopefully you like and want to support. But, there are also rewards as well --

Any $2.00+ donation -- Golden community icon for the forums

$5/month -- Icon + We’ll read a custom short message from you on the Conference Call! Shout out a friend, thank someone for being awesome or whatever is on your mind!

$20/month -- Icon + We’ll read a custom short message from you on the air of the Conference Call + a Custom Stan Avatar in the style of the rotating Stan logos (designed by Amanda).

$50/month -- Incredible! Ok, all the other cool stuff, plus if you maintain this tier for a year, we’ll get online and talk to you about what kind of project you’d like to see to match your awesome level of support. You’ll work directly with us on making something great for the site, and best of all, you get to help come up with what that something is.

I don’t live in the US, can I donate? -- Yes ... at least according to Patreon’s FAQ -- your funds will be converted to USD. Here’s what they have to say.

Are icons still part of the deal? -- Heck yeah! Just donate $2.00 or more and we’ll tag you with the next icon. We also have a few people in the community who have been with us for all 16 -- 16?! -- years and donated every year, so we couldn’t leave them hanging without a new look.

Sweet, when do I get my icon? – This year we’re going to do all the tagging in early September once all donations are cleared and do them all at once. We’re hoping that makes it easier to not miss any!

When does the Donation Drive end? -- Technically we will be accepting support year-round, and there will be a link to the Patreon on the site, but the Donation Drive itself still only lasts a month. After September 7th, 2019 we’ll stop tracking donors for forums tags and stuff until next year. We will only be accepting PayPal donations until September 7th.

Anything else? -- Probably, but the big answer to this question is if you have more things you’re wondering drop a line in comments, send us a PM or even reach out to [email protected] and we’ll try to get you an answer.

Thanks so much. Even if you aren’t able to contribute your dollars to help the site, so many of you do things both little and big every day to make this an amazing and rare place on the internet. We are so grateful for your time, your support and your awesome contributions. Thank you for helping make GWJ an awesome place to be!

Comments

Please continue taking my small donation to the cause. I can't imagine life without you guys.

Best community on the internet, period.

The new avatars are super cool, and this site is very cool, so I upped my pledge!

gorilla wrote:
Amoebic wrote:

International Gamers With Jobs Day!
Let’s start doing it again! In the past that happened in October, so we can work on locking down a date soon. We’d like to gauge interest in who is interested in forming groups and get that ball rolling if folks are into it. It would be wonderful if we could put on a Conference Call podcast on that day, stream it, and possibly have a few people available for us to call on Discord so we can say hi to the groups and celebrate together!

This sounds like fun!

If there are locals in and around Minneapolis that would like to gather let me know and we'll figure something out. And I'm willing to broaden the definition of "locals" to include neighboring states and provinces if people want to make the trip and join the fun.

If we get enough interested Gamers With (or Without) Jobs we can start a separate thread.

Make the thread! I'm in. I suppose we can even allow Wisconsinites if we have to.

Thank you all so much! I love you so much!
I'll be updating the IGWJD thread with the date shortly. Stay tuned!

ANOTHER UPDATE:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/8lM9V8R.png)

Hello all! I wanted to provide an update on the Stan avatar process, and to hopefully get folks pumped who were maybe considering donating at that level if they haven’t already. Therefore, I’ve created a survey for our $20 and up donors to fill out if they want a custom Stan user image!

Everyone, please feel free to take a look at the survey. As noted within, I won’t get started on any without an email that corresponds with your method of payment. Therefore, if you’d like to take the survey for fun, you’re more than welcome to. (I grew up on questionnaires from the back of teen magazines in the 80’s and 90’s, so I get it. I love quizzes!) Just please leave the email field blank for sorting purposes if you are not a$20 donor.

I won’t start working on Stans until after the drive has ended, so folks still have a chance to donate if they’re interested.

I know that in the past we’ve often had folks change their user images during the month of popular holidays. I’ve added another option in the questionnaire for folks to check off if they’d like holiday versions of their personalized Stans! Once I’ve completed the original round of Stans, I’ll do a second sweep and create 1-2 alternates for any interested folks in the holiday themes of their choice. No guarantee I’ll be able to complete any holiday Stans in time for any holidays remaining in 2019 or early 2020, though.

I’m really having a lot of fun with this, and super excited to get started on them FOR REAL!

Spoiler:

Stan's eyes are actually the same size, literally a copy/paste layer. The size difference is an optical illusion!

Just wanted to come out of the lurker woodworks and say that I've been a huge fan of the cast for a while now! Signed on for the $20/month level and super excited for my Stan!

Y'all are amazing and totally been meaning to pledge for a while now, but definitely wanted to get off my lazy bum and support you during this transition period. Best wishes for everyone and can't wait for Wednesdays!

Oh my gosh! Thank you! Does this mean you're letting me design your first GWJ user pic? I'm so excited! I'm HONORED!

Yes I am! Holding out on uploading one until my Stan

(seriously, no rush tho!)

Whoa, so glad I saw this, I would have been real bummed if I had missed it! I've donated every year since I joined and I don't want to end that streak.
I don't post as much as I used to, but I'm still silently lurkin'. Glad to see the new and wonderful things on the horizon and all the much deserved Amoebic love. They're real cool and great, y'all.
The whole community here is and I love you all more than you'll ever know.

Tagging the thread because I like to see my icon update!

A custom Stan is super tempting.

Happy to have been here the past... holy crap, 7 1/2 years?

Keep being awesome, y'all.

tagging in order to potentially sign up at the $20/mo level in September.

Finally changed my e-mail address on this site so I can peer pressure people into supporting it.

I’m one of those scatterbrained people who, for one reason or another, put most things off until the last minute. But I got my donation in today. I guess that there’s still six more days for folks to get their donations in, but I thought the last day was today.

Proud to support GWJ. Not a fan of patreon (I would rather not have some of my money go to them), so I went the PayPal route.

Thanks for all years of great content.

lunchbox12682 wrote:
gorilla wrote:
Amoebic wrote:

International Gamers With Jobs Day!
Let’s start doing it again! In the past that happened in October, so we can work on locking down a date soon. We’d like to gauge interest in who is interested in forming groups and get that ball rolling if folks are into it. It would be wonderful if we could put on a Conference Call podcast on that day, stream it, and possibly have a few people available for us to call on Discord so we can say hi to the groups and celebrate together!

This sounds like fun!

If there are locals in and around Minneapolis that would like to gather let me know and we'll figure something out. And I'm willing to broaden the definition of "locals" to include neighboring states and provinces if people want to make the trip and join the fun.

If we get enough interested Gamers With (or Without) Jobs we can start a separate thread.

Make the thread! I'm in. I suppose we can even allow Wisconsinites if we have to.

Done.

cerithe wrote:

Proud to support GWJ. Not a fan of patreon (I would rather not have some of my money go to them), so I went the PayPal route.

Thanks for all years of great content.

Yeah, but PayPal gets a cut too. Can’t win.

I just let the donation on Patreon ride because even though I don’t interact with the forums much, I’m interacting with Goodjers elsewhere, and am a friend of the “cult”.