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Okay...

I've got a handful of Orks and no earthly use for them. I can't trade them, selling them is pointless...

What if there were some way I, and others like me, can donate unwanted toys to some kind of fund. Maybe if we all chip in a few models we can sell them and donate the money?

What say you Dakka? Can we charity?

This is a great idea. I would be down for donating some models. Alternatively people could donate painting services, terrain, etc?

It would be a very large project to undertake, so I would not envy the person chose to organize it.

Logistically you'd probably want 1 donation center NA and 1 donation center EU.


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Another thought would be to collect donations until you can piece together a (or several) "Full Army" then sell raffle tickets on dakka and at participating FLGS for 25 - 50 dollars depending.

Winner(s) of the raffle get a full army, and the proceeds go to charity.

That way you don't have 1 person messing with a ton of ebay auctions.

Glad to see at least some interest!

Here is what I'm thinking. Children's Hospital charities. I can see about getting in touch with a charity organizer and see if they would be willing to help. I imagine people will be a lot more willing to donate their old toys if they were sending them to a legitimate charity donation center. Plus this helps alleviate the problems of keeping track of donations and such.

Here is how I think it should work. You send your toys to a collection center. Someone there itemizes the inventory and groups the items into the appropriate categories. Armies can go into separate groups, terrain and hobby supplies in another group. Once a collection reaches a certain point, the items get bundled together into a package and sold online for a price chosen to cover overhead plus 2%. ALL the funds from these sales (overhead notwithstanding) can then be deposited into a holding account, when that account reaches a set number then those funds can be transferred to a Children's Hospital charity.

The other option is to forgo sorting the donations and collect as much as possible. Sell the whole bundle at once and then donate the money.

Obviously in either case the whole project needs major media attention (as much as we can muster) or it falls flat on it's face. If we collect a bunch of toys but can't unload them we will look like shysters. This is why I, or any other wargamer, should be excluded from the organizational process. I certainly don't want the responsibility of collecting people toys!

Does anyone here have any experience organizing a charitable event? Any tips for good charities to contact?

Come on dakka, lets do something more than scream at each other in YMDC!


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Just sent an email to St. Judes!

Hopefully I hear back from them soon.

Or, would people be more interested in donating directly to a charity that will simply liquidate the items and keep the funds?

Looking into it more it seems like wargaming models are not the sort of toys you can simply give to say Ronald McDonald House. The only viable option I think is to sell the toys and donate the money...

There are quite a few wargaming websites, blogs, and tournies that run charity auctions. I think simply collecting a bunch of second-hand models and trying to make them into an army or selling them off piecemeal will result in a lot of headache for no real gain. Most charity projects I've encountered revolove around a fully-painted, themed army (or armies) that is raffled off. For every dollar contributed, you get a chance to win: one dollar=one chance, ten dollars=ten chances.

Finding people and organizations who are willing to donate resources is rarely the problem. Finding someone who can organize the whole project, set a standard for expectations, and then be entrusted to see it through is the hard part. No one wants to donate time or money to only see some random anon with a heart of gold but no accountability flake out at the last minute.

Donate it to plastic crack anonymous, a charity for wargaming junkies.

But seriously, donating to charity sounds like a good idea. I've seen things a while back where people have painted up armies and sold them off, and given the money to charity.

On eBay if you run an auction, you can set the % of it to donate straight to charity. including 100%

Maybe collect and photograph, build some hype here and auction off there? That way it's transparent AND will score plenty of outside attention too, doubling your audience.

Alternatively JustGiving is a well known platform.

If someone sets this charity up, and we can mail stuff in that takes more than just war games, I have a Marvel Legends Abomination still in box to send for a kid to play with. I can goodwill it, I'm sure, but this would be easier than searching for a goodwill and have the same outcome.

Well, no news from St. Judes or any of the other organizations I emailed.

What about using a painting commission company? I'm sure someone with some credibility in that area would be a major help.

What if we could send our models to a commission painter, have them paint the models and then ebay them, using the above mentioned donation function?

Would that suffice? The painter gets some visibility, and maybe even a little coin for their efforts and the models get painted nicely and sold. This way one doesn't have to worry about building an army. Each donation then becomes a collectors piece, maybe even throw in a little brass plate on the stand that says which charity got the money?
Way easier to advertise too, now that I think about it. You could just post each donation here and maybe some WiPs to generate hype. Slap that sucker on ebay for auction and see how high it goes.

Just imagine all those Ferrari-Gamers out there, cruising around in their space-ships, just itching for new toys and tax write-offs.

Mwua, yes quite, James. I purchased this Hopper Squig for two hundred pounds on the internet, mwua, quite! The old chap was auctioning it off for charity, so I can reinvest that money is Ferrari cup-holders naaaxt business year, mwua, mwua! Quite!

What a great idea!

I've worked a lot with charities, and I think this would be pretty hard to make work, though. Basically, they want either cash, or things that they can auction at events. Very commonly, at a charitable function like a dinner for a cause, you will see tables with stuff that people donated, and you can fill in a card with your auction amount. Some are blind and some are not. Some examples of popular items are small appliances and electronics, a painting or print, or signed sports jersey or other autographed sports memorabilia. I see you're from Canada too, and here, native artwork does really well.

The miniatures would only be a donation they'd be interested in if they thought it had auction value. Because it's a specialty item, I don't think so -- or it would need to be of general appeal, like Lord of the Rings, and really beautifully painted.

Well I think that if we find some good artists who want to help we will be taking a step in the right direction.

I've emailed a couple already, but I think I'm going to put out a general call for top notch painting companies to come on-board with this thing.

Maybe trying to gather up a bunch of models is the wrong idea, and instead focusing on getting those one or two big donations is better for our purposes.

Like for example if someone donated an Imperial Knight, that could generate some attention.

Of course the whole thing relies on the clever use of media, and while I may be a stunning character of utmost charm here on Dakka I'm afraid my social skills are severely lacking in other avenues. Dakka has a facebook page we could flood...


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Okay well the thread is up...

I suppose here would be a good place to ask for advice and start a discussion as to how in the seven hells we are gonna pull this off...

Anyone wanna help organize with me?