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Okay folks here is the deal...


We are going to run a charity event and I need volunteer painters!

Here is how it's going to work. We will find suitable donations of miniatures from hobbyists who will then send you their toys. You paint 'em up like only you know how, and eBay the miniature just like normal. Except this time the profits go to a charity of you, and or the donors choice!

What do you say painters? Can you lay down a few brush strokes for charity?

I know we can drum up some donations, and I know we can drum up some very talented artists. Lets put our heads together and make this happen!

Artists who are employed by, or run a high quality miniature painting service and are interested in participating in this event are asked to please PM me for details.

Also, if anyone else is interested in helping out, has any advice, or wants to make a donation please fell free to leave me a PM as well. However, if you have donations I urge you to please wait as we are nowhere near ready to start with that stage of the event yet. If you are a charity event organizer please PM as I probably need your help too!

Thanks in advance!

You may want to mention the charity you have in mind.

Here is an outline of my plan so far. I intend to try and keep this event as transparent and as foolproof as possible.

Mission Statement: The Hobbyists Charity aims to generate funds for local children's charities. We intend to do this by collecting suitable donations from Hobbyists and having these donations painted and auctioned off online by professional miniature painters.

The Plan (So far): I shall outline my plan in steps to show how I think this charity would work in practice. Please feel free to discuss this as you will so that the plan can be refined further.

Step 1: Find a suitable donation. At this point we are looking for an item that we feel will generate interest online and that we are confident will sell for a good price. Let's say we find a donor in the USA who wants to give away an Imperial Knight. We review the item thoroughly with the artist who will be taking the donation to make sure that we have a workable item and it is free from any defects or major issues requiring a lot of work. If the item passes inspection we move on to Step 2

Step 2: We find an Artist. Step 2 happens at the same time as Step 1, in a perfect world. We don't want to ship that Knight from Texas to an Artist in London, so when we find a suitable donation we will hopefully have an Artist nearby! Once we have an Artist on board with the project we have the Donor and the Artist get into contact with each other and they arrange shipping. Note: Here is where I'd like to introduce some measure of responsibility and credibility. By having the Donor ship his item directly to the Artist we are placing full responsibility on someone we know for sure we can trust. Commission painters of the standard we want to attract are some of the most trustworthy and professional people out there. A Hobbyists Charity Artist is going to be that type of person.

Step 3: Paint goes on, hype goes up. While the Artist is painting the model we use social media to build interest in the project. Organizers will keep the online community updated with works in progress photos and sometimes videos.

Step 4: The Artist auctions the item. Once the miniature has been completed we begin an eBay auction and sell it to the highest bidder. Again here I see this as an easy way to maintain credibility as the sale of the item can be recorded properly and the profits donated visibly.

Who pays?

We are asking Donors to cover the cost of shipping. Painters are preferably working on a mostly volunteer basis and are already employed by a reputable painting company, however some compensation may be required and supplies need to be paid for. I suggest that these funds be drawn from the proceeds of the auction as it is my hope that each auction will sell for enough money to more than cover any small fees and supply costs. In passing along shipping costs to consumers on either end of the process a large part of the cost involved is negated. The Donor pays to ship it to the Artist, the auction winner pays for their own shipping.

Why will it work?

This charity will take off running because people are willing to pay top dollar for high quality painted miniatures. If we could create a situation where high end collectors were able to not only buy their collectibles, but gain tax write-offs in the form of charitable donations we could charge exponentially more per auction and generate a lot of money for charity without having to worry about keeping top notch painters employed.

There you have it folks. That is my plan.

At any rate I think I can set up a trial run and see if it works!

A couple of things to maybe look into -

- If this is going to be an ongoing 'thing' then having the auctions all go through a single account would help to raise awareness of the 'brand' more effectively than having it farmed out through an assortment of painters.

- To use eBay (and potentially even if you don't use eBay), you're going to need written authorisation from the chosen charity to raise money on their behalf. If you're looking at a bunch of different charities, that potentially adds a whole bunch of extra work.




It's an admirable goal, though. Good luck with it!

I think you'll find it much easier if you nominate 1 or 2 charities to donate to, rather than leaving it up to donor/painter to decide.

It's a great idea though.

For the record I think this is a great idea, in the past the wargaming community have rallied behind projects like Goblin Aid, Frothers runs extensive auctions and even gets sculptors to donate their work. But the key thing they have is support of the donators by explaining what they're raising it for.

If you want this to be a Dakka-centric thing, then you have a wonderful resource in the forum itself to help choose a charity. Run a poll, or make a suggestion topic, find out a couple of charities people here care passionately for.

Asking a studio or individual to give up several hours of their time (effectively wages), and then pick the charity is a nice idea, but you may need something a little concrete to convince them to do so. Having the backing of a large, passionate community to show that time and effort will be cared about would help immensely.

Think of it in another way:
Someone turned up at your door, as they are apt to do, and said, "Donate to charity."
"Okay, which one?"
"You decide."
You'd wonder a little about what to do, or how to respond.
Whereas if someone turned up and said, "I'm here to raise money for a charity that hundreds or Wargamers you know are very passionate about, would you help?" You already show how important the idea is to other people.

Very good points people!

I guess there is only one thing to do! Run a poll and pick a charity!

I will create a new thread to accommodate so keep an eye out!