Fairyland, the Norton, and Us

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

So, I wanted to let this wonderful community know that my crowdfunded project, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is a finalist for the Andre Norton Award, which is basically the Nebula for YA books. It is a major award in speculative fiction.

We're trying to pull up the books, but are reasonably sure this is the first crowdfunded project to be nominated for a major award--but it can happen! These works are eligible for the Nebulas and Hugos, the biggest awards in the field. (I'm not sure about the World Fantasy Award)

I'll be talking a lot about crowdfunding in the next couple of months, and trying to direct some traffic here. But with all the talk of how we aren't given legitimacy and aren't eligible for awards, I wanted to tell you guys that at least for some of them, we are, and can even make it all the way to the final ballot.

Go Team Crowdfunding!

crowdfunding for charity

[papyruscrow.livejournal.com]

Hi all you awesome people!

I'm interested using crowd-funded creativity to raise money for a charity, Mercy Corps Mongolia, which is doing a lot of important but unglamorous work, like setting up school lunches, rehabilitation therapy for elders, technology training, that kind of thing. I have until July to try and get some money together - this is for a big charity event, the Mongol Rally, which has about 200 groups driving from London to Ulaanbaatar.

I just now joined livejournal specifically to do this sort of thing (getting to meet cool people and read about their lives is sure an awesome bonus), since I've seen lots of good work and networking on livejournal. I had an account once, but I've long been out of the habit of using it, and I bet people would be pretty annoyed if I came back only to beg for money. :) So I'm starting over with a new account.

I plan to try different things and see what people are willing to support: I dabble a little in writing, drawing, calligraphy (Mongolian calligraphy, which is pretty neat), and glass sculpture, but I'm not awesome in any of them.

I want to hear the experiences of anyone else who's done creativity-for-charity. What did you try? What worked, what didn't, what would you do differently, that sort of thing.

(I know about the Big Auctions For Well Connected People Who Have Fallen On Hard Times, but I am not so connected nor my cause so urgent, so I don't think that model does me any good.)

I have three specific questions, for people who have experience in fundraising for a specific cause:

1. Should I keep my creative offerings thematically tied to Mongolia?
2. Are there any resources for doing creativity-for-charity I should know about?
3. Should I set a specific amount of money I'm trying to raise? Overall? Per event? Will it inspire donors (and me?) or would it just be depressing?