Hello all!

For those of you just meeting us, #INeedDiverseGames started out as a twitter hashtag over a year ago. It grew in to this lovely community and we want to keep growing, thriving and become a 5013C so we can serve the community.

We’ve had a Go Fund Me open for a while but as of yet haven’t met 50% of our goal. Doing what we do takes money, especially if we want to grow into a Non-Profit organization.

We want to be able to take donations and turn them into opportunities for the marginalized folks in the gaming community such as travel grants, covering registration for events such as IndieCade, GDC, IDGA memberships and more.

We also want to be able to assist others in their work outside of the scope of Patreon or other assistance. So this is a one time ask to make a future of assisting the gaming community for a better, more diverse future for all of us.

Our goal is $3500, and as of today, we’ve raised $1695 of that thanks to 20 fabulous, generous supporters since we opened the Go Fund Me two months ago. If you have it in your bank account to spare a few bucks for us, we’ll put it to good use.

December’s Patreon money is going towards our GX3 expenses, including some swag, hotel and maybe a couple of meals. Going forward, some of the GoFundMe money will go into a fund for GDC expenses, etc.

We’re looking into ways to provide travel assistance to our GDC 2016 scholarship recipients next month. So if you can support either monetarily or via signal boost, here’s how you can support our work:

Money wise: Post on passing the hat and transparency re: donations

Social Media:

  • Follow on twitter and @ us when you find diverse game info
  • Follow us on Facebook, send us links and articles relevant to diversity in gaming
  • If you make games, send us a note! We love hearing from you! We want to promote game makers that are widening the pool
  • Submit links and articles you see on gaming, diversity, gender and lgbtqia issues. We can’t do everything by ourselves. This is a group effort
  • Be a force for good in the world, seriously. Spread the word on kickstarters, indiegogo’s and other diverse projects

Be an INDG Ambassador when you go to conventions:

  • If you plan to attend geek/gaming centric cons, let us know so we can send you swag to distribute. We can’t go to every convention so we need folks to spread the word for us!
  • If you buy #INeedDiverseGames merchandise please wear it at cons & take photos that are spread around social media.
  • Talk about this at cons, go forth and panel on diversity in gaming, please!

 

 

Published by cypheroftyr

Tanya DePass is the founder and Director of I Need Diverse Games, a non-profit organization based in Chicago, which is dedicated to better diversification of all aspects of gaming. I Need Diverse Games serves the community by supporting marginalized developers attend the Game Developer Conference by participating in the GDC Scholarship program, helps assist attendance at other industry events, and is seeking partnership with organizations and initiatives. Tanya is a lifelong Chicagoan who loves everything about gaming, #INeedDiverseGames spawn point, and wants to make it better and more inclusive for everyone. She founded and was the EIC of Fresh Out of Tokens podcast where games culture was discussed and viewed through a lense of feminism, intersectionality and diversity. Now she’s a co-host on Spawn on Me Podcast. Along with all of that, she’s the Programming Coordinator for OrcaCon, she often speaks on issues of diversity, feminism, race, intersectionality & other topics at multiple conventions throughout the year. Her writing about games and games critique appears in Uncanny Magazine, Polygon, Wiscon Chronicles, Vice Gaming, Paste Games, Mic, and other publications.