2024 Wrap Up

2024 is over and I've accomplished a lot this year. I want to share what has happened, what my goals are, and present how funds are managed.

• Sanford Children's Care Center

  • This year, I decided to donate some creative tools/books to the Sanford Children's Care Center. Dungeons and Dragons has made a huge positive impact on my life and I have been trying to share that with others.

  • I donated multiple copies of The Young Adventurer's Guide books (Series 1 & 2). These books cover all sorts of aspects of the D&D. Weapons, spells, monsters, locations, dungeons, and more. They are meant to give creative inspiration to kids. No specifically to play D&D, but for whatever fantasy world they want.

  • The Sanford Children's Care center works with kids with traumatic experiences, like sexual abuse or witnessing a homicide. I chose them because there is a lot of beauty in fantasy, in world building, and in story telling, and I felt that these books could offer some healthy escapism.

  • It felt great to speak with the team at Sanford, this particular facility did not receive many donations so they were very thankful.

• Events

  • I did a few events this year. Not as many as I would have liked but funding became an issue. Icewind Brewing hosted me several times and I can't thank them enough for that.

  • I also was at the Fargo Pop Expo and will be there again in 2025. Valley Con is in sight as well.

  • Doing events and tournaments takes research and help from other people. And it can be exhausting to manage all the moving parts. I am still learning how to manage my time and resources.

• Legacy Adventure

  • As something fun for the charity, I started the Legacy Adventure. This is a year long fantasy themed adventure that I post on Facebook and Instagram.

  • Each month, I create 3 options for the next stage of the adventure. We start with a hero, then a region, then get into monsters and traps and all sorts of fun stuff. People can vote for which one they like most by donating. The choice with the most donations wins.

  • The following month I make Dungeons and Dragons 5e (and soon 5.5 as well) content based on that winner. I post all the content on social media.

  • Some months I struggled to keep my schedule. Some months I questioned my quality or creativity. But I am proud that I completed a full year of this commitment. Even though it didn't pull many donations in. But I'm hopeful one day it will.

  • I am working on a Kickstarter for the 2024 Legacy Adventure. This is a first for me as well so I have a lot to learn. But I am optimistic and I am trying to remain disciplined in working on it.

• Reselling Games

  • I get a fair amount of used games donated to me, but for various reasons I can't always donate them to the kids. So I've been reselling them for additional organization funds. I've been selling at events as well as on Ebay now.

• New Wheels!

  • I acquired an SUV. The charity was a major decision in this. I was needing more space for travelling. So it is an exciting step for me and the organization.

  • This purchase was not used with donation funds. It was a personal purchase.

• Year End Total

  • This year we ended with $1839.37 in donations!

  • This is less that my goal but it is still an incredibly generous amount.

  • Below is a breakdown of income sources. Events are very high as they are a bulk donation to me from numerous donations. Individual donations are single instances that I receive directly. I.E. no middleman.

• Costs

  • I struggled to Bookkeep consistently this year. There were so many new things to consider. Ebay, website orders, Paypal, etc. So I spent more than I wanted on Event Support. However, all that spending is good. Much of it is a permanent resource for the future.

  • I still had a generous amount of funds to purchase items for the kids. My goal is to keep it about 50% for games and 50% for business upkeep and event support.

  • What I can spend is based off the previous year's income.

• Thank you

  • Thanks to everyone who donated, who shared, who simply liked social media posts. I'm learning so many things with this non-profit. I'm making mistakes and learning how to do better. And I've been putting immense effort into managing my personal life, which is seeing very good results, but it can make it difficult to dedicate sufficient time to Games On The Table. So I am truly thankful for any support, as it takes a huge weight off of me.

Ethan J Helling

Business Logistics FYI

Hello everyone. I have some important information about the charity I need to inform you of.

When I first started the charity, I had stated multiple times that, "Every penny you donate goes toward games for kids." This has been true. If there was a fee from GoFundMe, or a tax, or I overbought, then I covered it out of my own pocket. This wasn't that big of issue when I was only getting a few hundred dollars. Now that its getting into the thousands, its more noticeable. On top of that, there are business expenses that are adding up. I have website fees, marketing fees, non-profit fees, filing fees, business cards, travel, etc. The grander this organization becomes, so too do the expenses.

While I would love to be able to cover expenses out of pocket, I simply cannot. Not reliably anyway. I have my own personal expenses. I have my own savings for financial stability. I also have my own hobbies and interests that I need to fund.

Learning about how non-profits worked opened my eyes a bit. Contrary to my ignorance, people can in fact, profit from them. A non-profit is a company, and employees need wages. Now, I am the only employee, so the situation is a little different. I do not intend for Games On The Table to be a source of income for me. Not yet. The funds from donations are not substantial enough to give me anything of worth. And I don't want to gouge the donation money. However, I am at a place where donation funds need to be partially used for company upkeep, as all non-profits do. I am no longer just setting up GoFundMes and handling the money responsibly as intended. Games On The Table is in the inaugural state of an official organization. I need to treat it as such.

While not explicitly needed in GOTT's current state, I do have By-laws, I do have a conflict of interest policy. I have intentions and a standard of how I want this non-profit run. This brings up 2 points I want to make.

1. Running this organization is hard. I have to do a ton of learning, most of it on my own. I contacted 4 different organizations this year meant to help businesses get started and essentially all of them were useless. I have made mistakes, I have procrastinated, and I have worried. I have also relied on others who have fell short. I am not asking for sympathy, I'm simply stating that this isn't a hobby. This is something that takes effort and it can be difficult. Especially when this is not my job. This is not a source of income but rather an expense. (An expense that is worthwhile mind you.)

2. I know that my time and effort is valuable. This organization and its intentions matter. So do my efforts. Eventually, I would like for my efforts to be compensated. I don't foresee that happening soon, but if this organization becomes a part time job or even a full time job, then I need to be compensated to be able to sustain myself as well as the company. Currently, I do not intend to start "paying" myself until Games On The Table reaches $5000 in yearly donations. This was a quasi-arbitrary amount I established. Maybe it will be less. I have a lot to learn about how to allocate thousands of dollars for purchases. Having expenses to pay for with company funds will trim that down. But at some point I have to decide what is moral and feasible to give to myself or to give to future employees.

I have been making a lot of progress, albeit slow and complicated, this year. I'll keep updating as progress is made.

TLDR: 100% of your donations went to buy games. Due to expenses, that won't be the case in the future.

Thanks for the support.

Ethan J Helling

2022 Total and 2023 Action

We ended 2022 with $1673! 2022 was a bit undermined by the complications from 2021. We didn't hit the goal I wanted but I am still grateful for what we did earn.

A big thanks to my sister Amber for earning the bulk of the funds with her involvement in her local charity functions.

The 2022 earnings will be utilized for RPG workshops as well as board games. I spoke with some professionals this last year about the workshops and I am excited to get started.

Also, I wanted to thank my employer, Little Big Wars, for donating to Games On The Table for 2021.

The new logo is done! You should be able to see it on the home page. I want to get some merch made relatively soon and I will give an update when that project is ready.

I am moving soon. Really just down my street. But this is hindering some of my progress on different tasks. Regardless, I am working on becoming a non profit which is the primary goal so that I no longer need to utilize GoFundMe.

Thanks for the support.