Hello all my fellow FoLCs!
The generosity of this fandom has kept these sites up and running for 30+ years. Amazing! And now it's time to focus on keeping it going for the next few years.
KSaraSara and DarthMichael have been working hard behind the scenes to update and consolidate a lot of things. We have new hosting! (that's the hardware where all the websites live). We got a huge update to the boards! (DarthMichael worked hard to keep them looking almost exactly the same). And there's other huge updates in the works that DarthMichael has been hinting about for the last year in Discord.
What this all means is that we also have consolidated expenses and get better rates for things. But it also means a big bill every few years to make up for the years that don't have one now.
We need $800 by October 2026 for the bills that will be due the beginning of 2027. You can see our progress bar and detailed ways to give here:
https://www.lcficmbs.com/signup/donations/Everything that is given towards the financial needs of the fandom goes to that, minus some unavoidable conversion and platform fees. Everything else is done by our amazing volunteers! And that includes me as the new Fundraising Coordinator.
I've been discussing it already with the FoLCs in Discord, but I'm very much not wanting to leave those who frequent the boards out! We are all a fandom together, no matter where we hang out! And I want your ideas too!
Current options under discussion:
- Swag (cool fandom stuff) - t-shirts, bags, stickers, possibly decal branded usb drives and tumblers, easy 3d printed stuff like bookends, etc
A number of our older FoLCs still have the CD that was part of a previous fundraiser. It contains stories that were only released several months after the CD was shipped, fan art and fan videos. We are talking about making another one and accepting donations of fan works to go on it. It would be in a nice case as a memento for your shelf and a downloadable aspect so those who get one wouldn't also have to buy an optical drive in this day where they are increasingly rare. - Auction - people can donate items, services, stories, fanvids for auction.
- Raffle - We might acquire some special items and raffle them off. One of the items that caught my attention was the possibility of a 3d printed statue, especially if we have a member who loves doing finishing work on them (smoothing, painting).
What would you like to see? What ideas do you have?
