Awesome SF/F

A reader named Romy alerted me to the Harry Potter Alliance, bringing fans together for good causes. Here are just a few of their accomplishments over the past decade or so, from their website:

• A partnership with Walk Free that engaged over 400,000 fans and resulted in Warner Bros. changing the sourcing of their Harry Potter chocolate to be 100% UTZ or Fairtrade.
• Raising over $123,000 for Partners In Health and sending five cargo planes of life-saving supplies to Haiti.
• Donations of over 250,000 books across the world through HPA’s Accio Books campaign.

I’m particularly enchanted by the annual Accio Books campaign. And I love that the different houses compete to see which can collect the most books. (Ravenclaw was the winner last year, which seems appropriate somehow.) The whole thing just sounds like fun, collaborative work to make the world a better place.

If you’re interested, you can donate, join a chapter, or volunteer.

J. K. Rowling herself has spoken about the group, saying, “I am honoured and humbled that Harry’s name has been given to such an extraordinary campaign, which really does exemplify the values for which Dumbledore’s Army fought in the books.”

I love seeing fans come together like this. I love the hope and the optimism … and I’m always happy to see how stories can inspire people to change the world for the better.

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In 2009, a LiveJournal post called “The Wild Unicorn Herd Check-in” in the Deadbrowalking community asked people who “identify as a POC/nonwhite person and … read or watch scifi or fantasy” to check in. There are more than 1000 comments on that post. And yet, I still run into people who believe people of color aren’t into science fiction and fantasy.

Looking at those 1000+ comments, it seems less that PoC don’t like SF/F, and more like the SF/F community as a whole has been less than welcoming to fans of color.

It’s one thing to say we want our community to be more welcoming and inclusive. It’s another to do something about it. Enter Con or Bust, an organization dedicated to helping people of color to attend science fiction and fantasy conventions. I spoke with Kate Nepveu, the secretary and treasurer of Con or Bust.

“Con or Bust was born out of RaceFail ’09, when some people of color I knew said, ‘We should help each other attend WisCon, so we can meet in person and be awesome together.’ I volunteered to organize a fundraiser in the fannish tradition of online LiveJournal auctions (such as livelongnmarry) because WisCon wasn’t in the cards for me that year, meaning there was no conflict of interest, and because I’d recently run a small-scale private fundraiser and so thought I could handle the work. We were doing this on extremely short notice — I announced the fundraiser on March 10, and WisCon is at the end of May — but we managed to raise enough money to send nine people, or everyone who’d requested assistance, to WisCon.

In late 2009, the Carl Brandon Society began acting as Con or Bust’s fiscal agent. That lasted through early 2016, when Con or Bust became a separate tax-exempt not-for-profit corporation.

All total, Con or Bust has raised almost $90,000 and helped fans of color attend conventions 329 times.

This year’s auction is going on through June 5, at 4 p.m. Eastern. According to their spreadsheet, the auction has more than 170 items up for bidding. This includes autographed books, critiques, clothes, art prints, character naming rights for various stories, and more. The spreadsheet includes direct links to each auction item, or you can look at the 2016 auction tags.

Requests for assistance are being accepted through the end of the day on Monday, June 6.

Do you have a suggestion for a SF/F group, individual, or event to be featured on the blog for general awesomeness? Email me at jchines -at- sff.net, or through my Contact Form.

Norwescon is an annual convention in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

I spoke (okay, emailed) Kathy Bond, the chair of Norwescon 38, 39, and 40, who talked a bit about the fundraising and charity work the convention does.

In 2016 alone, Norwescon donated:

• over $2,500 for Northwest Harvest, a local organization that feeds hungry people. (They also donated about 30 pounds of food.)
• $3,800 to Clarion West, which was given to 2 writers to help them attend the workshop this year
• $2,500 to help sponsor the Science Fiction Fantasy Short Film Festival
• $2,500 to help sponsor the Locus Awards

Let’s look at just one of those items. From the Northwest Harvest website, “Northwest Harvest can feed a family of three a nutritious meal for just 67 cents.” That means the convention paid for more than 3700 of those three-person meals.

Where does the money come from? Short answer: from fandom. From the hard work of convention volunteers, and the generosity of attendees. Kathy explains in more detail:

“For, the scholarships and sponsorships, the money came from our general fund. After 40 years, Norwescon has been lucky to build up a cash reserve that we’re able to re-deploy. For Northwest Harvest, we raise funds by soliciting donations when people buy their memberships, selling a specific charity ribbon at the convention, and with a Charity Auction on the last day of the convention. The food is done through a combination of food drive and donating the con suite leftovers.”

That is some impressive fundraising and generosity.

Do you have a recommendation for a person or group in the SF/F community who deserves a shout-out for doing generous, awesome, and generally wonderful work? Let me know!