NaNoWriMo :: NaNoWriMo Blog

I am now pleased to present the outstanding and esteemed Emily Bristow, our Captain of Capital Ideas and Austin, Texas' Municipal Liaison for six years running. Take it away, Emily!

Last spring, I was startled to learn that NaNoWriMo begins each season in debt. This year, it took $70,000 in loans to launch the event. Wouldn't it be great, I thought, if we could raise enough money to meet expenses AND have something left over? Then, we'd have seed money for next year, and this loan business could be a thing of the past.

Chris created an online Pilot Fundraising Program, and G.L.,Mandrina, SarahJanet, zotz, and I brainstormed like crazy through the spring and summer. I made some proposals to Chris and found myself with a staff position and a title: the ML Captain of Capital Ideas. My mandate was to move things forward and realize some of the team’s fine ideas.

We turned, as we so often do, to our valiant Municipal Liaisons, asking them to add fundraising to their lengthy list of tasks. And they blew us away with their energy and ingenuity. They created forum posts and emails, passed the hat, designed regional t-shirts, set up raffles, hosted brunches, recorded CDs, and even went caroling for NaNoWriMo.

I spent a chunk of the summer planning a fundraising contest to reward everyone's efforts. It turns out there's an intricate relationship between region size, donation history, and a bunch of other variables. But we don't have a lot of data, so we aren't too clear on what that relationship is. Next year, armed with the information we gather from this year, we're planning to have a much larger and louder contest.

What we do have this year is prizes!

• The winning region names prominently displayed on the NaNoWriMo site
• A lovely icon to flaunt across the internet
• A mighty fine trophy
• A congratulatory email from Chris Baty himself

And we're giving them to five fundraising champions*:


#1: Seattle, Washington at $4,395





#2: Los Angeles, California at $3,394.34





#3: Maryland at $2,980





Our top new region: Bloomington-Normal, Illinois at $1,045





Our top region with <100 participants: DeKalb, Illinois, with 34 participants, at $1,175

*Numbers reflect the regional totals as of December 1, 2008.

Winners! We love ya! And we thank everyone who donated or contributed in non-monetary ways. Without you there would be no NaNoWriMo. We are sincerely grateful.

We didn't make our ambitious goal of "ten for ten" - 10% of participants donating in NaNo's 10th year. But we raised our donor rate from 5.42% to 7.19%, and put $387,328 in NaNo’s coffers.

The means we can keep the servers up, lights on, increase server capacity, and hire a tech director. And! Hire a grant writer. Since we didn't hit the target this time, we're going to need some grants (and loans) to launch next year's event. Or, if you're so inclined – you can give us a head start on next year now!

Many thanks to Pamela McRae for her fabulous work on the winners' web badges!