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FurCon - Charity Lead - Post-Con Report
9 months ago
Absolutely fuckin phenominal
WE NAILED THIS.
History
Further Confusion has been running since 1999. Every year, they select a 501©(3) nonprofit organization to support and raise funds for that charity. Cool, right?
Yes, but it was never a truly organized thing. The "department" was never a true, real standalone department with a lead, and always passed around to other departments to semi-organize one part or another. This isn't to say it was ineffective; look at how much goddamn money FurCon has managed to raise in the past! https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Further_Confusion
But the actual coordination with the charities and charity events was somewhat haphazard or absent.
Enter, us.
Project Management
Hot off of being the Charity Lead for BLFC (Oct), we were asked to step in as Charity Lead for FC in early November. The former FC Charity Lead, Puppers, unfortunately passed away earlier in 2024 and left behind little infrastructure. We were glad to accept the position because we had many plans, schemes, ideas, and lessons learned from BLFC. As awesome as that con had went, we knew some areas where we could do a better job, and opportunities to coordinate with nonprofits in the area. We'd been brought into BLFC's Charity Lead position too late to get any, ANY organizations other than the main charity involved.
Not this time. For FC, we immediately set to work taking notes, collecting and creating documentation, and reaching out to nonprofits in the Santa Clara county. A convention that has been running for 25 years absolutely has built goodwill with many organizations they'd donated to in the area, but didn't really take full advantage of that good reputation. Never really built a true network of partnerships with them.
We carved out a significant area of "The Zoo" for charities to set up tables and booths and have staff at the convention. We knew that more than 5,000 attendees would show, if not 6,000, and what an intense opportunity for local non-profits to connect with our shared community. LGBTQ organizations, pet shelters, sex education organizations, and the main charity of the year, the LGBTQ Youth Space of Santa Clara County (https://youthspace.org/) all got tables and very public space to interface with attendees, promote their programs, build awareness of their causes, hand out swag, and get to know people both foreign and local.
Not only did we ensure use of this space for the charities, but we also took responsibility for multiple services that provided their specialties in exchange for donations to the main charity. A temporary tattoo parlor, Ephemeral Ink, and a massage specializing in fursuiter massages, giving them a prime spot to do their work and further raise money for charity. For all of them, charities and services alike, we fought like FUCK to ensure they were given free attendance, free PARKING (this was more of a fight than you realize; it is basic fucking etiquette that if you invite an organization to your event that you cover their parking one way or another), and free access to aspects of the con that are under their particular purview. For example, we provided one organization (AACI, a sex health organization) with a booth in a PRIME location in the Night Market, the adult-only and very sexual event at the con. They came (HA) with an enormous amount of safe sex materials and protection, and ran out of everything in less than two hours. Success!
The Big Event
There were multiple events for the charity; an introduction during Opening Ceremonies, a Meet the Charity panel, being a judge at FurCon: Unleashed Talent Show, a speech at Closing Ceremonies - and The Charity Auction.
The premise of the Charity Auction is simple. Donations are collected and then auctioned off to raise funds for the charity. Typically, these donations are about 40 - 50 items from various vendors and artists and raise a couple thousand. But you know us; we must make it bigger.
We more than doubled the number of donations from any previous year. So many items were donated that we literally could not auction off everything. We went to every single dealer in the Dealer's Den, hit up every artist in Artists Alley, and also received donations of props, banners and massive posters from other departments of the con. Over 120 items were donated, including a goddamn beautiful bunny fursuit head and paws, a plush of a Lackadaisy character signed by the creators and cast, fursuit tags with funny numbers (0001, 0069, 0420, 0621, and 1337), and a giant foam coffee cup.
Every item was catalogued into a registry we made. We coordinated with an auctioneer, multiple cashiers (you need 2 or 3 to prevent bottlenecks), the Audio-Visual team, and stage assistants, and planned and executed how the show would go with input from all of them. At BLFC we had made some mistakes and only generated about $3500 from the auction (still a big chunk), but with lessons learned from those mistakes allowed us, with 30 minutes LESS time, to raise nearly $5,000!
And it all ran smooth as fucking butter. Except for some last-minute coordination issues around getting a payment processor and not having a working printer to print the item registry, we worked the auctioneer at a breakneck pace, keeping items flowing up stage and off stage and sold to the winners in mere minutes apiece.
There was still no way to auction off everything and were left with a considerable number of items leftover; things we would have to store and keep for next year. But it occurred to us: the charity is a goddamn youth center. Plushies, clothing, pins, stickers, books, banners, flags, bags, nearly EVERYTHING that any furry vendor/dealer/creator would donate would make a wonderful donation directly to the charity itself. Any child or teen or even troubled young adult that opens a bin and sees all these incredibly high quality pins and stickers, or sees a shirt with an amazing furry design on it that they can take and have and call their own, or opens a furry comic book or sees furry artwork posted on the wall, or gets to hold and snuggle a beautiful rainbow-patterned plush that can comfort them in their difficult times; this can have as much impact, if not more, on their life and wellbeing than a cash donation. The welcoming wholesomeness of the Furry community might reach someone who desperately needs that connection and would never otherwise have become aware that Furry was even a thing.
Charity, Charity. Echoen/Balros/Skilea, how was the actual CON?!
Of the approximately 96 hours of the con, we worked for at least a solid 48 of those hours. Yes, we got enough sleep, and managed to participate in some aspects of the con as just an attendee, but honestly the best moments came while presenting as Charity Lead.
We were asked to be a judge, one of three, at the FC:U variety show, alongside a charity representative and a former contestant. The show itself was amazing with some real talent and incredibly passionate performers, ultimately selecting as a winner someone who happened to also be a con-friend and transformation corruptor Cassidy Civet, who had been competing for a very, very long time but never a first place winner.
Supporting the charity in the Night Market was actually a ton of fun, making sure they had everything they needed from tables and chairs to that premier space, to roaming the Night Market itself and solving minor problems like getting water refills to the water cooler in the Pool Toy Party balloon room. Hanging around the other staff and leads and just absorbing the issues they were dealing with, listening in on the kinds of problems that can happen and how best to solve those, was super interesting. We provided all of our Charity staff volunteers with skip-the-line VIP access to the Night Market, who's entry line was hours long and extended from the hotel back into the convention center itself. Even the auctioneer for the Charity Auction, whom considered themselves ace and told themselves they had no interest in an adult event, went in because of the provided VIP pass and realized they had a great time and a lot of fun. We even gave VIP passes to any charity staff that wanted them, and being able to skip the line was a big deal to several of the charity staff because they were just too busy with their table/booth staffing to go through the rigamarole of the lines.
We did make time for ourselves, for friends and even loved ones that we met at the con. Beautiful people with beautiful hearts. Special shout out to
scarlett_v whom we just HAPPENED to sit next to on the plane from Seattle, HAPPENED to be at the same hotel, and HAPPENED to be on the floor of that hotel!! We spoke deeply on matters of multiversity, corruption, Transformation, and we found how delicious and identical to us as a system they are. Expect more collaborative writing between us.
Also shout out to
pseudofaux for driving a slog to visit us at the con!! And to our Charity assistant 
Matsi who won the poker tournament to raise $1500 for charity!!
The food was good. Really good. Expensive, of course, but decadent. But for all the calories we consumed, we burned as much from sheer walking all hours of the day as con staff.
2026
We plan to do this again, absolutely. Better than even this time. Our plans and schemes shall grow. The community connection between con and charities shall grow. The department itself shall grow.
We are a corruptive force for good.
WE NAILED THIS.
History
Further Confusion has been running since 1999. Every year, they select a 501©(3) nonprofit organization to support and raise funds for that charity. Cool, right?
Yes, but it was never a truly organized thing. The "department" was never a true, real standalone department with a lead, and always passed around to other departments to semi-organize one part or another. This isn't to say it was ineffective; look at how much goddamn money FurCon has managed to raise in the past! https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Further_Confusion
But the actual coordination with the charities and charity events was somewhat haphazard or absent.
Enter, us.
Project Management
Hot off of being the Charity Lead for BLFC (Oct), we were asked to step in as Charity Lead for FC in early November. The former FC Charity Lead, Puppers, unfortunately passed away earlier in 2024 and left behind little infrastructure. We were glad to accept the position because we had many plans, schemes, ideas, and lessons learned from BLFC. As awesome as that con had went, we knew some areas where we could do a better job, and opportunities to coordinate with nonprofits in the area. We'd been brought into BLFC's Charity Lead position too late to get any, ANY organizations other than the main charity involved.
Not this time. For FC, we immediately set to work taking notes, collecting and creating documentation, and reaching out to nonprofits in the Santa Clara county. A convention that has been running for 25 years absolutely has built goodwill with many organizations they'd donated to in the area, but didn't really take full advantage of that good reputation. Never really built a true network of partnerships with them.
We carved out a significant area of "The Zoo" for charities to set up tables and booths and have staff at the convention. We knew that more than 5,000 attendees would show, if not 6,000, and what an intense opportunity for local non-profits to connect with our shared community. LGBTQ organizations, pet shelters, sex education organizations, and the main charity of the year, the LGBTQ Youth Space of Santa Clara County (https://youthspace.org/) all got tables and very public space to interface with attendees, promote their programs, build awareness of their causes, hand out swag, and get to know people both foreign and local.
Not only did we ensure use of this space for the charities, but we also took responsibility for multiple services that provided their specialties in exchange for donations to the main charity. A temporary tattoo parlor, Ephemeral Ink, and a massage specializing in fursuiter massages, giving them a prime spot to do their work and further raise money for charity. For all of them, charities and services alike, we fought like FUCK to ensure they were given free attendance, free PARKING (this was more of a fight than you realize; it is basic fucking etiquette that if you invite an organization to your event that you cover their parking one way or another), and free access to aspects of the con that are under their particular purview. For example, we provided one organization (AACI, a sex health organization) with a booth in a PRIME location in the Night Market, the adult-only and very sexual event at the con. They came (HA) with an enormous amount of safe sex materials and protection, and ran out of everything in less than two hours. Success!
The Big Event
There were multiple events for the charity; an introduction during Opening Ceremonies, a Meet the Charity panel, being a judge at FurCon: Unleashed Talent Show, a speech at Closing Ceremonies - and The Charity Auction.
The premise of the Charity Auction is simple. Donations are collected and then auctioned off to raise funds for the charity. Typically, these donations are about 40 - 50 items from various vendors and artists and raise a couple thousand. But you know us; we must make it bigger.
We more than doubled the number of donations from any previous year. So many items were donated that we literally could not auction off everything. We went to every single dealer in the Dealer's Den, hit up every artist in Artists Alley, and also received donations of props, banners and massive posters from other departments of the con. Over 120 items were donated, including a goddamn beautiful bunny fursuit head and paws, a plush of a Lackadaisy character signed by the creators and cast, fursuit tags with funny numbers (0001, 0069, 0420, 0621, and 1337), and a giant foam coffee cup.
Every item was catalogued into a registry we made. We coordinated with an auctioneer, multiple cashiers (you need 2 or 3 to prevent bottlenecks), the Audio-Visual team, and stage assistants, and planned and executed how the show would go with input from all of them. At BLFC we had made some mistakes and only generated about $3500 from the auction (still a big chunk), but with lessons learned from those mistakes allowed us, with 30 minutes LESS time, to raise nearly $5,000!
And it all ran smooth as fucking butter. Except for some last-minute coordination issues around getting a payment processor and not having a working printer to print the item registry, we worked the auctioneer at a breakneck pace, keeping items flowing up stage and off stage and sold to the winners in mere minutes apiece.
There was still no way to auction off everything and were left with a considerable number of items leftover; things we would have to store and keep for next year. But it occurred to us: the charity is a goddamn youth center. Plushies, clothing, pins, stickers, books, banners, flags, bags, nearly EVERYTHING that any furry vendor/dealer/creator would donate would make a wonderful donation directly to the charity itself. Any child or teen or even troubled young adult that opens a bin and sees all these incredibly high quality pins and stickers, or sees a shirt with an amazing furry design on it that they can take and have and call their own, or opens a furry comic book or sees furry artwork posted on the wall, or gets to hold and snuggle a beautiful rainbow-patterned plush that can comfort them in their difficult times; this can have as much impact, if not more, on their life and wellbeing than a cash donation. The welcoming wholesomeness of the Furry community might reach someone who desperately needs that connection and would never otherwise have become aware that Furry was even a thing.
Charity, Charity. Echoen/Balros/Skilea, how was the actual CON?!
Of the approximately 96 hours of the con, we worked for at least a solid 48 of those hours. Yes, we got enough sleep, and managed to participate in some aspects of the con as just an attendee, but honestly the best moments came while presenting as Charity Lead.
We were asked to be a judge, one of three, at the FC:U variety show, alongside a charity representative and a former contestant. The show itself was amazing with some real talent and incredibly passionate performers, ultimately selecting as a winner someone who happened to also be a con-friend and transformation corruptor Cassidy Civet, who had been competing for a very, very long time but never a first place winner.
Supporting the charity in the Night Market was actually a ton of fun, making sure they had everything they needed from tables and chairs to that premier space, to roaming the Night Market itself and solving minor problems like getting water refills to the water cooler in the Pool Toy Party balloon room. Hanging around the other staff and leads and just absorbing the issues they were dealing with, listening in on the kinds of problems that can happen and how best to solve those, was super interesting. We provided all of our Charity staff volunteers with skip-the-line VIP access to the Night Market, who's entry line was hours long and extended from the hotel back into the convention center itself. Even the auctioneer for the Charity Auction, whom considered themselves ace and told themselves they had no interest in an adult event, went in because of the provided VIP pass and realized they had a great time and a lot of fun. We even gave VIP passes to any charity staff that wanted them, and being able to skip the line was a big deal to several of the charity staff because they were just too busy with their table/booth staffing to go through the rigamarole of the lines.
We did make time for ourselves, for friends and even loved ones that we met at the con. Beautiful people with beautiful hearts. Special shout out to
scarlett_v whom we just HAPPENED to sit next to on the plane from Seattle, HAPPENED to be at the same hotel, and HAPPENED to be on the floor of that hotel!! We spoke deeply on matters of multiversity, corruption, Transformation, and we found how delicious and identical to us as a system they are. Expect more collaborative writing between us.Also shout out to
pseudofaux for driving a slog to visit us at the con!! And to our Charity assistant 
Matsi who won the poker tournament to raise $1500 for charity!!The food was good. Really good. Expensive, of course, but decadent. But for all the calories we consumed, we burned as much from sheer walking all hours of the day as con staff.
2026
We plan to do this again, absolutely. Better than even this time. Our plans and schemes shall grow. The community connection between con and charities shall grow. The department itself shall grow.
We are a corruptive force for good.
That means 'Shenanigans'
That means FUN was had
Hopefully you had LOTS of it