(Edit: Are you looking for the current Worldbuilders fundraiser? If so, I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place.

Click here for the current fundraiser.)

What’s that you say? You want to make the world a better place while winning fabulous prizes?

Well today is your lucky day.

Heifer International is my favorite charity. It helps people raise themselves up out of poverty and starvation. Heifer promotes education, sustainable agriculture, and local industry all over the world.

They don’t just keep kids from starving, they make it so families can take care of themselves. They give goats, sheep, and chickens to families so their children have milk to drink, warm clothes to wear, and eggs to eat.

(Are you ready? I’m so ready. Let’s do it.)

Pay attention now, you’ve got a couple different options for donating.

Option 1: The Lottery.

This is the option most people will want. It’s simple. You hop directly over to the page I’ve set up on Team Heifer, and donate.

When you donate on that page, two things happen.

1. You’ll move us closer to our stretch goals (shown below).

2. You’ll be entered in the lottery.

After the fundraiser is over, we’ll have a random drawing for all the swag that’s been donated. Thousands of books, comics, DVD’s and other cool miscellany.

For every 10 bucks you donate, your name will get entered into the drawing once. If you donate thirty bucks, your name goes in three times. Think of it as buying tickets, if you like.

We’ve had *way* too many books donated to post them all up at once. So I’ll be putting up a blog full of donated books every day or so, just to keep y’all from being overwhelmed.

Make sure to check back often to see the new coolness.

Last year, book-lovers and geeks from all over the world helped us raise more than $310,000 for Heifer International. It was a stunning display of generosity and goodwill.

Still, I think we can do even better.

In order to encourage people to donate, we have some stretch goals this year. Every time we raise another 50K, something new and cool will be added to the fundraiser.

I’ll go into more detail about some of these stretch goals as they get closer. But the first of these is a request that’s come from the regular readers of my blog. Over the years, I’ve had countless requests that I explain the details about the calendar and the currency system of the Four Corners.

We’re currently on the road to our 350K stretch goal. If we hit it, the people at Geek Chic will design and produce a functional Lockless Box.

You can donate over here on our Team Heifer Donation Page.

Note: Worldbuilders ends January 21st, 2013 at 11:59 pm CST. All donations must be in before then to qualify for the lottery.

Option 2: The Sure Thing.

Or, as I like to think of it, the Christmas Present Option.

For those of you who aren’t interested in the lottery, we have some stuff you can just buy.

Our store, lovingly named The Tinker’s Packs, has t-shirts, posters, and other coolness available for purchase. We also have a slew of foreign editions donated and signed by the authors. Portuguese, German, Spanish, Japanese…. These editions are really hard to find if you live here in the US, and we have a *lot* of them.

All proceeds from the store go to Worldbuilders, of course.

Additionally, this year we’ve produced a Fantasy Themed Pin-Up Calendar. Every month showcases a different fantasy author, either featuring a character from a book (Like Cersei Lannister from Martin’s Game of Thrones) or an homage to the author’s work (Like the Fahrenheit 451 inspired pin-up of Bradbury’s.)

You can click on the image below to see the author’s names, and get glimpses of the illustrations.

If you’re interested in seeing some full images and the classic pinups that inspired them, I highly recommend checking out the blog Lee Moyer wrote on the subject.

N.K. Jemisin posted up her page along with a fascinating blog talking about how she worked together with Lee on the painting of Oree. You can also see Neil Gaiman’s page over on his blog. It’s one of my favorites. His wife, Amanda Palmer, posed as the model for Media from American Gods.

And, of course, there’s more images on the order page in The Tinker’s Packs.

We posted a lot of new stuff in the store this year. There were Jayne Hats, Cthulu cards, Pottery Steins, and so much more.

Option 3: Auctions.

Last year we did a few auctions and they seemed to work out pretty well. So this year we’re continuing in that fine tradition, auctioning off some of the rarer and more specialized services people have donated.

This year we have professionals who are willing to read and critique your manuscripts. We have signed art and rare books. We have the chance to win guest appearances in comics and get your name into upcoming books.

Stay tuned, as we’ll be adding new auctions all the time.

For a full listing of all current Worldbuilders auctions, CLICK HERE.

A Plea For Sanity

Lastly, I’d like to ask everyone to please read the instructions/directions carefully before they donate.

I know you’re excited. I’m excited too. We’re all going to raise some money, make the world a better place, and end up with big warm fuzzy feelings.

But the more emails my assistants get about missing addresses, wrong sizes, or forgotten personalization requests, the more likely they are to cry. You don’t want that, do you?

I’m sure you don’t. And I’m sure that you’ll read the instructions carefully.

FAQ.

Have questions? Most of them are probably answered over in the FAQ. (Even if your question isn’t answered, I talk about Batman a bit, so it won’t be a complete waste of your time.)

Lastly, just in case you missed it, here’s one more link to our Team Heifer donation page.

Let’s do this thing.

pat

P.S. Below are this year’s lovely sponsors. They have donated, books, services, and cold hard cash to make Worldbuilders what it is today.

You should show them some love. They deserve it.