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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dextra" data-source="post: 1721116" data-attributes="member: 5705">My Thoughts on the ENnies (1/3)- overall & fundingLast years' were great, but there was room for improvement.  This years' were even better, and there's still room for improvement.  To start things off, I must say that considering that this was all run by a krewe of volunteers with zero budget, there was a bang-up job done, and congratulations all around are in order.  The awards went smoothly, and the MC was perfect, and we had a good time.Alrighty.  Now for my opinions.  If I seem critical, and it was touching upon an area in which you were involved, please forgive me.  Honestly, I was impressed this year, but I'm also a micromanaging chronic nitpicker who can't leave well enough alone (and who also has some experience with event planning and marketing).  Also, please be advised that these reflect my opinions alone, and are not necessarily shared by the rest of the ENP ownership.  As someone involved in ENP, and a proud ENWorlder, I have to say something.  The ENnies are attached to ENWorld.  ENPublishing is the publishing branch of ENWorld.  Thus, what ENWorld and ENnies do reflect upon ENP.  So it really hurt me to see the apathetic booth display and someone in bluejeans handing out the awards and a couple of other factors that made me feel as though the ENnies were a rinkydink, unprofessional award not-to-be-taken seriously.Once again, what was done was done with no money and a staff of volunteers.  But if we want to be taken seriously, we have to take things seriously ourselves.  I've split this post up into different sections, cuz it was getting big.So here are some of my suggestions:Overall-the ENnies needs a mission statement (and that the role between it and ENWorld be clarified).  This is the most important factor.  Once there's a mission statement, everything else has to toe that line, and decisions will be easier.Funding-GenCon LLC already supports the ENnies financially.  The ENnies gain legitimacy and attention because they are also the GenCon awards (nobody had heard of them before, really), and the ENnies give GenCon an award system already set up with voting mechanics.  It's a fairly balanced give-take.  Thus, insisting that GC bankroll the whole thing is unrealistic.  GC and the ENnies should share in expenses.-as I see it, the main expenses are the trophy creation & shipping, shipping of the products to the judges, the awards ceremony itsself, and promotion/advertising (including booth hardware).  Not counting the awards ceremony, right there that's at least a $1K investment.  -non-profit status:  just means a lot of pain in the ass paperwork, accounting, and legal fees.  You don't have to be a not-for-profit group to accept donations.  In Canada, if the ENnies were a non-profit group, I could point to some funding/grant possibilities, but I have zero clue about US regs.  Then again, there's nothing saying that the ENnies would have to be registered in the US of A.  But honestly, I don't see the expense time, money, and energy-wise to be worth it.-my suggestion is, let ENP take over the management of the awards.  We could come up with the money to split costs with GenCon.  We have the staff and experience to plan and execute events.  We can't participate in the ENnies, anyhow (/me pouts), so why not let us get involved elsewhere?  Or do the publishers think that there might be some weird bias?-other funding ideas: --an entry fee:  $10-$20/publisher, plus an additional $2-$5/additional product submitted- that'd defray the shipping & award costs--an ENnies mingler/gala fundraiser just before the ceremony: collect event tickets for a cocktail reception with food (keep the ceremony free, but this way people can get in early and secure good seats and hang out with the nominees)--event tickets charity: have a drop-box for unused event tickets, and be able to refund them at the end of the weekend.  It would look kindof like begging, though, so I'm not so keen on that one.--shipping the products directly to the judges.  This helps keep costs down, although I don't know if it is appropriate for the publishers to be contacting the judges directly.  Questions of propriety are raised- did a publisher slip in some money or other bribery?--having 7 copies of each product (5 for the judges, 1 for Russ as is already, plus 1 extra copy).  The extra copies could be bundled and auctioned off.--other fundraisers: bakesale!   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> PS- SpoonyBard: please, stop shouting.  It makes your posts really hard on the eyes with all those bigger fonts.  We get the point.</blockquote>

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