I love how much the streaming community contributes to charity. Games Done Quick, St. Jude PLAY LIVE, GuardianCon, and many other events yield millions of dollars (and more each year!) for awesome charities. Beyond that individual broadcasters run their own charity streams for specific causes they’re passionate about.
However, unless you’re making hundreds of thousands of dollars from streaming you should do your business a favor and plan for your charity streaming. Far from reducing the amount of charity streaming, adequate planning should help increase the amount that broadcasters are able to contribute in time, energy, and income.
Why you need to plan around charity streaming
If you rely in any way on your income from streaming then you need to plan around charity streaming because you’re likely to earn less during that time. After all, viewers who might normally tip are instead contributing to charity. You also might be tapping your community out financially which could bleed over into subsequent months.
Additionally, you may be spending more to implement your incentives. This could be giveaways, Beanboozled challenges, IRL streams requiring new equipment, or any of a multitude of incentives that match what will motivate your community.
Finally, if you’re going full ham on charity streaming you may be spending more time away from your core stream value proposition. If you’re known for high level gameplay and you’re spending time with IRL you may temporarily put off some of your audience. Additionally, you might not be growing your audience with the types of people who enjoy what you generally do as opposed to what you’re doing during the charity stream.
All of the above is totally fine, assuming you plan for it and your plan seems to keep you stable.
Cash flow analysis
The first thing you should do is a cash flow analysis. It’s something you should do regardless but it’s especially important to do if you’re going to be dedicating time and resources to charity.
In addition to what I outline in that article there are a couple of keys points that you want to cover. First, try to make an estimate of how big of a hit you might take on the income side. This would most likely come from a reduction in tips though it possibly could also mean a subcount reduction. What percentage of your income is based on tips and bits? What would happen if that were completely eliminated? Cut in half?
Additionally, factor in some extra costs. If you’re going all out for something like St. Jude PLAY LIVE you’ll likely be spending a couple of hundred extra bucks to incentivize your viewers. Plus, most of the streamers I watch also donate to other charity efforts!
The goal is to figure out, relative to an “average” month, what you’ll be earning and spending. If you’ve done things like this in the past it can be great to go back and pull your numbers from Twitch, PayPal, Streamlabs, etc and compare it against the months surrounding it. It may be slightly harder to compile what you spent on the event unless you were quite diligent about tracking spending.
Setting aside reserves
Once you’ve done your cash flow analysis it’s prudent to set aside extra money to make sure you’re able to get through your charity work while remaining financially stable.
I already recommend that streamers keep a larger emergency fund. In this case, it might make sense to also delay larger purchases until you’re more certain of your financial situation post charity.
Again, none of this is to say that charity streaming is a bad thing or even bad for channel growth. It’s so you can be prepared and do it in a sustainable way!
Finding other ways to contribute if needed
If you’ve done your cash flow analysis and you’re not in a position to turn some of your streaming income to charity, that’s ok! Charities are much better served when charitably minded businesses and individuals are sustainable and not just one-time deals. That’s especially true when it comes to avoiding negative press. You don’t want to be the charity featured in an article where a broadcaster experienced financial trouble because they were contributing to you.
Luckily, there are tons of other ways you might be able to contribute time or expertise. First, you could team up with another broadcaster in off hours to help their charity efforts. Co-broadcasts, if done well, add an extra layer of fun. Plus, you can be an accomplice in implementing their rewards.
Second, you could be some sort of incentive for another community you’re a member of. For instance, TheHunterWild’s mods offered to get tattoos of his logo at some ridiculously high goal. That heavily incentivized everyone to donate. I’m not saying you need to go full on tattoo level of contribution but something might help.
Finally, just actively encouraging your community to be aware of and participate in charity efforts helps a lot! Charity events are highly hype based and the more people there are contributing to the hype the more hype there is!
Other tips and tricks
There are a couple of last minute things to know that can amplify your charity streaming. First, it’s a great idea to ask your sponsors/partners/companies you work with in general if they are willing to donate incentive items or match donations. For instance, if you work with Blue, the audio company, they might be willing to throw in a mic that you can use as a donation incentive. Companies tend to love these kinds of opportunities because they get to support broadcasters they work with, help out with charity, and deeply engage the communities they want to market to.
Second, and equally important if less fun, you should check your local raffle laws. Different states and cities have different rules about how you have to set up a raffle, which is what your giveaway likely falls under. It would suck to do an awesome charity giveaway only to later get nailed because you fell afoul of some local ordinance. This is something that’s generally good practice for giveaways but it especially important for charity since you want to extra avoid any semblance of impropriety.
Finally, don’t touch the money going to charity. It’s such a hassle administratively to show that the money you raised actually did go to charity if it first goes to your bank account. Use someone like Tiltify to handle it for you. They’ve got the infrastructure, you likely don’t.
Conclusion
If you want to be a responsible charity streamer you need to plan for it. The charities want you to continue to be successful as recurring donations and participants are much more valuable than one time burnouts. Review your cash flows, set aside some extra cash, and perhaps find non-monetary ways you can contribute. Additionally, make sure that if you are participating you do what you can to leverage companies you’re already working with and following local giveaway laws. You want to do the most for the charity while not also getting yourself in trouble!
You don’t have to figure this out alone. This is what we do- help streamers make great money decisions. If that’s something that sounds interesting to you reach out me or schedule some time for a free consult. You can check out what I do here.
