Full disclosure: I was a geek before it was cool. Not the kind that you’ll end up working for; instead, I’m a fan of science fiction and fantasy in their many forms. I loved the genres well before “Star Wars” started making science fiction (or SF, as we older fans call it), and geek culture more generally, a mainstream affair. From Roger Zelazny and Joan D. Vinge in my teens to N.K. Jemison, Becky Chambers and John Scalzi today, my reading list has always been heavily tilted in favor of universes well beyond my own. More recently, my geeky pursuits have extended into comics and gaming as well, but print SF and fantasy will always be my first and primary loves.
In other words: I know my way around geek culture, or fandom as it’s also known. And one thing I know is that geek culture is a generous culture. Comic-Con and Star Trek conventions aside, most science fiction conventions (or cons) are volunteer-run events; virtually every one I’ve attended or heard of featured a charity component of some kind. That includes the 2024 WorldCon, being held from August 8-12 in Glasgow, which will include auctions to support the “Fan Funds” that provide financial support for fans to attend WorldCons around the globe.
Fandom’s philanthropy isn’t limited to cons. Fans and creators alike also run a plethora of nonprofits that support both other fans and creators as well as outside causes; for example, the Call of Duty Endowment, which IP’s Ade Adeniji covered in 2021 and which, at the time, had helped nearly 80,000 veterans find jobs. Other fan-related charitable efforts include Con or Bust, which provides money for BIPOC fans and creators to attend industry events (conventions are a primary networking and marketing opportunity for writers and other creators); the charity tool created by Twitch, a gaming streaming site, that provides back-end support to allow users to hold online fundraising events; and The Hero Initiative, founded in late 2000 by a consortium of comic book and trade publishers, which provides help for comic writers and artists in financial need.
Then there’s Child Play, launched in 2003 by Penny Arcade comic creators Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Child’s Play is a $12.9 million nonprofit that provides games, cash and more to 190 hospitals worldwide so that hospitalized children can have access to video games while they heal.
The geek world’s creators haven’t just founded nonprofits. Some create and run foundations — and like our nonprofits, fandom’s funders sometimes support work well beyond the usual universe of geeky pursuits. For instance, IP readers may remember Adeniji’s 2021 coverage of the Roddenberry Foundation, launched by “Star Trek” creator Gene Rodenberry’s son Rod, which supports causes including human and civil rights, the environment and education; in 2020, for example, the funder provided $500–$10,000 grants to organizations working to increase voting and civic engagement among young people of color.
Roddenberry’s family isn’t alone in boldly giving. Another example is fantasy blockbuster author Brandon W. Sanderson’s Lightweaver Foundation, a newish funder that filed its first 990 form in 2016. The foundation, whose tagline is “Feed Bodies. Fill Minds. Fuel Hope,” supports food pantries, homeless shelters, schools and prisons. Its largest reported grant so far, $11,440 in 2022, went to Lifting Hands International, a refugee aid organization. Lighweaver is still a small funder, but given Sanderson’s reported average earnings of $10 million a year and his proven ability to raise millions from fans in short amounts of time, this foundation could eventually end up having a much larger bottom line.
Speaking of new foundations, another bestselling SF author, John Scalzi, started the Scalzi Family Foundation with his family in 2022. Like Lightweaver, it’s not a big funder by any means, but given that Scalzi has inked his second multimillion-dollar contract with the Tor Publishing Group (not to mention his ancillary income from audio books, TV writing and the many Hollywood options on his work), the Scalzi Family Foundation may well also turn out to be one to watch, particularly now that the Scalzi family has finished renovations on the local church they own. It should also be noted that this funder has the best foundation logo ever. Not bad for a writer who became internet famous for taping a piece of bacon to his cat.
Stephen King may be known primarily as a horror author, but the “King of Horror” has also written plenty of fantasy and SF. Through the foundation he launched with his wife, the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, the author has made more than 529 grants to 449 organizations totaling more than $14.3 million so far, according to Candid’s Foundation Directory online. This funder, which has net assets of just over $23 million, focuses on King’s home state of Maine. (Also see our rundown of how several top bestselling authors give, King included.)
Last but not least on this list, there’s the Speculative Literature Foundation, which IP’s Mike Scutari profiled in 2022. Just as the Poetry Foundation strives to alleviate the “dire need” for more funding for nonprofits that support poetry, the Speculative Literature Foundation provides grants of $500 to $1,000 to assist SF/fantasy writers. This support is vitally important in a field where even bestselling authors frequently have to work day jobs. For every Brandon Sanderson or Stephen King, there are hundreds, or even thousands, of SF and fantasy writers who are one unmet need from being too focused on survival to write at all.
SF/fantasy, comics and gaming don’t just exist to entertain, although all of these art forms do that in droves. Every one of them also can be a way to broaden one’s mind and bring people together. The establishment of charities and foundations is just one of the natural consequences of these aspects of geek art and culture.
Of course, it’s also true that some fandoms’ reputations have taken a hit over the past decade or so, thanks to a few bad actors who have used the internet to create for themselves an outsized megaphone: think GamerGate, the “Sad/Rabid Puppies” attempt to game the Hugo Awards, or the uproar over Black characters in the newer “Star Wars” movies. Geek culture has also struggled with a lot of the issues that are still roiling the larger culture around diversity, inclusion and consent.
But another thing about geek culture is that we are an adaptable people. As someone who is mainly an SF/fantasy fan, I can attest to the relative explosion of diverse authors and points of view that have become available in the past decade in particular, and to the moves many SF/fantasy cons have been making to create spaces where everyone feels equally welcome and safe.
Like the larger culture, we have a long way to go; perhaps, unlike our larger culture, the very things we engage in seriously for entertainment invite and sometimes even require us to demolish our intellectual comfort zones. Geek culture has come a long way from the days when male Golden Age writers openly played grab-ass with women fans and authors, and BIPOC and gender-expansive folks were hardly represented or welcome anywhere. For all the ways fandom is reinventing ourselves and working to leave our outmoded ways of thinking and being behind, though, I’m pleased to be able to say that we’re not leaving our generosity — or our philanthropy — behind with them.
Dawn Wolfe covers issues including racial and economic justice, women’s rights/abortion, the nonprofit burnout crisis, and philanthropic reform. She also reads a lot of SF/Fantasy (and mystery) novels. Contact her at: dawnw@inside philanthropy.com. Are there SF/Fantasy/comics/gaming-related foundations that we missed in this list? Contact Dawn to let her know for a possible future installment.
