Café de Nuit

The Gen Con Live Auction last August was originally supposed to be sponsored by the Children’s Christian Fund, the favorite charity of Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons. It’s safe to assume that Gary probably donated a fair amount to the charity, himself.

So it’s rather unfortunate to read that CCF withdrew from sponsoring the auction, and therefore the receiving of the proceeds, when they discovered that some of the items to be sold were D&D material. I prefer to think of it as vast ignorance rather than vast stupidity, but I’m waiting to hear a response from CCF.

The proceeds instead went to the Fisher House Foundation.

11/5/2008

The story I relayed in my last News post has provoked quite a reaction from the gaming world. I've gotten a few hundred responses to my own email box—many of them cc's of emails sent to the charity or responses received from them. According to one source, CCF (the charity discussed last time) has been swamped with over 1200 emails on the subject. As a result of this intense public interest, the details of what really happened have been coming to light...and while not everything lines up, it now seems that CCF did not knowingly refuse the charity money raised at GenCon 2008, as was originally reported. Jeannette LeGault, GenCon's Director of Events, has issued a statement on their forums regarding what happened. I'm going to pull the most relevant part of it out here:

"Gen Con contacted CCF about our intentions and asked for a logo and some promotional materials that we could use on our website. We were informed by a person at CCF that they would not be able to provide us with these materials, apparently due to our association with D&D. We were not comfortable with this position, considering Gary’s role as co-founder of D&D, and founder of Gen Con, and therefore we decided to pick a different charity...We later found out that we had been misinformed as to CCF’s position in regards to D&D and Gen Con, but by then we had already chosen Fisher House as our charity."

CCF itself has been sending out a canned response to this controversy; here's the important part:

"When Gen Con contacted CCF about its auction, we were pleased to accept donations. However, we couldn’t lend our name for publication because our policies have specific criteria for endorsements. We were unaware that this had caused any problem or concern for Gen Con until we began receiving emails. This decision was in no way intended to be a reflection on Mr. Gygax, gaming enthusiasts or the game Dungeon and Dragons. We have the utmost respect for the gaming community and were touched by the generosity expressed through your auction."

These statements are slightly at odds with one another; GenCon says that they were simply misinformed as to CCF's position, but CCF themselves claim that they have "specific criteria" for endorsements that GenCon apparently did not meet. What criteria are those? Unknown. Would they still be in effect for, say, next year's GenCon auction? Again, unknown. And CCF does not acknowledge that someone on their end did tell GenCon that it was a no-go at one point. But if I had to parse these statements together, I think someone at CCF "went rogue" when GenCon first contacted them and followed their personal philosophical belief over that of their organization...and that CCF's public relations department is trying to make the best of it without admitting that one of their people blew it in the first place. I also think it is highly probable that whoever updated the website for Live Game Auctions (the people who run the charity for GenCon) with the initial statement that started this story may well have never heard about CCF's retraction of their initial position.

But if you were one of the people who wrote a scathing email, rest assured that it did not go in vain: One intrepid reader forwarded me an email they received from Ms. LeGault that says she has been in direct touch with the communications director of CCF and that they have informed her that they are readdressing the way they handle requests for their publicity materials to avoid further misunderstandings. Any change that helps a charity organization become more efficient and more open to donations is a worthwhile change, even if we had to clog a few email servers to do it. I'd also bet money that whoever issued the initial denial of GenCon's request is out of a job, and rightfully so. One can hope that this situation will cause all of the organization's employees to think twice before putting their own beliefs ahead of their goal of helping children. It's my further hope that if this really was simply a case of miscommunication, GenCon 2009 will be able to feature the charity auction for CCF that was originally intended, and that those attending are able to raise more than last year's $17,000.