The response from higher ups was understandable: "I don't get it."

That first year, Get Together Through Gaming raised £4,626. Last year, the event raised over £8,000 - part of more than £20,000 raised across three years. This March, we’re running year four.

The numbers matter less than what they represent: a new fundraising channel built from scratch, now bringing in reliable income year after year. And it started with someone saying yes to something they didn’t fully understand.

Why it’s worth looking beyond the usual approaches

Most charity fundraising follows familiar patterns. Gala dinners. Sponsored walks. Annual appeals. These work, but they come with limits. You're competing with every other charity doing the same things, often chasing the same donors.

Meanwhile, there are communities out there where people already support creators and causes they care about - but most charities haven't found them yet. Gaming is one. Crafting, fitness, books, music - there are others. These aren't tiny audiences. They're large, active communities with their own ways of doing things.

The thing stopping most charities isn’t that these spaces are complicated. It’s that they’re unfamiliar. And unfamiliar can feel risky.

What GTTG taught us is that the risk is smaller than it looks - as long as you treat it as something to learn from rather than something that has to work perfectly the first time.

How three years of growth actually happened

Year one was a pilot. Tiny budget, no reputation in the gaming world, and we were trying to apply what we knew from traditional events - which didn’t always fit. The total raised was modest, but also the largest ROI Leeds Mind had ever had for a fundraiser at the time. But we paid attention to what worked and what didn’t.

Year two, people who’d taken part before had really enjoyed it and they returned, bringing others along with them. We built a website so anyone could watch and donate without needing a Twitch account - which meant the charity’s trustees and existing supporters could finally join in and truly understand what it was all about. Income grew to £7,289.

Year three, things got tighter. Better systems. Sponsors coming on board. Coverage from ITV Yorkshire and the Yorkshire Evening Post. 46 streamers across 85 streams. The total reached £8,387.

Year four launches this March. The pattern so far: start small, keep learning, build on what works. Not a gamble - just steady development of something new.

What made this viable

Three things determined whether GTTG could grow beyond a one-off experiment.

First, I felt like I genuinely understood the space. I knew gaming communities because I’d been part of them - not as an expert, but as someone who actually enjoyed being there. You can’t fake that. But you don’t need deep expertise either. Genuine curiosity and respect for how a community works is enough to start.

Second, permission to treat year one as a learning exercise. The pilot raised less than £5,000. That’s not a failure - it’s the cost of figuring things out. If you need a new initiative to deliver big results immediately, this approach won’t suit.

Third, making it accessible to people outside the community. By year two, we’d built a website that let anyone follow the event and donate without setting up accounts on platforms they’d never used. New supporters could find their way in. Existing supporters didn’t feel shut out.

What it actually takes to run

GTTG needs real attention during the event itself. Someone has to be present throughout - keeping an eye on streams, talking to participants, sorting problems as they come up, sharing highlights on social media. For a 48-hour event, that’s a proper commitment.

But outside the event, the workload is lighter. Staying in touch with streamers. Reaching out to new ones. The systems, once they’re in place, mostly look after themselves.

The honest answer is this isn’t something that runs on its own. It needs someone with time, energy, and enough freedom to figure things out as they go. What it doesn’t need is a big budget or specialist technical skills.

This isn’t just about gaming

Gaming is where we learned all this, but the thinking applies more broadly. Wherever people gather around something they care about - online or in person - there’s potential for fundraising that sits outside the usual channels.

The question isn’t whether gaming specifically suits your charity. It’s whether you’ve got someone who could find and explore the communities where your supporters already spend their time.

Those communities exist. Most charities aren’t in them yet. That’s worth thinking about.

What we’re sharing

This is the first in a series about how charities can build fundraising in spaces that feel unfamiliar. We’ll be looking at what carries over from GTTG and what changes depending on the community you’re exploring.

We’re also running a free webinar in May - "Livestream fundraising for charities: a practical guide to getting started" - covering the full GTTG story, the opportunity for charities, and how to take the first steps. Everyone who registers gets a starter pack and the recording.

The question worth sitting with, whether or not livestreaming feels relevant to you: what would it take to say yes to something you don't fully understand yet?

How to launch a fundraising event in a space you know nothing about