Milestone Achieved: Toadie Shares How She Raised Over $25,000 for Charity on Tiltify

Toadie has hit an incredible milestone, raising over $25,000 for charity on Tiltify! 🎉 In this exclusive interview, she shares her journey, favorite moments, and tips for fellow fundraisers.

Get inspired by her story and see how you can make an impact too! ❤️

Toadie's Links:

Tiltify | Twitter | Twitch | Instagram | BlueSky | YouTube

Toadie has raised over $25,000 for charity on Tiltify in less than 5 years.

First off, tell us about yourself! What type of content do you do?

Hi! My name is Toadie, I’m Canadian (sorry), and usually I introduce myself as someone who streams strategy and management games, though lately I’ve been in a bit of a transitory phase with what I’m doing creatively. My YouTube is the most consistent in terms of what the content actually is; I provide tutorials and tips for strategy and management games, intending to break down some of the barriers to entry for the genres and open them up to folks who may want to give them a go but are intimidated by the often-steep learning curve that comes with them. My livestreams on Twitch can be a fair bit more varied, but muddling through a challenging scenario in a management game is always a place I’m comfortable falling back to. Otherwise, you may find me trying out new city builders, displaying my rocketing heartrate during a scary game, or even sculpting custom chess pieces based on video game characters out of polymer clay. My favourite streams though – and maybe not-so-secretly my favourite genre of games – is navigating through a puzzle or mystery game alongside a community that also hasn’t played it and discovering those wild “Aha!” moments together. Generally I try to host online spaces centred around adults being goobers and coming together to geek out about things they enjoy, a primary of which is uplifting and supporting marginalised voices when we can. I try to keep a light atmosphere as I admit to using my own spaces as a bit of an escape from “the real world” sometimes, but when we need to have an honest and difficult discussion we’re able to do so knowing it will be had with compassion and care. Oh and you’ll catch us fundraising for charity through Tiltify at least once a year, near the end of November. It’s a grand old time!

 

What emotions did you feel when you realized you'd hit your latest Tiltify fundraising milestone? 

This one’s a difficult one to put into words. I knew there was the possibility, maybe even a likelihood, that we would reach $25 000 raised during this year’s event, but I was nervous that we’d just miss it and that I would feel like I hadn’t done enough to incentivise donations to make it happen. So I think the first feeling I felt when we hit the milestone was relief that I hadn’t let anyone down by missing it, and if we’re being honest, that I hadn’t let myself down by missing it. Once the relief washed over it bubbled into a quiet - but strong - sense of pride. Looking objectively at raw day-to-day numbers, I don’t have the biggest of communities on Twitch. Through lulls you could call it quite small. But man. If there’s one thing I can say with confidence about my little corner of the internet is that these folks show up during what we’ve dubbed charity shenanigans. As a creator it’s so easy to slip into letting smaller viewership numbers or lower engagement rates get into your head and dictate your worth to match them, but somehow I’ve managed to combat that year over year by throwing this big goofy party where folks show up and throw money at a good cause. I’m proud of being able to overcome the challenges that overthinking can present and I’m so proud to be the steward of this little gang of ours.

Toadie names littlesiha as one of her inspirations

Can you share the story behind your very first fundraising campaign?

Mine is one of those sad-stories-turned-positive. I mentioned before that I was first inspired to put on a fundraiser in May and I knew I wanted to do it as a bit of an event, so timing it with an important date made sense to give it more feeling of consequence. Between considering the timing and which cause I wanted to support I had a realisation that I would say fundamentally changed my life. November 20th and November 25th are the dates that I lost my parents, each in different years but both of course far too young, to cancer. This has meant that the end of November has always been a miserable time of year for me, made especially difficult perhaps by much of my surrounding world shifting gears into the holiday season at the same time. I admit I’ve done poorly in the past to look beyond my own grief at not being able to celebrate with my family but thankfully that same year I found LittleSiha and fell so in love with what she was doing was the year I was able to shake myself out of it and finally say enough is enough. I was going to give myself something else to focus on during the most difficult time of year and make a positive impact in my parents’ names instead. I had the dates for my fundraising campaign and supporting a charity that targets cancer was an immediate and easy decision. Not only was it a cause close to my heart but I knew almost everyone has a story about being touched by cancer. It would be easy for folks to rally behind. It was also important to me to find an organisation that had global impact, as while I’m Canadian, my audience and community are global and I wanted to be able to tell them with confidence that their donations would have an effect around the world. So I bounced ideas off my spouse and my moderating team, put together incentives, giveaways, goals, and a schedule, and we had our first of what would become an annual charity event! You could say it was successful, with an original goal of $500 and a final total raised of $4269 raised. I also had an avenue to talk through my loss, address it, and turn it into something that made a positive difference in the world rather than just wallow alone for a week each year. Truly each year since, this time of year and planning for it has become something I look forward to and cherish afterwards and I don’t know that I can effectively communicate how life-changing that is for me.

What inspired you to start fundraising for charity?

I wonder if this is a good spot to mention that fundraising for charity actually inspired me to start streaming? The first time I livestreamed was because an online community I was in was putting on a big fundraiser through streaming and Tiltify, had a last-minute drop out, and needed someone to fill the spot. I was confident enough with technology and motivated by the feel-good vibes that fundraising brings to keep the event going, so I learned how to get a livestream going in an hour or so and off I went. From there I was hooked! So I added livestreaming to my repertoire, which at the time was just YouTube. It was a few years later that I would say I found my big inspiration for doing the sort of fundraising I do now. I found a creator LittleSiha who I watch primarily on Twitch, and she is an absolute inspiration in every sense of the word. I admired her immediately for how she holds herself in front of a large audience. Streaming on Twitch brings unique challenges, and she navigates the paths between being a goofball having a good time and tackling serious topics as they arrive in chat with a practised deftness. If you ever have a chance to and somehow haven’t already, catch LittleSiha’s streams through the month of May when she fundraises for St. Jude all month long. They are genuinely awe-inspiring and so uplifting. All of this fangirling is to say that watching LittleSiha put her whole self into fundraising is what inspired me to start myself. While watching her streams I hadn’t been in a position to donate as much to the charity as I would have liked, but I did have a little community of my own and the more I thought about it the more I saw an opportunity to throw my own little party while raising money for a good cause, so I gave it a go one year. I think this is a great demonstration that doing these fundraiser livestreams isn’t just about the number value of what you’ve raised – there’s so much that can happen as a result of your efforts that you may never know about. I certainly didn’t donate $28 000 to LittleSiha’s fundraisers, but because I was inspired by her I’ve raised that amount myself through Tiltify over the years and who knows who has seen what I do and given it a go in their own spaces, and so on and so on. It’s the most heartwarming thing to think about!

Toadie unlocked these milestone badges on her profile

How did you overcome moments of doubt or slow progress in your campaigns? 

There is something to be said for the mindset of “just crack on with it”, but that would be a boring answer, wouldn’t it? I do think hoping for the best but preparing for the worst can help significantly. With my usual campaigns being across six days there’s bound to be a day or three that are slower than others. During my first fundraiser I didn’t have the prior experience and I just powered through fuelled by adrenaline. Nowadays I plan for certain streams or parts of streams to be quieter and they’ve become a respite that I actually look forward to. To give more concrete examples, I plan times where the game I’m playing is cosier and the incentives are more chill, giving myself and the audience more time to chit chat and get some of our feelings out. Depending on the type of connection you have with your community, what you’re fundraising for, and the topical nature of what is said in a live environment, charity streams can be a time where people find healing through sharing their experiences. Having a quieter game or activity as the foundation for a stream gives space for this to breathe, rather than trying to be empathetic with someone sharing their connection to cancer as you’re breathing through a mouth a million-Scoville hot sauce while sitting in a pool of beans. I also like to prepare physical cue cards with facts about the charity organisation, their impact, and the cause itself. These give me an easy go-to if chat gets quiet and I find myself lacking for something to say, alongside reminding of current goals, incentives, and any upcoming events in the schedule. Overall I think I’m able to get through the slower times now with relative ease because I lean into them and completely over-prepare for them. They’re a moment of respite for me in an otherwise very hectic schedule as well as a time to connect with my community in solidarity for the good thing we’re doing. Besides, without those calmer moments as comparison it wouldn’t be as doable to gather the energy to eat a million-Scoville hot sauce while sat in a pool of beans.

Is there a particular donation or message from a supporter that left a lasting impact on you?

Oh man, it’s impossible to pick one. Rather I think I’d like to acknowledge the variety of folks that come out for these fundraising streams. There are a couple core community members that have gone as far as taking time off work based around our annual November charity shenanigans, and I know they’ll be there to support especially by donating. Even though I’ve come to expect that their support will be present, it’s not any less impactful when it does shine through. Being able to lean on my consistent community members has given me much strength over the years. Then I must acknowledge what I see as the quiet counterpart to the above. The community members that may not have the facilities to be loud with their donations or the circumstances to plan their days off around my fundraising efforts, but when they are able to be present, they give supporting their all. They engage with social media posts, help planning in community spaces, and are present in chat, providing me with some banter and even hype that I may need to get through a slower moment in activities. If you’re ever worried about not being able to be part of a charity campaign because you can’t drop as much money in donations as others, please know your non-financial contributions are just as appreciated. Your time is valuable and if you’re able to spend even some of it helping the event be memorable, then your efforts will absolutely be seen, noted, and appreciated. Another group of contributors I want to acknowledge that perhaps stand out in the way this question was originally asking are those folks who seem to swing by during fundraising streams, contribute with a bang, then whisk away again to their quiet corners. There are people I now consider community members that, if I’m truthful, I think I can say I actively see them once a year when I’m fundraising. Usually these folks are the type that are either busy with their own thing or are enjoying my content silently from the sidelines – I have no way of knowing which. But when I do a charity stream I see their name pop in with a donation, sometimes it’s quite substantial, a kind message beside the donation, then I don’t actively hear from them again until the next charity event. These folks always bring with them a lovely surprise and a reminder that your community members won’t always be the most vocal, but that doesn’t mean they’re not present, cheering you on from their own quieter corner.

Toadie is on the Game Changers Twitch Team

Have you collaborated with other fundraisers, streamers, or organizations? If so, what was that experience like? 

I have! This year was my first year getting a bigger collab together with fellow streamers and it was a blast. One stream this year was four of us playing a horror game and as I was quite sick, the three other agreed to have jumpscares play in their ear for donations while I remained blissfully unaware. Then for another stream we had eight of us on the stream at once playing a collaborative platformer, and everyone agreed to eat a food they found disgusting as an incentive for donations, or share a fond streaming memory as another incentive. Both streams were with creators that I know through my stream team on Twitch, The Game Changers, and bringing together the different communities into one big collab was some of the most chaotic and wholesome fun I think I’ve ever had on the platform. I’m so grateful to be part of a team where there is trust between all members on such a foundational level that I can bring them into arguably my most important week of the year and know they’ll be there to support me in every way I need. It’s a real soul-healing experience. Somehow we have also naturally developed a tradition where creators fly to me during fundraising events and stay at my house through them, becoming parts of the streams in a big way. The first time this happened I hosted someone from America, the next year was someone from Ireland, and this year I had three friends fly over from England, one of whom I have collaborated with often virtually so this was a true melting of our communities.

How do you maintain the momentum and enthusiasm of your supporters across multiple campaigns?

I think this can be attributed to both some guidelines I set for myself early in my fundraising career and to my genuine enthusiasm for the cause I choose year over year. My general goal is to have one, big charity event each year, running from November 20th to 25th as previously mentioned. I stray away from doing other fundraising too frequently so that I’m not asking too much from my smaller community and depleting their resources or their enthusiasm. I also bring back some core features for each fundraiser I do that I can pull on to share what the charity organisation’s values and impacts are in ways that are digestible, like the cue cards that I research and write out. We’ve also developed some traditions over the years that I think the community now looks forward to. Things like always having a donation incentive for me to eat Marmite, using the poll feature of Tiltify to affect something about my life for the months following the event – this year I get to learn Dutch as voted on by my community, and certain milestone rewards repeating each year like me sitting in a wading pool full of a gross thing during our finale ceremonies. Parts of the streams themselves have become traditions as well. Those finale ceremonies are something we share each year, writing messages to lost loved ones on balloons as a way of processing grief together as a community. It’s very healing. Finally, we originally chose to fundraise for cancer-related charities as that is what impacted me so significantly, but have evolved this choice as a community and now choose a different cause each year that impacts community members instead. This seems to re-energise the group year over year as we learn about a new cause together and get to support a person we’ve grown to care for. I think just like I was inspired by seeing LittleSiha put her whole self into fundraising, I can count on my community to be motivated to take part as I give my all for my charity events. Genuine enthusiasm is so infectious and making these events a big goofy party only adds to it.

All of Toadie's previous fundraising campaigns

What have you learned about yourself through this journey of raising money for charity? 

I’ve certainly learned that I can’t force myself to enjoy Marmite over four years of exposure! But on a more serious tone, of course I’m learning new things every campaign. I adore livestreaming because it is such a challenging position to put yourself in and adding fundraising to it only exemplifies the challenge. Thankfully with charity streams though, I find them the best time to challenge yourself and push your limits, as almost any mistake you make can be forgiven because hey – you’re doing it for charity. I am a person likes to plan as much as possible, especially so for something that I’m incredibly passionate about and want to go so well like charity fundraisers. So I spend months planning and prepping. Then, something I’ve learned about myself over the years, I do struggle quite a bit if those plans suddenly change in a way that’s outside of my control. That situation just seems to find the perfect set of neurons in my brain to trigger to send me into despair, and in the past I feel I’ve handled it ungracefully. Hopefully, however, I’m right in saying that now that I recognise this about myself I do much better at smoothing over my first emotional response when something doesn’t go to plan and taking action in a more meaningful way to make the best use of the situation. This year for example when the folks that flew over from England and I got very sick just as fundraising was about to start, we adjusted what we could to make as many streams as possible still work and had our most successful campaign yet! Three years ago there’s a chance I would’ve just cancelled the whole event out of poor response. It may sound a bit cheesy, but what I’m looking forward to continuing to learn about, push, and overcome is my own limits. There have been times each year where I’ve thought I could handle a type of stream for example and couldn’t, or the opposite where upon reflection I could’ve made an incentive a bit more grand and been able to take on the extra weight to it. I think there’s no better environment to learn to push my limits than these fundraising streams so I will continue to do so each year, hopefully to good effect.

Lastly, what are your future goals for fundraising? Do you have a specific target or project in mind? 

If we’re talking numbers, the day we see five figures raised in a single campaign will be something truly special, and I can’t imagine the feeling of reaching $100 000 raised across various campaigns. As someone coming from pretty modest means that’s just such an impactful number to be able to say I was a major player in handing over to a good cause, especially so if you consider it’s in American dollars. I used to think I wanted to attach myself to one charity organisation and work side-by-side with them over the years, developing a close partnership. After a few years of choosing a different cause to support that impacts community members, my goals have shifted. One day I would love to be able to say that I have successfully represented each and every community member through our choices in fundraising and have the opportunity to double back on some causes. I think our specific goals wax and wane each year as we grow and adjust as a community and in general I just hope to be known as the person whose place is THE place to be each November’s end and over my years as a creator we raise a solid chunk of money for some great causes.

Interview with Toadie 12/2024