Open Email, Unlock Extra Life

Ryan Ritter

Ryan Ritter

— 2 min read
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Happy Friday, Heroes!

Yesterday I got to take part in a call with our Extra Life program directors to get some insight on some rather exciting changes to the program. While the heart of the program, folks like me playing games to raise money (over $130 million raised since 2008 by the way!), the program is looking to make things a bit more user-friendly for people to join in.

This year, there is going to be three "seasons":

  • Tabletop, running from now through May
  • Recruitment, running from May through August
  • Game Day, running from September to November

Further, Game Day is embracing the flexibility that Extra Lifers have, quite frankly, done for some time in finding a date that works better for them outside of the "official" one. This also means a lot more potential for exposure and for Extra Lifers to hop into each other's marathon efforts as well!

So what does this all mean for y'all? It'll give a little bit of an outline of where I might toss in some unique events. Also, if you've ever though of trying to do something for Extra Life yourself, these seasons provide a nice guideline to help ease you into a fundraising event yourself!

Finally, there's three major events to outline:

  • Tabletop Weekend: April 11-13
  • Game Day: November 8-15
  • Extra Life Unlocked: November 7-8 @ CMN HQ in Salt Lake City, Utah

The last of the events is the "new" ELU which will be open to only 150 or so folks in this new iteration. I'm hoping for an invite, but even if not, there will be a virtual element as well. The main goal is to take all of the fun & hype from that event and lead immediately into Game Day.

More importantly, this makes ELU it's own Extra Life event. No longer will it be tacked on to CMN Week or Ignite. It's going to be our own thing!

All of these changes are quite a massive undertaking from the Extra Life team and quite risky too. Change is always a scary thing, especially for a grassroots campaign constantly trying to find it's own space in the CMN world.

I hope you continue to support me as well as other Extra Lifers on this journey (maybe dropping in on Sunday around 2 PM CST for the Minecraft Hardcore SMP streams, complete with their own incentives?!).

Either way, I can't thank you for letting me be a part of this effort. It's an absolute honor to be an Extra Lifer and I can't wait see just how much we collectively do in 2025!

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