In the final months of 2023, as we reflect on the challenges we’ve faced and successes we’ve achieved this past year, our attention also turns towards 2024. But in order to plan and imagine our best paths possible as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, we absolutely need your help this Giving Tuesday and we sincerely hope you’ll consider giving to SFWA’s Where the Need Is Greatest Fund. Please consider donating at www.sfwa.org/donate or mail your check to SFWA at P.O. Box 215, San Lorenzo, CA, USA, 94580.

With your gift to SFWA on November 28th, you will help this organization support, educate, and advocate for speculative fiction writers across the globe. Our membership numbers have steadily grown over the past decade, and having recently crested over 2,500 members, our services depend on your generous donations to continue our mission.

For a writer or speculative fiction creator, joining SFWA is a benchmark achievement—a demonstration of a successful pursuit of publication in the speculative fiction mediums. Your support of this community also promotes a deeply rooted practice, one that has followed the organization as it has evolved throughout its nearly 60-year history: a willingness to “pay it forward” to other SFF creators embarking on that same dream. Please help us in supporting SFWA’s growing services and programs, with a mission of creating stronger, more secure career paths for the whole speculative fiction community.

Your gift on this Giving Tuesday will help us continue to (and this is just a small sampling):

• Fight Crime! Writer Beware is 25 years old this year and in that quarter of a century, volunteers have worked tirelessly to warn the community about unsavory and unprofessional practices, protect SFF creators from writing scams, and answer questions from around the world, that usually start with, “Help!”.
• Support writers who need help with their legal or medical bills. Our Emergency Medical and Legal Funds are just two of our essential programs aimed at speculative writers within SFWA and the wider SFF community. The organization provides grants to eligible authors who are struggling with an acute medical condition or need help with a publishing-related legal battle. 
• Offer Givers Fund Grants: Awarded annually, these grants help promote the SFF genre through providing funding to projects like the South African Speculative Fiction’s workshop with the South African Environmental Project and distribute SFF books for free through the Gooding Public Library Foundation. We’ve awarded over $250,000 in Givers Fund Grants since 2014, and we’d love to see those numbers grow. All that is holding us back is having the money to give.

Devote time and resources to endeavors such as: 

• Safety Resources: a series of guides that help event planners and authors navigate questions around maintaining safety and privacy for events and our online presences.
• Indie Pub 101: a hub of information for authors beginning a self-publishing career.
• SFWA Blog series: The Indie Files and Romancing SFF blog series have helped shed light on how these two creator communities lend value to the genres.
• Mentoring Initiative: making connections in our industry and spreading the wealth of knowledge we collectively hold.
• Fund the SFWA Nebula Conference!
  • Each donation helps us in our mission to educate and elevate both existing professionals and new creators within our industry by holding our annual SFWA Nebula Conference and year-long, online extension of the program. 
  • Offer Scholarships to both our online and in-person conference to marginalized and underrepresented communities within our own, to grow our community and build relationships between generations of SFF writers. 

In 2024, in addition to getting funds and assistance to creators who need it, we’re working on improving how SFWA communicates with and serves the overall speculative community. That includes a website redesign, revamping our communications on SFWA’s accomplishments and services, and helping writers better evaluate short fiction markets. With the social media landscape changing so rapidly, these are all essential programs and services vital to the health and stability of our SFF landscape.

We also recognize that this is a time of uncertainty for the publishing industry, with questions and discussion surrounding AI tools, Amazon’s move to end short story market subscriptions, and more. We are working with talented volunteers from our community and our peers with other creative groups to navigate these waters and determine how our organization can best advocate for creators on these issues going forward.

These are just a few of the ways that SFWA works to sustain the SFF industry and professional creators. 

With your Giving Tuesday donation, we can continue all of this important work and more. If you have the means, now is the perfect time to consider giving to SFWA’s Where the Need Is Greatest Fund. Make your donation at www.sfwa.org/donate or mail your check to SFWA at P.O. Box 215, San Lorenzo, CA, USA, 94580. We encourage you to also speak with a qualified tax professional to see if your gift may benefit your own tax situation. 

Thank you for contributing to SFWA’s mission to advocate, educate, and support SFF and related genre writing around the globe. So many of you already give so much, whether through charitable gifts or through the gift of your time. We simply couldn’t do this without you.

At 2,500 members and growing, your donations can and do make a difference for each other and for the new storytellers who’d love to join us someday.

May 2024 be a bright and successful year for SFF creators,

The SFWA Board of Directors