We recently connected with Lindsey Carter and have shared our conversation below.
Lindsey, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?
The idea for Meeple-a-thon was born in 2017 as a small and intimate fundraiser for Hillcrest Platte County’s Youth Housing Program. Platte County had approached Hillcrest with the concern that many more youths were becoming a part of the houseless community and wanted to know if Hillcrest could help support them and give them a good start. To support the initiative, our original founder David Seim took a card from the playbook of another amazing charity – ExtraLife.
With the idea of ExtraLife being the inspiration, Meeple-a-thon began as a 24 hour board gaming marathon that took place at iWerx in Gladstone, and received approximately 80 attendees. Between 2017 and 2020, the marathon grew to approximately 150 attendees, and stayed as a marathon. Our event consisted of a charity raffle, (with raffle bundles being put together from donations of board games and other items such as coffee baskets and sports memorabilia), and individuals bringing their own games, and playing through the night. In 2020, we went digital because of COVID, and didn’t have much of a turnout, but we decided to up the ante in 2021.
In 2021 we decided to put our best foot forward and brought on new team members as well as increased the size of our venue, taking over the donated space of a closed-down KMart with 100,000 sq ft. We knew we wouldn’t be able to fill up the entire space in our first year trying, but we gave it a valiant effort. We added active tournaments, vendors and planned board game play sessions. This was the last year that our event was a free-to-attend event, because as we continued to grow, we needed to be able to afford supplies for the coming year.
In 2022 our attendance was higher than ever, with our badge sales landing at 673 over the whole weekend. 2022 was our first year moving from a 24-hour marathon to a three-day convention, Friday-Sunday, and we had incredible support for this move, and a plan to continue our forward momentum.
In 2023, we also experienced a changing of the guard, so to speak, where I took over the organization and we moved from being underneath the umbrella of Hillcrest, and into becoming our own organization. As of this year, we are now our own independent 501(c)(3) charity that works in tandem with several other 501(c)(3)’s in the area, including Hillcrest Platte County, A Turning Point, Bed of Bags and more! To make this decision we had to figure out if we qualified, how to file our tax paperwork, file with the IRS and the state, write bylaws, induct board members, create an official code of conduct and anti-harassment policies, build relationships with our peers in our industry and more. It was an enormous labor of love as we decided how we wanted to support our community, and how we could be of best benefit.
In doing so we decided that our area of focus would be to support disenfranchised youth in Kansas City. To meet that goal, we’ve been partnering with Hillcrest Platte County to provide rent and utility-free apartments to houseless teens and young adults, and A Turning Point to provide back-to-school supplies to low-income families. In the future, we hope to become Kansas City’s hub for gaming and hobby related activities from Cosplay to D&D, war games and more! This year we officially are slated to have over 18 tournaments, 40 vendors, over 70 game play sessions that are free to enter as well as a host of Q&A panels hosted by our favorite game designers and publishers, as well as creators from Kansas City teaching how to build and design your own games, how to become the best DM you can be, how to get into the hobby and more.
We also plan to host miniature painting classes, a carnival, gameshows, trivia, scavenger hunts and even a Junior section for kids. We’re growing at the speed of light, and can’t wait to put everything we earn back into the community around us.
Lindsey, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Lindsey Carter, and I had a long journey getting where I am today. I started in the world by going to college for nutrition and dietetics, and when I got into the position post-college, I realized how much I hated it, so I took my knowledge and went to the food side of things, working as an executive chef and dietary manager in high end senior living facilities, which then progressed to being a caterer and event planner.
When COVID hit, my career took a drastic turn, which put me to work in a remote position doing technical support. I didn’t think I would enjoy it, but the bills needed to be paid and this was a way to do it. Once I got there, I realized that I actually truly loved it and worked my way into the position I am now as a front-end user interface developer.
But, my heart still loved event planning and management, so when I saw the call for help for Meeple-a-thon, I decided to take the leap. Once I got here, I realized it fulfilled all of the things I wanted but didn’t get to do in my day job – I got to help the community around me, doing something that I was good at, and something I loved doing.
In my work, I get to apply the wide range of knowledge that I’ve acquired over the years from locating venues to determining equipment and staffing needs to planning micro events inside of our event. It lets me use my creativity freely to come up with the best ideas and find the right people to help me make it come to life, as well as letting me engage with a community that I adore.
This year has been the most taxing year yet, as we became our own stand-alone charity, and I had to use all of my previous business acumens to determine how to go about making sure all the paperwork was done and correct while simultaneously searching for sponsors, vendors, venues, tables, chairs, decorations, surge protectors, extension cords and more.
As we’re a charity, every dollar we make goes directly back into the community, and not into the pockets of our team. Our team is a purely volunteer team and we pour our hearts into everything we do to make it the best it can be. We work with local businesses as much as possible, we get into the community to help serve the people our money benefits, we teach life skills. Any vendor or business that has worked with us in the past knows how hard we work to make our convention the best convention it can be, and how respectful we are of all of our partners. When one of us shines, we all shine, and this is what sets us apart – our relationships with our community and the people and businesses in it.
Any advice for managing a team?
Working in a volunteer-based business, it is incredibly challenging to manage a team and maintain morale. Volunteers are our lifeblood, and without them we would be nothing. To manage a team of volunteers, you must be cognizant of the fact that they are volunteers and can leave at any time. A mismanaged team of volunteers will soon be a solo manager team.
Maintaining morale is difficult, but it requires being human and acknowledging humanness.
For example, we manage all of our projects online until the event comes to fruition. This doesn’t mean that we don’t do any in person leg work, but it means we document online, we meet online, etc. We do this for a reason – we all live at the 4 corners of the city, and we all have vastly different schedules. Going the digital route shows a trust in my volunteer team – I don’t need to micromanage you. You pick up your own projects, work them at your own speed and update the project board with your progress. Need more time? Need help? Put it in the notes, send me a message and I’ll get you what you need to be successful.
When managing a team, it is vitally important to be aware that the members of your team are competent adults that would not have gotten where they are if they were incompetent. They have bills to pay, families to care for and homes to manage. If they weren’t doing those things, they wouldn’t be working for you. Managers that micromanage and don’t trust their team will ultimately lose them. No adult likes to be treated like a child, and they are deserving of respect for the work that they do.
It is vitally important to treat them as such, but also to give yourself some humanity. Most managers keep up the “Manager face”, a blank facade so that their team can’t tell how they’re feeling, but your team will respond to you with empathy if you simply show them that you’re human. Check-in with them and how they’re feeling, show them how you’re feeling. If you acknowledge that they are human, they will give you the same courtesy, and they’ll show up for you when you really need it.
Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?
We keep in touch with our clients via a monthly newsletter, flyers, a fall annual magazine and social media. Social media is our primary method of contacting our clients, and we use this to work on our brand loyalty.
To do this, we use a lot of material content about the clients we serve in youth housing, success stories and real life images and videos of the people that your dollars are helping. This helps spread the word in the community and put real faces to our cause.
Most of our customers that attend our charity events that donate to us are gamers in the Kansas City area, so we also post a lot of game content. Game reviews, hobby lessons (such as different miniature painting methods), and more.
This conjunction of information allows our clientele to see our mission, and combine it with their hobby and their love and give them a way to make a difference. Ultimately, humans want to help other humans, and this gives them a way to do it by combining it with their other favorite things.
Contact Info:
- Website: meepleathon.com
- Instagram: @meeple_a_thon
- Facebook: @wethemeeple
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/meeple-a-thon-kc
- Twitter: @MeepleThon
Image Credits
Julie Currier