[2020] Mid-Season Streamathon COVID donations

Hey everyone! Kushnood here from the Riot Social Impact team (which we affectionately call "Karma"). We just crested over 100K in donations in the mid-season streamathon (holy guacamole!) and wanted to give some extra information into where the community support will be headed. It can be a bit confusing since we're taking a different type of approach and want to be as transparent as possible!

All money raised is technically going to the Riot Games Social Impact Fund at ImpactAssets. It's a US-based nonprofit that can allow us to distribute grant money internationally. We've got a few questions as to which specific nonprofit we'll be supporting and the answer is ... hundreds all over the world.

Instead of choosing just one, we selected two professionally managed "funds" at GlobalGiving and ImpactAssets. Click the links and you can see the underlying projects that are going to support COVID relief. Note, we won't be donating to ALL of these, but working with them to identify the most impactful projects in the regions where the majority of players are.

Think of it like instead of picking an individual company's stock, we're investing in index funds that contain hundreds of companies. (warning: I'm not a financial advisor). I know the people leading these funds, and they're some of the best in the world at what they do. The money will go towards immediate medical support, longer-term skills retraining, and helping impactful organizations that are getting smacked around by the economy.

Raising money for charity means different things to different people. Some people only want to give back to those in their local communities, others want to give to those most in need, others care only about a few specific issues. It gets even more complicated when thinking how to make the biggest impact - do you give 1 person $100K, or 100K people $1? We thought that this approach for COVID relief is one of the best options to help those most in need with how they need it most.

Personally, I'm just gobsmacked by the generosity of this community and wanted to say thank you. This was our first attempt at holding a streamathon at this scale and we've learned a ton. We don't get it right all the time, but over time this community has shown that they've actually got a heart of gold under their hard candy shell. Thank you, thank you, thank you!