Earlier this year, we donated proceeds from auction house sales to Extra Life and Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. To determine how best to allocate these funds and make sure they would have the most impact, Extra Life sat down with the Diablo III development team and, together, came up with The Diablo Extra Life Challenge.
To learn more about this unique initative and how you can get involved, check out this post by Jeromy Adams, founder and director of Extra Life:
The Diablo Extra Life Challenge
Have you ever seen eight people almost faint at the same time? That's what happened earlier this year as we were ending a relatively normal week at Extra Life HQ. That's because an unexpected call came in from our friends on the Diablo III team at Blizzard Entertainment. They were excited to let us know that Blizzard was making a gift to Extra Life. A great… big… giant… gift.
A donation in the amount of $120,000 was on its way from the makers of Diablo, WoW, and StarCraft, with a directive that funds be used to make the most impact. Together with the Diablo III team, we put our heads together, and decided that the best way to amplify this donation is to turn these funds over to the Extra Life community and empower you to bring this money home to your local Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals with Extra Life.
So without further ado, we bring you Diablo's Extra Life Challenge!
We've broken the money up into three game-changing chunks that — through your personal donations and those of other Extra Lifers in your area — you can help unlock for your hospital. On Sunday, November 3rd at 9 a.m. Eastern, we'll pull a real-time report from the Extra Life servers. We'll include all donations collected on Extra-Life.org or mailed in (mailed donations must be received before Thursday, October 31 to be counted towards the Challenge), and award the following amounts for their respective categories:
Top Overall Extra Life Fundraising - $60,000
These funds will be unlocked for the hospital whose gamers and sponsors raise the highest dollar amount overall. Top dollar, end of story.
Highest Per Capita Extra Life Fundraising - $40,000
There's no doubt that big cities have a population advantage, so we’ll divide the Extra Life dollars that you raise by your local population. The highest Extra Life funds raised per capita unlocks an extra $40,000 for your hospital!
With many local Extra Life efforts just getting started, this is a chance to make a huge leap forward for your hospital with an extra $20,000.
The hospital whose 2013 Extra Life fundraising total is the most improved (percentage-wise) over their 2012 total, will receive this one! But, we factored in that small gaming markets improving slightly can mean huge percentage gains. So the baseline for this award is $5,000. This means that if your hospital raised less than that in 2012, $5,000 will be treated as the 2012 number and the 2013 total will be compared to that amount.
The countdown to November 2nd is on! Each donation you raise could be the one that unlocks even more support for your local hospital. And with these categories, any hospital in any town can win! Provided you dig in these next two months and bring your absolute best fundraising game. And encourage others to get involved: remember, the sure-fire way to raise more money is to recruit more Extra Lifers for your hospital!
We'll announce winning hospitals on the official Extra Life Twitch stream (coming soon).
Weekly updates will be posted here on the Extra Life blog with the latest leaderboards for Diablo's Extra Life Challenge! Good luck and thank you for all you do For The Kids!
For more information about Extra Life 2013, be sure to visit their official site. To register for this year's event, click here. To donate, click here.