06/15/2026
Thanks to some fellow Ozians who were quick to step in, we were able to quickly and easily reach our goal (and then some) in just 24 hours. This will allow us to file and have some cushion to start the bank account, make flyers for other Oz events, cover mailing costs, etc. The costs of starting a nonprofit add up. I’ve done this before!
We thank you very sweetly!
We’ll let you know when that nonprofit status is in place, which can take weeks or months. Then, we’ll be looking at grants and soliciting donations and discounts. We can also begin to look more seriously at venues, set dates, and lock down auction items, panels, vendors, and entertainment. We already have some verbal agreements on some of those latter pieces, but we just need to get those dates in place!
So why aren’t we staying with the OzCon International name? Well, we’ll keep the name for the con itself (same website, same social media, same logo, etc.), but we cannot have “international” in the title of the nonprofit as that comes with a ton of stipulations that don’t match up to what we’re doing. Plus, having an “umbrella organization” allows us to do more than the con in the future potentially, fundraise outside of the con, etc.
We were informed that “To Oz” is currently used by the club for virtual programming, so if you have ideas for a name change, let us know. There’s still time to make that change as we work on the applications.
We’ll send out a special donor shout-out in the next few days. Thank you again for the generous support. Keith and I are both feeling positive about the future of the con and look forward to making new Oz friends along the way.
