On the Right Track: A Full STEAM Ahead Retrospective
From October 21 to November 8th, we ran Real Good AI's very first Full STEAM Ahead fundraising event and raised $17,576.37 from more than 459 individual donations! Our team has personally participated in tons of campaigns like this in the past but this was our first time being behind the curtain and even though we had a plan, a lot of things surprised us in both exciting and educational ways. Since this is gonna officially be a yearly thing, here’s a transparent look at the good, the ehh, and the meh.
Our biggest positive takeaway? The community SHOWED UP fr (for real)
Over 25 streamers participated throughout the campaign and they all worked together to support each other across streams. Volunteers who didn’t stream did their part by posting links to streamers and showing up in chats, boosting engagement and morale! We saw how having more visible streamers involved early helped encourage others to join as the event went on. So many streamers told us they learned how to stream JUST so they could fundraise for Real Good AI.
A point of personal pride was how well the asset pack did. The goal was to make participation feel easy and customizable, and the feedback we got reflected it. Folks really liked the copy-paste twitch panels and having a variety of visuals to choose from. The visual branding of the STEAM engine got some really good feedback too. People leaned into the theme and it helped create a sense of cohesion across very different streams.
But it was the first time, so there were some issues and with those issues came learning opportunities.
Timing was one of them. Broadly speaking the economic and political environment made fundraising more challenging, and we ran into scheduling conflicts we hadn’t fully expected.
We underestimated how much advanced planning many streamers needed. Experienced creators often lock in charity or sponsored streams weeks in advance, so asking closer to the event meant we missed out on participation we’d love to have next time.
On the technical side, using a charity fundraising platform is important for transparency and trust; we’re grateful that the infrastructure exists. But it quickly became clear streamers, especially brand new ones, needed more detailed set up instructions. Things like clearer examples for progress bars, sample streams, and step-by-step onboarding could help lower the barrier to entry. Making the experience smoother for everyone.
Taking it back to the community; volunteers stepped up to make connections and boost visibility. The real time feedback showed us they wanted as many ways as possible to find each other, collaborate, and create shared experiences. This meant things like a dedicated discord, clearer twitch tags, centralized calendar, and even a designated “Main Day” for the event.
For us this was a very successful first campaign event. It taught us what worked, what didn’t, and what we can do next year to get people excited and to thank the year one supporters for being our very first STEAM Conductors.
We’re already planning for stronger donation drives, clearer slogans to rally around, better onboarding tools, science focused chat bots, more team videos for breaks, evolving logos created by real human artists, custom progress bars, and even scientists joining streamers live!
A longer lead time means we can start doing things like pre-registration perks, matching donations, big sponsors, giveaways, and community events that get everyone into the same (virtual) room.
Thank you for making our first ever Full STEAM Ahead such a success, we can’t wait to show you all of the cool things we have planned for the next one! ALL ABOARD!
