As we get ready to welcome our community to the Seattle Convention Center once again, we have some special treats to announce!
From Tuesday November 4 to Saturday November 8, GGC is running an online silent auction to support our continued fundraising and give our community some awesome geeky prizes! Featuring tickets to some of our favorite geeky venues, custom art, geek swag, and more, we have over two dozen custom packages for geeks of all stripes. We’d like to shout-out our fundraising team for their hard work securing donations and to all the local businesses and community members who generously offered their support, including but not limited to:
Seattle Arts & Lectures
Whidbey Island Center for the Arts
Tutta Bella
MoPOP Museum
Seattle Storm
Rat City Roller Derby
FRS Clipper
And more!
For those joining us in person November 8-9, you’ll have another opportunity to treat yourself, as we’ll be running a raffle during the convention. Tickets will be $1, and winners will receive fabulous prizes including Final Fantasy Commander decks, mystery plushies, or even 4 day badges for PAX West ‘26!
Raffle tickets will be available to purchase at both the info booth on the 1st floor and auction table next to Registration. Or keep an eye out for our roving raffle ticket volunteers! Raffle prizes will be held until GeekGirlCon closes on November 9th at 6:00 pm. You do not have to be present to win.
The GGC board and staff have been wonderfully overwhelmed at the support we’ve received this year, and we hope y’all enjoy browsing through the silent auction and bidding on your favorite items as well as participating in our GGC raffle. Every dollar gets us closer to being able to operate in 2026 and beyond!
Actors, readers, writers, and D&Ders, oh my! Did you know that we announced our featured contributors on our socials over the last few weeks? This year we are so excited to be bringing a power house group to celebrate all things geek! This amazingly talented group of folks were brought together by the incredibly hard work of our programming team. The money we fundraise for the convention goes not only towards operating costs but also can go towards supporting our contributors so they are able to attend.
Additionally, we’ve just announced our cosplay contest judges! The cosplay contest is a staple during GGC and being able to celebrate our cosplayers in the community is something we cherish. As always, we’ve got a great convention planned for you this year including the return of The Bug Chicks, fun panels, games to try, and a special live D&D game by Dungeons and Drag Queens. This year is shaping up to be one amazing 15 year celebration. If you haven’t had the chance, you should check out the schedule! If you’re in the area, we’d love to have you come celebrate with us.
Now, for our match campaign updates. Drum roll, please…..
We have officially raised $10,075 towards our match goal! We blasted past our halfway point over the last few weeks and are quickly closing in to meeting our match. Thank you all so much for your continued support of the convention and the campaign. We’ll be continuing to raise money through to the end of the convention and we’re looking forward to tracking it live. We’re hoping that meeting our match by the end of the convention will be another way that we can celebrate with all of you this weekend. And don’t you worry, we won’t forget about Hadeel’s cold plunge.
As always, you can help boost GGC and our match campaign by:
Sharing this blog post on social media.
Like, comment, and share GGC social media posts about the match campaign.
See if your company will match your donation to GGC!
If you’re interested in helping us reach our match goal, you can donate here between now and November 9th!
Actors, readers, writers, and D&Ders, oh my! What an exciting week for GGC- did you know that we announced our featured contributors on our socials? This year we are so excited to be bringing a power house group to celebrate all things geek! This amazingly talented group of folks were brought together by the incredibly hard work of our programming team. The money we fundraise for the convention goes not only towards operating costs but also can go towards supporting our contributors to be able to attend.
So far we’ve raised $4,345 for the match campaign! We’re inching closer to our halfway point and towards having Hadeel take part in the cold plunge challenge! Every dollar counts and your support continues to inspire all of us on the GGC team.
As always, you can help boost GGC and our match campaign by:
Sharing this blog post on social media.
Like, comment, and share GGC social media posts about the match campaign.
See if your company will match your donation to GGC!
If you’re interested in helping us reach our match goal, you can donate here between now and November 9th!
Week 6 is already upon us! Did you know that we’re also 4 WEEKS AWAY FROM CON??? We’re so excited to be celebrating 15 years with you all and hopeful about the future of GGC!
We teased it and you’re curious about it: our next milestone celebration will be a cold plunge done by our president, Hadeel! GGC takes place during the bbrrrrrr months and meeting our 5.5k milestone will help us get ready for the cold of November. Our latest numbers are showing that we currently have $4,045 towards our goal! This means we just need $1,455 in order to have Hadeel go for a very cold swim.
But wait, there’s more! When we hit our 11k match goal, Hadeel graciously shared that she would take part in a hotwings challenge. Our marketing team is so excited about this challenge that we’ll be getting a fancy YouTube video out of it and memories we can share for the future of GGC.
Please keep spreading the love so we can see our president take on our milestone celebrations! You can help boost GGC and our match campaign by:
Sharing this blog post on social media.
Like, comment, and share GGC social media posts about the match campaign.
See if your company will match your donation to GGC!
If you’re interested in helping us reach our match goal, you can donate here between now and November 9th!
Thank you so much for continuing to support us into week five of our match campaign! Since we have crossed the $2,500 threshold, our president, Hadeel, had her little geek help us celebrate by pieing her in the face.
What is next on the docket when we cross the $5,500 threshold? Stay tuned!
Any and all support that you all provide has been getting us ever closer to our goal and to the convention returning next year! Though not directly tied to the match campaign, we wanted to highlight the 31 attendees who have graciously supported us through our supporter, innovator, and visionary tiers during pass sales! Thank you so much for your support and belief in us and our mission.
As always, there are other ways to help us meet our goals! You can help boost GGC and our match campaign by:
Sharing this blog post on social media.
Like, comment, and share GGC social media posts about the match campaign.
See if your company will match your donation to GGC!
If you’re interested in helping us reach our match goal, you can donate here between now and November 9th!
We are in the thick of our Matching Campaign and we just wanted to thank you all so much for continuing to support us during our fundraising efforts! Since the matching challenge began on August 25, we’ve raised $3,560 in donations. With the one to one match provided by our generous donors (up to $11,000), that means we’re $7,120 closer to our $25,000 individual funding goal.
This year is a pivotal year for GGC and fundraisers, like this campaign, are critical for us to continue providing the convention you all know and love. But what else are we doing? Since the beginning of the year, our awesome sponsorship and grant manager has obtained $40,400 in grants and sponsorships! How amazing is that!? We’re so thankful to these organizations for believing in us and supporting our efforts to continue GGC into 2026 and the future.
As we’ve shared before, GeekGirlCon is entirely run by volunteers and all money raised goes directly into making the convention happen.
Our volunteer staff is the heart and soul of this organization. Without them, GGC wouldn’t be nearly as lovingly curated and run as it is year after year. Our volunteers do anything from coordinating the gaming hall to getting our panels on stream to helping make everyone’s experience enjoyable during the convention. If volunteering for a cool nonprofit convention sounds like fun to you, we’d love to have you! Consider looking at our openings!
As always, there are other ways to help us meet our goals! You can help boost GGC and our match campaign by:
Sharing this blog post on social media.
Like, comment, and share GGC social media posts about the match campaign.
See if your company will match your donation to GGC!
If you’re interested in helping us reach our match goal, you can donate here between now and November 9th!
One of our biggest fundraising events of the year is upon us! Today, August 25th, we are launching our official match campaign. A few very generous donors have offered to match any donations we receive up to $11,000!
As you all may be aware, GeekGirlCon is among the many non-profits facing financial struggles right now. With our current deficit, we are unfortunately looking at the possibility that GGC might not return in 2026. To address this, we’ve been focusing our efforts on trying to make our convention the best it can be while implementing changes in order to make the convention sustainable to run this year and in years to come. Additionally, we’ve had our grants manager and many other staff pitching in trying to secure funding. If you’re interested in learning more about our financial situation, you can read more about it here.
In case you haven’t heard of a match campaign before, this is how it works:
For every dollar raised to help the convention, a donor will match that dollar up to our maximum match amount of $11,000. That’s a lot of dollars! With this campaign alone, we will be close to our individual funding goal of $25,000 that we set for 2025.
So what is going to happen with our match campaign?
The match campaign is going to run from August 25th until the end of GGC2025, on November 9th. Each week, we will be providing updates about how the match is progressing and how the money raised can be used to help fund a part of GGC that you know and love. Additionally, throughout the campaign, we’re going to have our president, Hadeel, completing fun challenges with each milestone reached.
If you would like to help us reach our match goal and get us closer to our individual funding goal, you can donate here between now and November 9th.
However, there are other ways to help! You can help boost GGC and our match campaign by:
Sharing this blog post on social media.
Like, comment, and share GGC social media posts about the match campaign.
Secret bonus idea: See if your company will match your donation to GGC!
We need your help to see that GeekGirlCon continues into 2026 and beyond. As we said back in May, with your support, we can keep the GeekGirlCon community strong and ensure it continues into the future. Thank you all for the support you’ve provided us in the past and into the future. GeekGirlCon is what it is because of you.
Things are difficult right now. With rising costs and calls for defunding organizations that support DEI efforts, GeekGirlCon has found itself in the same position as so many other amazing nonprofits.
GeekGirlCon made a return to in-person events in 2022 with the excitement of providing our community a physical space to gather in once again. However, the financial strain that comes with running a convention has made it increasingly difficult for us to break even. Since 2020, GeekGirlCon has been running the con at a financial deficit and we have come to a difficult point where we need to acknowledge that GeekGirlCon might not be able to make a return in 2026.
Finance Update
The team here at GeekGirlCon has been hard at work to address our current financial situation.
What we’re doing:
Adding a dedicated sponsorship and grants manager to the GGC team who is committed to increasing our corporate sponsorship and grant revenue by $50,000 in 2025
Recruiting more passionate volunteer staff and Board members to continue to run the show
Reducing the con footprint to save on venue costs
Planning fundraising events that we’ll share with the community soon
Negotiating rates as we work with the wonderful vendors and contractors
Continuing our CD investment strategy with remaining cash reserves
Reducing monthly operating costs
Running as lean as humanly possible while still maintaining everything we love about GeekGirlCon
Since returning to in-person conventions, we’ve continuously looked for ways to reduce spending as pricing, especially of goods and services, have continued to rise. In 2025 even with the reduction efforts, estimated higher labor costs may render any savings in that area null.
What we’re not doing:
Moving venues: We love having the convention in downtown Seattle because it allows for greater accessibility by public transportation and has plenty of amenities within walking distance for con attendees and staff. In the past year, we have considered different venue options both inside and outside of Seattle but any change would have required us to greatly reduce our space in exchange for minimal savings and a less accessible location. Ultimately we decided to stay with our current location. However, keeping it downtown does come with a high sunk cost. Every year, venue costs alone account for about 60% of our budget.
Raising pass prices: GeekGirlCon has raised the price of passes in the past, with our most recent pass hike occurring in 2024. We take decisions on our pass prices very seriously – and take a lot of pride in being one of the most affordable 2-day cons in Seattle. We strive to ensure anyone who wants to go to GeekGirlCon can afford to do so through lower-than-market pricing and our scholarship program. Because community is more important than ever, we chose not to raise the price of our passes.
Impact to GeekGirlCon 2025
GeekGirlCon 2025, in all its glory, will still be happening this year. Panels, workshops, games, science, cosplay… everything you expect to see at GGC will be returning to the Seattle Convention Center in November! This year we’re celebrating 15 years of providing you a community focused convention that celebrates geeks of all kinds and we’re so happy that we will get to celebrate with all of you.
GeekGirlCon is more than just a convention — it’s a home for geeks who’ve been pushed to the margins. It’s a place to feel seen, to celebrate what we love, and to find each other. That space matters — now more than ever and we need your help.
Together we can keep GeekGirlCon going
In the upcoming months, we’re going to be putting a lot of work into raising money so we can continue to put on our amazing show. In addition to the $50,000 in corporate sponsorship and grants, we’re also aiming to raise $25,000 in individual giving, plus sell an additional 400 passes to our 2025 convention.
Here are some ways that you can help us achieve these pivotal goals:
Ways to give:
Buy Passes: Pass sales, like all money raised, go directly to the con! Buy passes for yourself, your friends, your scouting troop, and share the experience with loved ones.
Donating: We’re planning on launching multiple donation campaigns over the next year, including the upcoming GiveBIG campaign in Washington and a matching fundraiser that will count down towards GGC 2025.
Sponsorship: Did you know that you can sponsor individual areas of GeekGirlCon – from specific events, rooms & stages, to entire programming zones!
Attend other GGC events: Did you know we have other events outside of the convention? We host a monthly book club at Outsider Comics (masks are mandated) and a Creative Community Drop-In at Distant Worlds Coffeehouse.
Spread the word: Tell folks you know about us! We learn every year that people are learning about GeekGirlCon for the first time.
Write us a review: Yep, conventions need reviews too. If you’ve attended GeekGirlCon before, let people know what you think!
If GeekGirlCon has meant something to you, or if you believe in the importance of creating inclusive, welcoming spaces for all kinds of geeks — we’re asking for your help. Every dollar — whether from donations, passes, or merch — goes directly to running the con. We’re 100% volunteer-run, and every bit of support helps keep the lights on.
Together, we can keep the GeekGirlCon community strong and ensure it continues into the future. Thank you all for the support you’ve provided us in the past and into the future. GeekGirlCon is what it is because of you.
As you may have noticed with last week’s 2025 convention announcement, GGC is moving from a mask mandated convention to a mask strongly recommended one. Since then, we’ve heard concerns from our community about how this policy change was communicated, especially the lack of transparency in not mentioning it directly in our newsletter or on social media. We apologize for the shock this caused. We realize that we should have announced this policy change separately and prior to ticket sales opening.
We have heard from community members reaching out via email and on our Discord to ask questions and seek more information as to why the mask policy was changed. The decision to update this policy did not come lightly.
GGC has fewer people on staff now than we did in 2019. We have struggled to fill agent roles. During the 2024 convention, we heard from attendees who were concerned with inconsistencies in how we were enforcing the mask mandate. Due to our lack of funding and volunteers, we’ve realized we are unable to improve enforcement for 2025.
Ultimately, we no longer have the resources to produce a fully masked convention. We acknowledge that the decision to move from a mask mandated convention to a mask strongly recommended will directly impact some of our most vulnerable community members and prevent them from attending GeekGirlCon. Though we can’t fully make up for changing this policy in a large way, we are trying our best to support the community in other ways.
We are requiring our staff, agents, and venue staff to continue masking, and will also be continuing to provide complimentary KN95 masks at the entrance and throughout the rest of the convention. We are actively looking into how we can support a more robust online experience during the event, including expanding our online offerings beyond streaming the main stage. Additionally, we will continue to host our mask protected community events, like our monthly book club series.
Some community members shared confusion over our choice to continue to post photos of our attendees in masks. Not only are these the most recent pictures from our last few conventions, but we firmly believe that since we will be strongly recommending masking at our 2025 convention, we need to normalize masking through our promotional materials.
We understand that this decision has impacted different parts of the community in different ways; we encourage people to continue to reach out at communityprotection@geekgirlcon.com.
While much of the outreach we have received so far has been respectful and thoughtful, unfortunately, some of it has violated our harassment policy. As such, comments have been turned off on this blog post and on associated social media posts, in order to simultaneously protect our volunteer staff from further harm and ensure all comments, questions, and ideas are funneled directly to the board. Everyone that runs GeekGirlCon, from agents to staff to the board of directors, is a volunteer. We will respond to emails we receive about this change as soon as we can in the coming days but please understand that any delay in response does not reflect a lack of appreciation or care for the emails sent. Thank you for your patience and continued support!
GeekGirlCon has recently been lucky enough to welcome three Seattle area high school students as interns to a 6-week internship with GeekGirlCon. They have lent us their creativity, passion, and energy and even taught us some things in return. Each amazing GGC intern has not only written a blog post, they have been working on individual projects, creating presentations, and attending learning sessions with the marketing department, the programming department, and even with the GeekGirlCon Board of Directors! They weren’t the only ones learning – the GeekGirlCon volunteers already have ideas for improvements for any future internship programs.
We asked the interns for feedback on the GeekGirlCon Intern experience, and here is what they said:
Sumaya:
Working with GeekGirlCon has been an incredibly enriching experience for me. I’ve learned so much about marketing, from creating engaging campaigns to understanding audience insights. This hands-on experience allowed me to apply theoretical knowledge in practical scenarios, significantly enhancing my skills. The collaborative environment and the opportunity to work with passionate individuals made the journey even more rewarding. Overall, it was a great experience that has not only broadened my knowledge but also inspired me to pursue further opportunities in marketing!
~ Sumaya A.
Yarinet:
At this internship, I have had a great time getting to know all these amazing people, and the different things they do for GeekGirlCon (GGC). In my first year of high school, I took a marketing class, so I had some background knowledge when I entered the internship. With the internship, I got to expand my knowledge on marketing. I learned, and actually got to use the websites the marketing team uses when making posts on platforms such as Facebook, and Instagram. GGC uses the website Hootsuite where the team can upload posts made in Canva, and schedule a post on different sites, whether it be Instagram, or Facebook. I really enjoyed this app, not only because you could schedule the posts, but because you could add the same description and hashtags to both without having to move from post to post, unlike as if one was to post directly from the site.
I also got to learn how to use twitch, which is what the twitch team uses for their live streams, which I also learned how to upload onto Hootsuite. At my time in the internship, I was also given the opportunity to actually create a post for the upcoming GGC trivia night, which was later edited, and will later be posted! Another great thing I absolutely enjoyed doing during my time at the internship was the photoshoot for the merch. What I loved about this, was that it was all in person! I enjoyed getting to see people, and meet them in-person for the first time! This was also something I got to do with another intern, Halleluia! I had a great time working with her, taking photos, and striking different poses!
GeekGirlCon was a great experience, and I would love to work with them again in the future, as a volunteer or staff member! If anyone is interested in working with awesome geeks, with knowledge on just about anything, but are also interested in marketing, gaming, design/creativity, GGC is the to-go!
~ Yarinet
Halleluia:
Some of the things I learned at GGC was not only how to use new platforms for me like Discord and Hootsuite, where the team can upload posts made in Canva, but I also got to learn more about marketing and community communications. Since I want to go into the communications field when I go to college, it was great getting real life experience in what I could be doing in the future and it also piqued my interest in marketing.
Creating new content on social media was also something I truly enjoyed doing! One of my other favorite things from the content on social media was making Tik Toks for the account that will be seen soon I hope! I also had a great time doing the photoshoot with Yarinet. I enjoy modeling for pictures and modeling in general so this photoshoot was really fun to do. I did not have a least favorite part of this internship. I had a great time overall and would gladly intern again if I can. For anyone who wants to intern at GGC I think it would be the best idea for any student.
To students who are considering interning with GGC in the future I’d say you will definitely have a great time interning. This organization is so inclusive and makes you feel right at home when you first start. There are so many different opportunities at GGC so I would say it is the perfect place to be an intern at!
What excites me most about potentially attending GGC is finally meeting many of the people I met at this internship. I met and got to know so many amazing people at the internship.
~ Halleluia
A huge thank you to our three excellent interns, Sumaya, Yarinet and Halleluia, as well as to our internship contact Vanessa. And thank you to members of the GeekGirlCon staff who participated in supporting these geeks – from putting together trainings and projects, setting schedules, donating extra time, coordinating I.T., and even uploading this blog to the website – we appreciate every one of you!
From Tuesday November 4 to Saturday November 8, GGC is running an online silent auction to support our continued fundraising and give our community some awesome geeky prizes! Featuring tickets to some of our favorite geeky venues, custom art, geek swag, and more, we have over two dozen custom packages for geeks of all stripes. We’d like to shout-out our fundraising team for their hard work securing donations and to all the local businesses and community members who generously offered their support, including but not limited to:
So far we’ve raised $4,345 for the match campaign! We’re inching closer to our halfway point and towards having Hadeel take part in the cold plunge challenge! Every dollar counts and your support continues to inspire all of us on the GGC team. 
We teased it and you’re curious about it: our next milestone celebration will be a cold plunge done by our president, Hadeel! GGC takes place during the bbrrrrrr months and meeting our 5.5k milestone will help us get ready for the cold of November. Our latest numbers are showing that we currently have $4,045 towards our goal! This means we just need $1,455 in order to have Hadeel go for a very cold swim. 
This year is a pivotal year for GGC and fundraisers, like this campaign, are critical for us to continue providing the convention you all know and love. But what else are we doing? Since the beginning of the year, our awesome sponsorship and grant manager has obtained $40,400 in grants and sponsorships! How amazing is that!? We’re so thankful to these organizations for believing in us and supporting our efforts to continue GGC into 2026 and the future. 
In case you haven’t heard of a match campaign before, this is how it works:
