Our Crowdfunding Groups
As was mentioned yesterday, thanks to your generous contributions we hit our goal of $8000 raised to benefit NIU Esports! This will go a tremendous distance towards securing the PCs to help keep our varsity teams competitive and will allow us to repurpose four of our machines for general student use, in turn allowing us to provide an opportunity to those who may not have it otherwise. With your support, we were able to also hold our NIU Boss Battles event to cap off our campaign and that event was additionally an amazing success.
We've also created a thank you video (here's the link in case it doesn't show up in this email)!
Chicago Wolves
As a reminder and as a final thank you, don't forget that we've partnered with the Chicago Wolves ice hockey team to provide all contributors with a Buy One, Get One ticket offer valid on any home game during the 2021-22 season. Here you'll find all the details about that promotion:
Boss Battles Special Thanks
Another special shout out to our wonderful partners who helped provide prizing for our Boss Battles drawings, the Hoffman Estates Esports Zone and Scrims Esports Center in Lisle, Illinois! We will be reaching out to winners directly, but thank you to all who helped make NIU Boss Battles a success!
Until next time, thank you!
Conner Vagle
General Manager, NIU Esports
NIU Esports | Division of Outreach, Engagement & Regional Development
NIU Esports Arena – Neptune North | DeKalb, Illinois 60115
815-753-1403 | cvagle1@niu.edu
What a weekend! On Saturday we hosted Boss Battles, our 12-hour fundraising event on our Twitch channel. The day started with game play by volunteers from our varsity teams and ended with interactive fun games between our players, staff and viewers (We logged 312 views throughout the day). Thanks to every donor (including a surprise, very last-minute gift), we raised $1,000, which unlocked a $1,000 matching gift for a total of $2,000!! A great big thank you from NIU Esports to every volunteer, viewer, player and donor who supported us to help make this happen. And a special shout out to our sponsors Hoffman Estates Park District E-Sports Zone and Scrims Esports Gaming Center in Lisle for their donations to our event-only prize drawing.
I'm thrilled to announce that late Saturday and Sunday, thanks to a few more generous donations, we met our fundraising goal of $8,000!!
A heartfelt thanks from our staff to everyone who donated, volunteered their time, spread the word about our campaign and Boss Battles event, and supported NIU Esports. You are essential to our success.
As we've continued to level up throughout the campaign, we're reaching the final boss! Join us on Saturday, May 1 from 10am to 10pm for NIU Boss Battles! This event will feature our players and personalities interacting with viewers while streaming, playing pick-up games and having fun to support our varsity teams! We're also going to be hosting special promotions throughout the event, so it'll be a great opportunity to tune in and show your support! Get ready and mark your calendars for NIU Boss Battles!
Hello again everyone!
Thank you to everyone for your generous support so far! Thanks to contributions from all of you, we've already hit the threshold for our second unlocking gift as well! A huge thank you to Jeannine East, Senior Project Manager in the Division of Outreach, Engagement and Regional Development here at NIU for the amazing $500 gift! With the addition of Jeannine's gift, we are now up to 32% of our goal with about 24 days left in the campaign.
Happy Friday everyone and we'll have a new update for you on Monday. Enjoy your weekend, continue to spread the word, and don't forget that with your contribution you'll unlock access to a special BOGO offer for an upcoming Chicago Wolves hockey match!
Until next time, thank you for helping to support NIU Esports!
Happy Monday everyone!
It is a very busy day here for all of us at NIU Esports as we're getting ready for our Overwatch team to play a tiebreaker match against Kent State (5pm CDT, Twitch) and then move immediately into the Semifinals with a win (7pm CDT, Twitch) where we would take on the #1 team in the conference, Miami University (OH).
In the meantime, we have a very special announcement we'd like to make! A huge thank you to our friends at the Chicago Wolves who will be providing BOGO ticket vouchers to a future Wolves hockey game to anyone who contributes to the campaign! This is an awesome opportunity, so be sure to share it around as this is an offer any sports fans out there do NOT want to miss!
Finally, we're up to 22 individual contributors to the campaign and we're super grateful that we're there! Remember, at 30 individual contributions we unlock our second Mystery Gift, so please share the word to help get us to 30 contributions!
As always, until next time, thank you for your support of NIU Esports!
Hello again everyone!
Thanks to your generous support and contributions, we've already hit the threshold for our first unlocking gift! A huge thank you to Dr. Rena Cotsones, Chief Engagement Officer here at NIU for the amazing $500 gift! With Dr. Cotsones' gift we are now up to 14% of our goal in under 36 hours.
Happy Friday everyone and we'll have a new update for you on Monday. Enjoy your weekend, continue to spread the word, and we encourage you to support our Huskies as our Overwatch team finishes off their regular season tomorrow at 6pm against Eastern Michigan on Twitch!
Until next time, thank you for helping to support NIU Esports!
Hey everyone!
Welcome to the official launch day of the campaign! We're SO excited by the support we've received already during our soft launch and we can't stress enough how impressed by and appreciative of all the generous contributions we've received so far. However, we encourage everyone to keep this momentum going! Share the word if you haven't already and a contribution of any amount adds up quickly in reaching our goal.
We also have an update to share! We are ready to announce that we have received two Unlocking Gifts! While we're going to keep the amount of these gifts a mystery, I will announce that each will unlock once we hit a threshold of individual contributions; the first will unlock at 15 contributions and the second at 30!
Until next time, thank you for helping to support NIU Esports!
While many overlook the importance of a mousepad, it serves a vital purpose in a gaming PC. Not only does it help with the comfort of using the mouse, but it also protects our desks. A gift of $10 will allow us to provide a mousepad for our stations!
Did you know? The first computer mouse was developed in the early 1960s, but didn't become commercially popular until 1984 with the Macintosh. A gift of $25 will allow us to provide a gaming mouse for our stations!
In a competitive esports setting, headsets serve many roles of great importance. The headsets not only allow the players to hear the game and to communicate with their teammates, but also keep crowd noise out to allow the team to concentrate while they play. A gift of $50 will allow us to provide a headset for our stations!
From mechanical (clicky) to membrane (silent) and back again, the computer keyboard has gone through many iterations, but has always been one of the most essential pieces of the computer setup. A gift of $100 will allow us to provide a gaming keyboard for our stations!
Traditionally modeled off of racing seats in cars, gaming chairs not only provide the lumbar support our players need for a practice or gameday, but provide the boost of looking stylish in NIU red and black while doing so. A gift of $250 will allow us to provide a chair for our stations!
In the world of esports, where every millisecond matters, having a high refresh rate and clear image on your monitor can be the difference between victory and defeat. Therefore, a gift of $500 will allow us to provide one such monitor for our stations!
We put our computer towers under immense stress during our competitive sessions, so having the equipment to match the task is vital. A gift of $1,000 will allow us to provide a liquid-cooled, gaming computer tower for our stations!
