


The Gear Files Part 1: Can You Hear Me Now?

Mental Health Check Pt 4: 3 Keys To Responding To Crisis In Chat

Who We Are: A Letter From Our Community Manager

Mental Health Check pt 3: 3 Things to Know About Self Care

Happy Nerdy New Year!
It’s the end of the year, and like a lot of you, we like to use that as an opportunity to reflect on what we’ve done this year, and look forward to next year. We’ve had an amazing 2021, and we’re not slowing down anytime soon! Here’s a brief look at what we’ve done this year.
So much has happened through our business at NonameNerd.com! We’ve expanded product lines, and even added new ones! Some of the highlights of the year were rolling out custom storefronts for affiliates and our line of Cute Keycaps! We’re also having entirely too much fun with our NFTs, even putting NFTs on our tee shirts! If it’s been a minute since you’ve checked out our assortments, come see what’s new at NonameNerd.com!
Perhaps more exciting for me is all of the progress we’ve made with growing our amazing community! We’ve connected with so many nerds from around the world, including the appx. 23,000 awesome people receiving these emails, to the 2,500+ nerds in our Discord, to the rapidly growing Facebook group, which is quickly approaching a whopping 9,000 nerds! This year in the community, we’ve done several amazing things! We’ve nearly tripled the size of our Facebook group, we’ve consolidated and organized our very own N3 eSports organization, we’ve added a blog and podcast series to help out the content creators in our community, centralized our leadership in the community, and so much more. We were even a finalist for the Facebook Accelerator Program! Apparently, we’re doing things right around here!
But in all of this reflecting, what I came back to, time and time again, is that the best memories of this year had nothing to do with what we achieved, had nothing to do with any product, any number, any of that. The entirety of my top ten moments with The Noname Nerd this year were of memories made hanging out with the amazing community that makes this possible. One personal high note was my prank on our admin, Breen (if you want to see it, search “The Twisted Team Prank” on YouTube). Ah, memories…
I suppose, if I’m saying anything here, if I could distill it down to one simple sentence, it would be this: Thank you, community, for making everything we do here worthwhile.
Now, if we’re going to reflect, we often also like to resolve for our future. Now, we don’t like to announce stuff too far ahead of time, so I won’t get into specifics, but suffice it to say, 2021 isn’t the peak for our community. We’ve got a lot of cool ideas that we are working on behind the scenes.
Here’s what I want to know: What is your resolution? Come tell us in the #noname-nerd-podcast channel in the discord! Not a member? You can grab the invite link at NerdsBelongHere.com! Oh, and speaking of the Podcast, if you’re resolving to up your stream game, make sure you subscribe to our podcast and read our blog for the latest and greatest tips and tricks to up your stream game! Regular episodes will resume next weekend. Also, we have a great affiliate program as well! You can find details on that in the #how-to-be-an-affiliate channel on our discord! Either way, The Noname Nerd Community will continue to be *the* place for the budding content creator!
We can’t wait to show you what we have in store for 2022, and we can’t wait to see the awesome stuff you will do as a community.
So, from all of us here at The Noname Nerd, Happy New Year!
Cheers,
Joe
Community Manager, Noname Nerd Communities

Mental Health Check pt 2: 3 Steps to Surviving The Streamer Grind

Mental Health Check Part 1: The Industry Secret About Who Can Be a Content Creator

Giving Back Part 2: 3 Ways To Maximize Charitable Donations

Who Can You Help? Part 1: The 3 Best Charity Stream Options
You know, if our community is any indication, nerds might just be the most caring individuals on the planet. Have you ever wondered how you can help other people by creating content? Charities all over the world have discovered how great it can be to work with online content creators, which has opened up a plethora of options for you to help the world around you with your content! In this article, we’ll explore 3 different ways you can help: working directly with charities, working with digital hubs, and working with a curator hub.
Now before we get too deep into this topic, a word of caution. Generally speaking, the less money you can hold in your hands during a fundraiser, the better. Here’s why. First of all, this can create liability and ethics issues, as you have to ensure that this money does, in fact, make it to where it needs to go. Additionally, while these charities usually are 501c3 charities, you--generally speaking--are not. This has two impacts: 1), your donors can’t write off their donations on their taxes, and 2) this could open you up to tax liability. So with all of this in mind, let's explore options that don’t involve holding money.
One of the most direct ways to fundraise for a charity is to work directly with them, and many charities are becoming content creator friendly. Here at the Noname Nerd, we’ve gotten to work with a couple great ones in this category; namely, The Trevor Project, and Extra Life (which is a branch of Children’s Miracle Network specifically made for streamers and gamers). The big upside to working directly with charities like this is that, oftentimes, they have resources available for you to use, such as assets, b-roll footage, and liaisons who can be available to help with guidance. The downside is that there are only a limited number of charities to choose from in this category. With that said, if you can find a good one that suits your needs, it can be the beginning of a great partnership.
What do you do if you want to support a specific cause, but they aren’t easy to work with online? Enter digital hubs, like Tiltify! When we have someone contact us looking for a specific cause to support, we often recommend this route. For example, last year, Jace, one of our community members, came to us looking for help. He was trying to fundraise for a cancer-related cause. So, we went to Tiltify, and found a great cause for him to support. Tiltify handled all of the donations, and he was able to make a great impact for his cause. The upside to this sort of platform is that there are a ton of causes to choose from (Tiltify works with over a thousand charities), but the downside is that you don’t get a ton of direct support and resources at your disposal.
What if you want to make a positive impact in the world, but don’t really know what cause you want to support? Might we suggest a curated charity portal? This is a relatively new concept, where the charity portal handpicks causes to support. We’re proud to sponsor Stream For A Cause, who is a fantastic charity portal that picks a charity to support every month, supports the creators with resources about each individual charity that they work with, and even invests in the streamers supporting their initiatives! The support they give streamers is a massive upside; however, not being able to choose the charity may be a downside to some streamers. You can learn more about this unique approach at StreamForACause.org.
There are a ton of causes out there that need your help. In this article, we’ve explored three great ways that you can interface with these charities, and make a difference in the world. Of course, stay tuned, as we’ll go over some techniques for effective fundraising next time! What charities have you tried working with? Got some great fundraising tips? Let us know over in the #charity-stream-tips channel on our discord! Not already a member? Grab the links to our communities at NerdsBelongHere.com! And as always, stay tuned to this blog for more great tips and tricks!