Do you remember the first moment you searched the internet for that thing you loved and found out there was a fandom for it? The first time you picked up a fanzine, or saw an amazing piece of fanart for that ship you didn’t even know you needed? So do we! The OTW was built entirely by fans — fans who wanted to hold onto that spark of fannish wonder, share it with others, and make sure it would never go out.
Here in the OTW, fandom is our fandom. There’s nothing we celebrate more than fans themselves, and fandom in all its forms. We do what we do out of love — and there’s nothing more rewarding than to see the Organization and its projects flourishing, growing exponentially every year.
With growth comes a lot of hard work. The OTW is run entirely by volunteers: over 500 fans worldwide donate their time to bring our projects to you, to preserve and document fanworks and fan culture, and to keep the organization up and running. From coders to wranglers, translators to lawyers, directors to academics — each of us dedicates countless hours every month to this passion. The AO3 alone has a huge codebase, which took an estimated effort of 22 person-years to build — this would amount to over US$1 million in salaries according to open source tracker Openhub! The infographic below can give you some idea of the work that goes into keeping the OTW and its projects together.
To keep on doing all this work and grow even more, we need your help! The OTW depends on your donations, so please consider supporting us with a donation of US$10 or more. Our goal for this drive is US$70,000 to celebrate the OTW’s 7 years of existence. Please help us meet this goal today!