Hi all! Coming at you with the as-promised transparency check-in, regarding withdrawing the campaign funds. This post is written by conduit, who is handling the financial and design side of things. (Apologies in advance for the boring bits!)

I officially linked my PayPal account to itch.io today, and I initiated the payout for the fundraiser. It will take up to 10 days for the nice people working at itch.io to review it and send the funds through.  Here is the screenshot; I've redacted my personal information.

It appears there's no way to withdraw specific amounts at a time through itch.io, so I've made a separate "pocket" in my bank where the funds will sit. It will not be touched; any interest earned will go towards charity! Screenshot of that too:

Something important worth noting that wasn't discussed in our previous Devlogs: Even though this is a nonprofit project (as in, we are not making a single cent from this), taxes still come into play. This is because technically we are offering you something in exchange for your donations, which is the physical zine. That means that from our net total we showed you, there still has to be taxes taken out of there. Usually the person who has to file the taxes related to a zine project is whoever the finance person is - so that's me, in this case. itch.io let me know the taxable income amount is $852.91. That is the amount we're allowed to spend going forward for the zine. $286.42 will be going to taxes, out of the net amount shown in the screenshot above, and I will file them at the end of the year.

This does take a good amount out of our pool for covering shipping. Doesn't affect the community fund being covered at all; it might affect domestic shipping being covered. We are planning to get a quote from the post office on Media Mail rates. If it would leave us without any money for charity, we may offer the same thing we planned on doing for international shipping, which is giving you the option to pay shipping/donate to charity. When we get the quote and crunch the numbers, we will let you know how we'll proceed.

A positive note: AQUAREGIA generously covered the cost of our bubble mailers out of pocket! Thank you so much <3

And more positive notes on the design end: Over the last two days, I worked with our manufacturer to fine-tune the print version of the zine. Between color management, formatting, and making sure every page was in the right order - we now have a proof ready! They will be holding onto it until I get the funds; once I do, I will go ahead and place the order. Sneak peek and our total quote:

Thanks so much for reading, and we'll be back with another update as soon as the zines get approved for printing! Any questions, email worshipfanzine@gmail.com or ask away in the Discord. Or hit us up on Twitter @worshipfanzine or at worshipfanzine.tumblr.com.