Annual Report: 2024 – 2025

Greetings, gamers! Our team is back in action and thrilled to share what’s been happening across the Gamers Outreach universe.

Each year, we love taking a moment to appreciate the incredible impact our community has made possible. Your donations, time, advocacy, and streams continue to create moments of joy for hospitalized families around the world. It’s the honor of our staff to deploy the resources you’ve entrusted to us. Our team wakes up each day committed to supporting hundreds of healthcare facilities worldwide. With your help, that number keeps growing.

In this report, we’ll take a look at our 2024 financials, which recently became available for public viewing via our latest Form 990. We’ll also reflect on the big moments of 2025, a year defined by record-breaking fundraising, new GO Kart innovations, and meaningful growth in every one of our programs. Many of the achievements we’ll highlight were made possible thanks to the incredible generosity of our community during 2024.

Let’s dive in!

Introduction

We’ve continued to maintain the core identity that instigated our founding nearly two decades ago. We believe play is valuable for kids in hospitals. It’s this simple belief which informs everything we do.

Play is an integral part of our lives starting from early moments in childhood. It’s through play we socialize, learn, and make sense of the world. High-quality play makes for a high-quality life.

Play is especially important for kids as they mature. Play enhances learning, builds problem-solving skills, is a form of self-expression, fosters creativity, expands vocabulary, and most importantly… is fun!

However in hospitals, making play readily available is challenging. Physical space is limited, staff must focus on treatment, and financial resources are often needed elsewhere.

Each year, millions of children and their families receive medical care inside hospitals. For many, the process can be scary and isolating. During hospitalization, kids lose access to friends, school, and moments that typically define childhood.

We’re on a mission to change their experience.

Our team at Gamers Outreach works to restore a sense of joy and normalcy in the lives of hospitalized children. We believe the world is better when kids can play, and gamers have the power to help.

Video games, when manageable inside hospitals, make play accessible at scale. Games are enjoyed by all age groups, and they offer a range of activities.

Our goal is to ensure all hospitalized kids have access to play – and we’ve chosen video games as our tools of choice. We are here to improve the patient experience.

Our Vision, Mission, & Core Beliefs

One day we want to look back and ask: “remember when hospitals didn’t have video games?” That’s the future we’re committed to building.

The great news is: that future is tangible. We know how to make play scalable – through video game technology!

The challenge: there are thousands of healthcare facilities around the world. We’re taking on a big problem. There’s a lot of work to reach full adoption.

Since our founding in 2007, we’ve worked to inspire and heal kids through play. Five tenets guide this sense of purpose and have remained unchanged:

• We are gamers. We are video game enthusiasts on a mission to help our fellow gamers in hospitals. We are stewards of an organization that serves as a source of relief for hospital patients. We are a conduit for video game enthusiasts to give back through their passion. We have dedicated ourselves to ensuring Gamers Outreach is a trusted charity for gamers and those supported by our work. We are committed to games being used for good. We are a gaming brand that enables interactive experiences in hospitals.
• We inspire and heal through play. We believe access to recreation helps enrich a person’s quality of life. This is especially evident while a person is receiving care in a hospital setting. Our organization provides resources that help make video game content readily available and easy to manage in hospitals.
• Why do we do it? We stand for kids, their families, and hospital staff providing care. We believe video games are a platform capable of improving the patient experience. Our programs aid the healing process by providing entertainment, relief, socialization, and a sense of normalcy to families and patients spending time inside hospitals.
• We value community. Our organization was founded by a community of gamers determined to make a difference. Our programs are driven by community involvement. We believe the video game community is capable of doing incredible good. We hope to inspire fellow gamers to engage with their local hospitals.
• We are stewards – helping others level up!
  Our staff and volunteers embody the identity, mission, and community values of Gamers Outreach programs. We are responsible for ensuring our programs add value to the lives of patients, their families, and hospital staff. Our team bridges the gap between the gaming community and the hospital environment. Every action on behalf of the organization should prioritize our community’s well-being and those we support in hospitals.

Our Programs

Our program philosophy is inspired by two key observations we’ve consistently recognized across healthcare facilities:

• Many hospitals are not equipped with entertainment devices or infrastructure that makes premium video game content readily accessible to patients (e.g. consoles, controllers, monitors, games, etc.).
• When technology is present, it can be difficult for hospital staff to manage entertainment due to several factors (unfamiliarity with equipment, existing responsibilities, ease of mobility, bandwidth limitations, etc.).

The majority of our resources are deployed amongst the following programs:

• GO Karts are hardware solutions. Each GO Kart helps ensure hardware is available to support AAA gaming experiences in hospitals where infrastructure may not exist!
• Player 2 volunteers are knowledge helpers. They’re gamers who provide expertise to make sure technology is working as intended within hospitals.
• Save Point is a distribution solution. Through dedicated Save Points, we can equip kids with take-home items, and empower them with a sense of accomplishment after progressing through treatment.
• Portal is a software solution that was incubated within Gamers Outreach and now exists as a standalone company. In hospitals where infrastructure exists, we hope Portal enables hundreds of patient rooms to be connected simultaneously without kids needing to wait a turn in order to play.

Defining Impact

As we expand, it’s helpful to consider a few terms we use to define our impact.

• Gaming Experiences: You’ll notice the front page of our website lists the number of “annual gaming experiences” our devices provide. This number reflects what we believe to be our capacity-for-use, given the number of GO Karts and devices across hospitals. A “gaming experience” is defined as “every time a child plays a game on our device.” There are instances the same child day-to-day may use a GO Kart. There are also scenarios where a GO Kart is deployed in a playroom and used by 20+ children per day.
• Saturation (program footprint): We’re working towards a scenario where all kids have access to play without needing to wait their turn. This means providing the right type of devices, as well as the right quantity. A “fully saturated” hospital is a facility that requires no more devices. If our “program footprint” expands, it means we’ve added more devices across hospitals.
• Breadth: There are hundreds of pediatric hospitals in the United States alone. So long as our programs are of benefit, we hope to maintain a presence in each!

Current Impact

2025 was a year of sustained momentum. Coming off the back of a strong fundraising year in 2024, our team hit the ground running – deploying GO Karts at a pace we’ve never achieved before, expanding into new countries, and investing in infrastructure to support the next phase of our growth. Since our last annual report, we’ve:

• Shipped 383 GO Karts Throughout 2025. Our team shipped 134 GO Karts in Q1, 160 in Q2, and continued deployments through the second half of the year – totaling 383 units for the full year. At one point, our pace exceeded one new GO Kart per day. Program demand was so strong that we fully exhausted our inventory of units and received a replenishment shipment toward the end of the year to continue fulfilling requests heading into 2026.
• Launched GO Kart 3.1. Based on feedback from our healthcare partners, we introduced an updated version of the GO Kart featuring a new grommet for cable management, a stronger monitor pole for durability, and an additional keylock for added security. To account for rising costs of games, consoles, accessories, shipping, and labor, the cost per GO Kart was adjusted from $3,500 to $4,000. All GO Karts continue to come fully equipped with a monitor, a game console of the hospital’s choice with two controllers, 10+ pre-installed games, adaptive controllers upon request, and all necessary cables.
• Secured a New Warehouse. We signed a three-year lease on a warehouse in the Ann Arbor area, centralizing operations for GO Kart shipments, in-kind donations, Save Point logistics, and volunteer engagement. This facility also simplifies planning for Gamers for Giving and pays homage to our Michigan roots.
• Expanded Into New Countries – Including Japan and South Africa. We delivered our first GO Karts to Japan, with units placed at Osaka Women and Children’s Hospital and Tohoku General Hospital. We also entered South Africa, placing a GO Kart at Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital in Johannesburg thanks to our friends at Chaos Crew.
• Grew Player 2. Our volunteer program has 51 volunteers (as of this post) active or going through orientation, supporting 19 hospitals across the country. Player 2 volunteers continue to provide critical tech support, maintenance, game distribution, and play sessions with patients.
• Expanded Save Point. We received a grant from the Bill Simpson Foundation to fund two new Save Point machine installations. We also secured exciting new prizes – including over 900 plushies from Symbiote Studios, board games from Chip Theory, and a wide range of gaming and geek culture socks. New backend software development is underway and expected to launch early in 2026.
• Renewed Partnership with Child’s Play. During Gamers for Giving, we announced a renewed partnership with Child’s Play, along with the debut of a co-branded Child’s Play GO Kart.
• Board Expansion. Ryan (GoodTimesWithScar) and our friends at Hermitcraft have been incredible supporters of Gamers Outreach for a number of years. During Gamers for Giving 2025, we were honored to welcome Ryan to our Board of Directors! His enthusiasm for our cause and the tremendous fundraising efforts he and the Hermitcraft community have driven make him a natural addition to our leadership.

2025 Event Highlights

This was an incredible year for community-driven fundraising:

• Gamers for Giving 2025 – Our annual LAN party and streamathon took place April 11–13 at Eastern Michigan University’s GameAbove Center, with additional activity hosted at Mojang Studios. Together, the community raised over $1.76 million – a new all-time record for both GFG and Gamers Outreach! During the event, we announced program updates for GO Kart, Save Point, and Player 2.
• VTuber Summer Slam 2025 – Over 1,500 participants joined forces during our five-day virtual fundraising marathon, raising $545,489. The event included an art contest, a dedicated Minecraft server from sponsor Bisect Hosting, and the D&D-themed “Shipwrekt 2: Buccaneer Boogaloo” special stream.
• Spooktacular Streamathon 2025 – Our annual Halloween-themed streamathon raised $326,696 over 10 days, with hundreds of creators participating. Funds will go towards deploying more GO Karts, maintaining existing units, and restocking Save Point machines.
• Halo World Championship – For the third year in a row, Gamers Outreach was present at HaloWC in Seattle. A highlight was visiting Seattle Children’s Hospital with Master Chief for a Teen Night play session with patients.
• Convention Circuit – Our team was present at EVO in Las Vegas, PAX West in Seattle, TwitchCon in San Diego, and other major gaming events throughout the year, connecting with fans and supporters in person.
• Humble Bundle Featured Charity – Gamers Outreach was selected as January 2026’s featured Humble Choice charity, kicking off the new year with additional visibility and support!

Finances

Our 2024 Form 990 is now available, and the numbers reflect a major rebound in fundraising activity following the down year we experienced in 2023.

Over $4.5 million was raised in contributions during our 2024 fiscal year – a roughly 36% increase over 2023’s $3.37 million. This was made possible by the extraordinary support of our community across events, individual donations, and in-kind contributions (including a donation of 500 monitors for GO Karts). Total revenue, including investment income and merchandise sales, reached approximately $4.52 million.

During that same period, $4.57 million was allocated toward expenses, with roughly $3.37 million – or 74% – being directly associated with our programs. This included costs spanning GO Kart manufacturing, GO Kart deployment, Save Point, Player 2, and ongoing hospital support. Management and general expenses accounted for approximately 9% of spending, while fundraising represented approximately 17%.

You’ll notice that program spending as a percentage of total expenses came in at ~74% for 2024, compared to 80% in 2023. This is largely attributable to the increased investment we made in fundraising activities during 2024 – an intentional decision following the fundraising dip we experienced in 2023. The result of that investment speaks for itself: a 36% increase in contributions. And while the percentage allocation shifted, 2024 saw us deploy nearly 600 GO Karts – the most in a single year in our history – demonstrating that our programmatic output reached new heights even as we invested more heavily in fundraising. We believe this was a prudent allocation that positioned us well for the continued program growth we achieved in 2025.

Our organization ended 2024 with approximately $2.15 million in net assets – essentially flat from the prior year’s $2.16 million. This stability reflects our ongoing commitment to deploying funds directly towards programs while maintaining sufficient reserves for long-term sustainability.

For those interested, our Form 990 and Audited Statements can be viewed under the “2024 Fiscal Year” box, located on our Financial & Legal page.

Our audited financial statements for 2025 won’t be available until later this year, but based on our record-setting fundraising events (including $1.76M at Gamers for Giving, $545K at VTuber Summer Slam, and $327K at Spooktacular Streamathon alone), we are optimistic that 2025 will represent another step forward. More details around our 2025 fundraising activity and expenses will be published once our next audit is complete.

Defining Success

Four key metrics help define our idea of success in hospitals. Our programs exist in a diverse landscape of facilities across the country. We believe these four considerations are ubiquitous across hospitals, and they represent how we think about fulfillment:

• Equipment / Content Saturation. Each hospital environment is unique in its ability to house equipment and provide patients with access to content. A 600-bed facility has different hardware and content needs than a 20-bed facility. Our long-term goal is to assist hospitals in reaching their unique “saturation points” so that content is readily available to patients.
• Patient Engagement. We define patient engagement in terms of access to activities. What entertainment offerings existed (if any) to patients before Gamers Outreach programs, and how accessible were those activities to patients? Example: did patients need to wait X hours before playing a video game, or were games available immediately?
• Improved Patient Outcomes. In our experience, hospitals place a high degree of importance on measuring “patient outcomes.” Loosely defined, this encompasses how quickly / fully a patient recovers during treatment. We believe games are capable of contributing towards improved patient outcomes.
• Improved Patient Experience. For our purposes, we think of the patient experience as the overall sentiment a person may have during hospitalization. It can also be an indicator of how a patient “feels” day-to-day. Patients often report their “pain scores” to attending healthcare staff, which help determine sense of comfort or injury tolerance. We believe games are capable of facilitating improved patient experiences.

Looking Ahead

As we gear up for Gamers for Giving 2026 and the year ahead, our focus remains on scaling the programs that make play possible in hospitals everywhere. Here’s what’s on the horizon:

• Continue Fulfilling the Wishlist. Hospital requests for GO Karts continue to grow. With our upgraded infrastructure, the new warehouse, and the improvements in GO Kart 3.1, we’re better positioned than ever to ship units at scale. We’ll continue prioritizing our commitments throughout the year while working with hospitals to fulfill wishlist requests.
• Launch Save Point Backend Software. The new Save Point backend software we’ve been developing is anticipated to go live early in 2026. This will streamline operations, improve tracking, and make it easier to manage prizing across machines in the field. We’re also building a hospital wishlist for facilities interested in receiving their own Save Point machines.
• Grow Player 2. With 51 active volunteers and 19 participating hospitals, there’s plenty of room to grow. We’re actively recruiting more volunteers and enrolling more hospitals into the program.
• Warehouse Activation. With power and internet installation underway at our Ann Arbor warehouse, we expect to fully activate the space this year – supporting faster fulfillment, Save Point prizing, network configurations for GFG, and volunteer engagement opportunities.
• Expand Our Global Footprint. With new deliveries in Japan and South Africa in 2025, we’re excited to continue growing internationally. Wherever there are games, Gamers Outreach programs can and should exist.
• Gamers for Giving 2026. Save the date – GFG 2026 is on the calendar and we can’t wait to see the community come together once again! You can keep up with the latest details by visiting www.GamersforGiving.org.

That’s all for now. We hope to see you involved throughout the year!