Frame Fatales’ team members share how they’re lifting up marginalised voices in the gaming community — all while supporting girls’ education and Malala Fund.
Too often, young women and girls are told they don’t belong, including in classrooms, board rooms and even the gaming world. But girls are always pushing back and creating spaces of their own. Through their annual fundraising events, Malala Fund partner Frame Fatales has created a platform for women in the gaming community to share and celebrate their speedrunning talents (playing a video game as quickly as possible from start to finish).
Flame Fatales is an online, all-women and femme charity event organised by the Frame Fatales community. Each year, their community supports Malala Fund through a series of multi-day, streamed speedrunning sessions of popular games like Celeste and Stardew Valley.
Since launching in 2019, Frame Fatales has raised over $1.1 million for charity across eight fundraising events. To learn more about their impact and evolution, we spoke to Courtney “frozenflygone” Lind, Frame Fatales’ event lead, and Susan “Jaidlyn” Hahn, an event host and speedrunner for this year’s Flame Fatales event. In our chat, Malala Fund's Individual Giving Officer Dhanya Rao asked Courtney and Susan about the event and team’s evolution, their impact for girls and how streamers can use their platforms to drive change.
Dhanya Rao (DR): Frame Fatales has partnered with Malala Fund since 2020. How did Frame Fatales get started? How has your organisation changed since then?
Courtney Lind (CL): Frame Fatales began in 2019 as a non-fundraising event with the aim of having the first all-women and femme speedrunning event on the Games Done Quick channel! It was an invitational event, and the community Discord launched alongside it. We are so lucky to have had immense growth over the past five years! The Discord community has grown from 100 members in 2019 to a staggering 1,800, and we now receive hundreds of run submissions and volunteer applications every event. Frame Fatales has grown to have its own identity apart from just the events. We have a thriving community where we organise hangouts and meetups and stay connected year round!
DR: Fundraising is a key element of Frame Fatales’ events. How do you choose the organisations you work with, and what drew you to Malala Fund?
CL: It is incredibly important to us to find charities that centre their work on empowering women and femmes to achieve their goals, while fighting against gender discrimination that we see in the gaming space and beyond. Malala Fund has always focused on lifting up women and girls and helping them rise above the challenges we face. It parallels so well with the Frame Fatales community in that we strive to provide opportunities for spotlighting the work and passion of women and girls who are often overlooked due to the dominance of men in video games and speedrunning. Malala Fund aims to let women and girls forge their own paths, and with Frame Fatales, we encourage anyone who is interested in gaming to come join us — you don’t have to be a speedrunner to be a part of our community. The overlap between the goals of Malala Fund and Frame Fatales is so strong, and I truly believe that is why our community and events have so much passion and excitement for fundraising for Malala Fund!
DR: Susan, you did your first Flame Fatales speedrun this year! What was that experience like for you?
Susan Hahn (SH): It was incredible! It was amazing getting to showcase all the hard work and practice I did prior to the event and the support from the community during the run felt unreal. So much love and generosity! Even though I was very nervous right beforehand, once I got into the run everything felt very natural and easy. It was good to have a commentator and host who were also well-versed with my run so they could boost me up with good messages and jokes when I needed it most. Definitely an excellent experience!
DR: You were also a Flame Fatales Ambassador this year and fundraised ahead of the event. Why did you choose to get involved?
SH: I’d seen the incredible impact the Ambassador programme had on previous events and I wanted to contribute to that. A lot of my own community found me through fundraising events like Flame Fatales and to do something that could bring us all together for a great cause like Malala Fund sounded like a win-win for me. I also wanted more insight on the fundraising and creating process for an event — like goal setting, content decisions and incentive ideas — on a smaller and more digestible level. Being an Ambassador was the perfect opportunity for me to learn more about those things!
DR: This year, Frame Fatales raised over $151,000 and surpassed $1 million in total fundraising for Malala Fund. What does this milestone mean to you?
CL: It is truly unbelievable to think about how Frame Fatales alone has raised over $1 million for Malala Fund since Frost Fatales 2020. I was a volunteer for that event, and now as the event lead, I am so thankful for the time and talent of every single Fatale and supporter that has made this possible. Video games are a force for good in the world, and I am honoured that Frame Fatales is able to use our skills to support Malala Fund each year. I hope that Frame Fatales can continue to break barriers in the speedrunning community, and that Malala Fund can use these funds to help a new generation of women and girls to pursue their dreams. Maybe some of them might become speedrunners too!
DR: What advice would you give speedrunners and streamers who want to use their platforms to drive change?
SH: Be authentic! When you are truly passionate about a cause and want to use your platform for change, making sure your message comes from a place of authenticity should be your primary goal, otherwise you won’t be able to make the meaningful and genuine impact amongst your community that you want. As a former public school educator, my passion for what Malala Fund does for girls’ education around the world was not only easy to talk about, it was easy to get fired up about on stream! My community could see how much Malala Fund meant to me and that drove people to donate and get involved with Flame Fatales. When you’re authentic about the things that matter the most to you, change will happen naturally from your platform and community.
