Editing Peter Laird (section)

===Origins===
Laird's "experience with the Turtles and self-publishing" was a learning process that, he felt "would be very valuable to other people to go through" as well, "in teaching creators about themselves, about life [and] about the hard reality of business." He cites the summits he, Eastman, [[Scott McCloud]], [[Dave Sim]] and others had (which led directly to the formalizing of the "Creator's Bill of Rights," setting out in writing the necessary working arrangements that comics creators felt ought to be met regarding ownership of their work and proper remuneration, etc.) in informing his decision to set up the foundation, but also notes that he received "many requests for money," necessitating the creation of the Xeric Foundation's charitable end simply to deal with such requests "in an organized fashion."<ref name="Rebels"/>

Indeed, when asked in an interview<ref name="Fanboy">[https://web.archive.org/web/20100203114605/http://www.projectfanboy.com/vb/showthread.php?t=670 Project Fanboy interview with Peter Laird]</ref> on the [[Project Fanboy]] website, Laird was quoted as saying:

<blockquote>The initial impetus for creating the Xeric Foundation was frustration – when the Turtle thing started getting really huge, people started coming out of the woodwork to ask for money. Many of them were legitimate charitable organizations or creators needing funding, but there were also quite a few ridiculous things – like the total stranger who asked me for a quarter of a million dollars to fund his general store. It got to the point where I was getting overwhelmed with making these kinds of decisions, and it was suggested to me that a foundation might be a good way to "separate the wheat from the chaff", providing official and clearly delineated channels through which people looking for money had to make their way.</blockquote>

Laird recalled that the publication of the first issue of his and Eastman's ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' comic came about thanks to a loan the two secured from Quentin Eastman, Kevin Eastman's uncle. Although the two were able to pay him back swiftly, it led Laird to speculate about what could have been: "if we hadn't gotten that loan from him at that point in our lives, it might have taken us a couple more months to raise that money from other sources, and who ''knows'' what might have happened differently as a result of that delay?" It occurred to him that "there must be so many times where a self-publishing venture can sink or float on the strength of" a relatively small amount of money, so he felt a desire to use some of his "good fortune, in the financial sense, to help people out" (and, in addition to the creators, the foundation also aids those "involved in charitable organizations").<ref name="Rebels"/>

Moreover, he cites "[a] big difference" between his and Eastman's personal ''Turtles'' situation and the charitable foundation as being "that the Xeric grants are not loans, which have to be paid back, but actual grants, which do not." He "credit[s] Kendall Clark, who has run the foundation for me from the beginning, as one of the main reasons it has worked as well as it has... she's done a wonderful job."<ref name="Fanboy"/>