Games Add Competition, Urgency, and Fun to Nonprofit Fundraising
By Rebecca Koenig
August 8, 2016
Ocean Conservancy
Charities have started incorporating elements of interactive games into their volunteer programs and fundraising campaigns.
For years, Ocean Conservancy volunteers have collected litter on beaches on International Coastal Cleanup day, using pen and paper to catalogue their hauls. This September, they’ll be able to use the nonprofit’s new mobile application on their smartphones instead.
And they’ll earn digital badges for their work, a fun perk that Ocean Conservancy leaders hope encourages volunteers to collect trash whenever they’re on the shore.
Ocean Conservancy is wading into the world of “gamification,” the process of “creating rules and constructs and rewards for behavior,” says Susanna Pollack, president of the nonprofit Games for Change.
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Ocean Conservancy
Charities have started incorporating elements of interactive games into their volunteer programs and fundraising campaigns.
For years, Ocean Conservancy volunteers have collected litter on beaches on International Coastal Cleanup day, using pen and paper to catalogue their hauls. This September, they’ll be able to use the nonprofit’s new mobile application on their smartphones instead.
And they’ll earn digital badges for their work, a fun perk that Ocean Conservancy leaders hope encourages volunteers to collect trash whenever they’re on the shore.
Ocean Conservancy is wading into the world of “gamification,” the process of “creating rules and constructs and rewards for behavior,” says Susanna Pollack, president of the nonprofit Games for Change.
With technology already an integral part of daily life, nonprofits are seizing new opportunities to incorporate elements of interactive games into their volunteer programs and fundraising campaigns.
“It makes an experience more playful in a way that will draw attention and have individuals more interested to engage,” Ms. Pollack says.
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Competition and Urgency
Some charities make games their mission. One is iCivics, a nonprofit founded by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, which produces online games that teach students about the U.S. government.
Others collaborate with popular online games — and gamers — to raise money. Zynga.org, the nonprofit arm of game company Zynga, has worked with charities like Water.org and Toys for Tots to raise millions of dollars through in-game purchases in FarmVille, CastleVille, and others. Save the Children works with video-game star Bachir Boumaaza, commonly known as Athene, through his video-game streaming platform GamingForGood, which encourages viewers to make donations. Athene’s influence is significant: His channel on Twitch, a website that lets viewers watch people play video games live, has more than 30 million views.
But some charities simply incorporate the qualities that make games appealing, like competition and a sense of urgency, into their fundraising strategies, says Dale Nirvani Pfeifer, chief executive of GoodWorld. The for-profit company, which helps charities raise money using social media, uses this kind of gamification in its marketing campaigns. For example, it hosted a Puppy Playoff online fundraising event that asked people to vote for their favorite dog by making a donation to its animal-shelter home. The effort raised $22,000 for participating charities.
“We really believe nonprofits need to make giving fun,” Ms. Pfeifer says. “Make people feel they’re on a mission with you and the charity is cheering you on.”
The thrill generated by urgency and competition inspired the creation of Brackets for Good, a nonprofit that runs an online-giving tournament for other charities. The tournament, which pits nonprofits against others in the same city in a fundraising challenge, is designed to arouse the same excitement as March Madness, the annual college basketball playoffs, says co-founder Matt McIntyre. In 2016, tournaments raised more than $1.3 million from nearly 11,800 donations.
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“What competition does is turn everyone into a fan,” Mr. McIntyre says.
Even Bill Gates has gotten in on the fun: Earlier this year, the billionaire philanthropist launched Coop Dreams, an online quiz game that asked questions about chickens. For every player who answered a question correctly, Mr. Gates donated birds through Heifer International to impoverished families.
Mission and Money
Merely incorporating elements of games into a campaign rarely creates awareness or prompts changes in behavior, Ms. Pollack says. So she recommends creating fully immersive experiences that can raise both awareness and funds.
There’s a lot of money to be gained by tapping into the gaming industry, which in 2015 had total revenues of $23.5 billion, according to the Entertainment Software Association.
In 2013, Games for Change worked with game developer Frima Studio and production company Show of Force to create Half the Sky, a role-playing game based on a book of the same name about exploitation and violence suffered by women and girls. The game allowed players to experience the challenges women face around the world. It was designed with fundraising opportunities: In-game purchases served as donations or prompted corporate sponsors to donate books or surgeries to women in need.
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The project had support from the Ford Foundation, USAID, Zynga.org, Intel Corporation, National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the United Nations Foundation. Nonprofit beneficiaries included the Fistula Foundation, GEMS, Heifer International, ONE, Room to Read, the United Nations Foundation, and World Vision.
During the game’s three-year run, it raised $500,000 and attracted more than 1.3 million players.
“Games can really give you a position of empathy,” says Kathryn Dutchin, interim associate director at the Center for Games and Impact at Arizona State University. “They are opportunities to sit in the shoes of others and gain perspective.”
One potential drawback: True games can be expensive to design, ranging from $25,000 for a very simple mobile app to more than $3 million for a game with detailed animation and many levels of play, Ms. Pollack says. That’s before factoring in the costs of marketing and distribution. The Half the Sky game, for example, cost around $600,000 to develop and another $600,000 to market and distribute, according to Asi Burak, board chair of Games for Change.
High Cost
Ocean Conservancy’s new app, Clean Swell, has cost the nonprofit more than $100,000 so far. That’s a significant start-up cost for the charity, but Allison Schutes, senior manager of the group’s Trash Free Seas program, and her colleagues hope the app proves a good investment.
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It will reduce current data-collection expenses, and its gamelike feel is designed to attract new supporters, Ms. Schutes says. When a volunteer uses Clean Swell, she has the satisfaction of knowing she’s helping the environment, but she also has the chance to gain recognition. If she collects enough plastic bags, she’ll earn the sea-turtle saver badge. If she gathers enough bottles and cans, she’ll be named a beverage buster.
The badges, designed to provide volunteers with an external reward beyond their own gratification, were inspired in part by popular app Untapped, which gives badges to users who record the craft beers they’ve tried, Ms. Schutes says.
Ocean Conservancy is just dipping its toes into the waters of gamification — for now, she says. The nonprofit plans to do a marketing push for Clean Swell and eventually add features that make it a more social experience so users can become “friends” and compete with each other for badges.
“We have big dreams of diving into the gamification world,” Ms. Schutes says.