Going Live: How Nonprofits Are Reaching Younger Donors by Streaming Games Online

Courtesy Matthew “MC” Moffit

As a high-school student, Matthew Moffit raised $300 online for Child’s Play, a nonprofit that donates toys and games to children’s hospitals. For some 36 hours straight, he and a friend completed games in the popular series the Legend of Zelda. They held a live online broadcast of their marathon session in December 2009 on the site Ustream, which allowed fellow gaming enthusiasts to watch and donate.

Several months later, Moffit did it again, raising $3,300 for the American Cancer Society with help from about 10 friends.

And it kept growing from there.

After a few years, the biannual event, known as “Zeldathon,” was raising tens of thousands of dollars. Over time, it has collected more than $2 million for 10 charities.

One of those organizations, Direct Relief, took notice. Moffit and volunteers he assembled raised more than $105,000 for the humanitarian charity in December 2014, the most he and others involved had ever raised in a single event.

After meeting some of Direct Relief’s staff, Moffit made a pitch: The organization should hire him and a friend who helped produce Zeldathon. Together, they would promote the charity to other gamers, who would raise money for the group, and the two of them would help run the events.

It worked. The nonprofit hired Moffit — who goes by SuperMCGamer online — and his friend as consultants in September 2016, dubbing Moffit its “gaming production specialist.” Since he started, Direct Relief Gaming has brought in $1.6 million dollars for the organization through livestream gaming events. Some 73,000 online donations have been made to Direct Relief through such gatherings since then — just 7,000 fewer than Direct Relief received through its own website.

Like Direct Relief, a number of large nonprofits — such as St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Save the Children — are investing in live online video as part of their fundraising operations. Some experts predict that live video will become a bigger part of charitable giving, so nonprofits should start to build a familiarity with it.

“You’re going to have to accept donations through it one way or another,” says Julia Campbell, a consultant who advises nonprofits on digital strategy. “People are going to give to you the way they want to give to you.”

Online Experiments

No complete data exists to show the growth of fundraising through livestreaming, but indications are that it’s expanded in recent years. Fundraising dollars brought in while using software from the company Tiltify — which provides interactive features for gamers and other people streaming charity events online, mostly through the gaming site Twitch — reached $80 million in late October . The number is double the amount collected using its services in 2017 and quadruple what was raised in 2016.

Other companies are getting into the action, too.

JustGiving, a popular British crowdfunding website that Blackbaud acquired in October 2017, offers services similar to Tiltify’s. British charities have used the services to stream gaming events, including GameBlast18, which raised $313,000 over a weekend in February for SpecialEffect, a charity that aids people with disabilities. U.S. charities can encourage users to raise money on their behalf using live video on JustGiving, too, though few have so far, according to the company. Blackbaud plans to roll out additional livestream capabilities in 2019.

DonorDrive, a fundraising-software company, released a tool last month that allows people to host live videos for charities on their fundraising pages. By late November, more than 12,000 people had raised almost $5 million. Fundraising pages that use the tool bring in 150 percent more than those that don’t, according to the company.

While gaming events appear to be the most prevalent livestreamed events online, they’re not the only ones.

Nonprofits broadcast their own live events on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch, essentially digital “telethons” that sometimes feature celebrities. University presidents talk to alumni through livestream during campus giving days, and charities use it to talk to donors on Giving Tuesday, the annual day of philanthropy that is held a few days after Thanksgiving.

Nonprofit supporters also post their own live videos on behalf of organizations. Musicians jam live and ask people to donate to charity. People cook and do the same.

Some livestream events are zany: Cameron Aldous, who goes by ilyon on Twitch, eats pickles (and things made with pickles, including a pickle smoothie in 2015) during his biannual Pickle Challenge — even though he hates them. In 2017, the events raised more than $21,000 for Doctors Without Borders.

When Direct Relief hired Moffit, the organization had already worked with a few video-game companies in successful fundraising campaigns. Through such livestream fundraising, Direct Relief is able to connect with a young audience that is difficult to reach, says Heather Bennett, the group’s director of partnerships and philanthropy. “It’s more about connecting to that community than it is about dollars raised,” Bennett says.

Strategy First

As this approach becomes more popular, many nonprofits wonder if they should jump on the bandwagon.

Before they do, nonprofit officials should ask themselves whether livestreaming is the best way to communicate with supporters and potential donors, says Michael Hoffman, chief executive of See3 Communications, who advises nonprofits on their digital videos. “Make the tool follow the strategy,” Hoffman says. He suggests that nonprofits analyze what other organizations are doing with live video, including their results. Then the question for nonprofits should be: Can we realistically produce the same results?

Fundraising isn’t always the purpose of livestreams. Some groups want to give supporters a “behind-the-scenes” look at their work, talk about important issues in real time, or give people access to an event they can’t attend in person, says Campbell, the digital consultant.

To Campbell, live video should primarily be used to expand awareness about a nonprofit’s mission or work. Donors often want to know how the charity is using their money, she notes: “They want to hear and see the stories of the beneficiaries, whether that is students — or puppies and kittens.”

For nonprofits that are on the fence, it doesn’t hurt to start experimenting with livestreaming, Hoffman says. “In general, all these things are inexpensive to play around with,” he says. “There’s no harm.”

Keeping It Simple

Sometimes, simple live videos can bring in big dollars.

After Hurricane Harvey, staff members and volunteers for Best Friends Animal Society helped rescue pets caught in the storm in Texas. At the Austin Hurricane Harvey Animal Rescue Hub, an emptied-out furniture store used as a pop-up shelter, the Best Friends director of public relations, Eric Rayvid, streamed live on Facebook. He interviewed a staff member who, along with others, drove for hours transporting 87 cats and dogs from another temporary shelter in Lake Jackson, Tex.

Rescued critters were streaming into the crowded Lake Jackson location, she told viewers. “As we were pulling away, a horse trailer full of dogs and cats arrived,” she said, “so we cleared them out just in time.”

Rayvid then toured the Austin facility as volunteers and employees unloaded animals into it — doing close-ups of cats and dogs lined up in rows of carriers, often pulling the camera back to his face to address viewers. He summed up the mission of the effort: “Any of the animals that are owned, we want to make sure that we’re getting them back to their families.”

During the broadcast and for a few days afterward, people donated $101,536,and it got 1.5 million views and was shared almost 20,000 times. It lasted six minutes and 53 seconds.

“We were really surprised but really happy with those results and how people responded to it,” says Amy Starnes, director of digital engagement for Best Friends Animal Society.

Many of the group’s live videos are similar, she notes, often focused on showing the group’s work or educating donors. “A lot of that mission-based storytelling has been helpful for us,” Starnes says, noting that livestreams used in the group’s fundraising campaigns get 87 percent more likes, shares, and comments than do prerecorded videos.

On Facebook, live videos are archived, she notes, so they can be viewed and shared when they’re over. The Hurricane Harvey stream, for instance, got far more donations in the few days after Rayvid was live than during the broadcast. The charity plans to use live video extensively on Giving Tuesday this year.

Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals

Celebrating Supporters

Other nonprofits have incorporated many of the same elements as telethons for their livestreams: celebrity appearances, fun challenges, and banter.

During its #ChildrensHospitalsWeek campaign in March, the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals — which raises money for 170 member medical facilities — broadcast its annual “Live-athon” on Facebook and Twitch.

The event, held at Walt Disney World, aims to celebrate the organization’s supporters — be they small contributors, corporate sponsors, or celebrity donors, says Michael Kinney, managing director of digital fundraising for the network.

This year, NFL hall-of-famer Steve Young introduced corporate supporters such Delta Airlines, IHOP, and Marriott. Company representatives talked about their support, including Brandon Kaupert, partnerships manager at Twitch. Kaupert said that the site had helped the Children’s Miracle Network Hospital’s gaming-fundraising program, Extra Life, raise $40 million since 2011.

The annual Live-athon gives supporters a chance to hear from the families served by member hospitals, too, Kinney says. When the celebrities and companies tout the event on social media, “it helps amplify the reach and bring in new faces to the cause,” Kinney says.

The live-video format also allows individual supporters to comment during the event. As Crystal Collins, whose daughter JaKiah was treated for kidney cancer at a member hospital, talked about during the stream, a Facebook commenter’s message flashed: “Go Jakiah!!! We love you!!!”

The March Live-athon raised $38,322 on Facebook. During the broadcast, people gave another $5,000 on Twitch.

Jennifer Hayes/Best Friends Animal Society

The Donor-Data Challenge

For all the benefits they offer in reaching new audiences, livestreams pose the same challenge as fundraising on social media often does: Depending on what software is used, charities may not learn much about who’s giving.

On Facebook and YouTube, donors can decline to share their information — like their names and email addresses — with charities and people raising money on a group’s behalf. “It is a real challenge in the industry right now,” says Starnes of Best Friends Animal Society.

But some companies are offering solutions.

DonorDrive doesn’t provide the ability to host a live video through its website, but people streaming on YouTube or other sites can embed their videos on fundraising pages created through the company. Charities can ensure that people raising money on their behalf collect donor information, like email addresses, through their fundraising pages.

Tiltify’s software — which allows people to use interactive features like polls and on-screen alerts when donations are made — can now be used directly through Twitch. Streamers can also play their live videos from Facebook, YouTube, and other sites.

When Tiltify is used during a live feed, donors submit email addresses, but they can enter any name they want. Charities also learn the specific live broadcast that prompted donors to give, see comments they made, and gather other information. They can also download reports analyzing the data.

Sometimes donors substitute their usernames from Twitch — Greekgodx, for example — when they give. That can cause fits for some databases of donor information that don’t recognize the names, acknowledges Michael Wasserman, Tiltify’s founder.

Though emails addresses are always sent to the organization so it can send gift receipts, donors can request not to be contacted again by the charity.

Young donors appear to be concerned with privacy, Wasserman says, which is why Tiltify does not require them to submit full names or addresses. “We analyzed the issue prior to launching” by talking to charities that use other online-donation services, Wasserman said in an email.

Game On

Going forward, it appears gaming will retain its lead role in live-video fundraising online.

Big charities are building inroads with gamers. Save the Children is promoting its fourth Gaming Tuesday this year — in which players on Twitch, YouTube, and other sites will encourage their viewers to donate from November 20 to December 4. The drive has raised $350,000 since it launched and has a $75,000 goal this year (which will mean $150,000, if the charity secures a matching gift).

The St. Jude Play Live program also encourages gamers to raise money. It’s brought in $11 million since 2014.

Best Friends Animal Society has had conversations with gamers who are interested in raising money for it, too, says Starnes: “We’re really excited to explore that because we think it’s a way to engage a whole new audience.”

Direct Relief will try to keep Moffit on for as long as it can, says Tony Morain, the organization’s communications director. “He’s someone to watch, for sure,” he says.

As for Moffit, he predicts Livestream fundraising, particularly among gamers, will keep booming: “You’re going to see a lot more people get involved.”