How to build a charity gaming campaign

This third instalment of Salesforce.org’s ‘Gaming for Good’ podcast explores the importance of securing buy-in from stakeholders as organisations take the plunge into online gaming.

In this episode, the hosts speak to three charities about how they are harnessing gaming to support fundraising efforts.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) supports people in the most troubled parts of the world. The NRC financially benefitted by working with Gaming Without Borders, who created a $10 million prize fund to support charities on the frontline in the fight against COVID-19. Elite gamers competed over seven weeks and viewers continuously watched their livestreams, sometimes donating to their favourite causes.

Women Win has started to use gaming as a tool to provide vital services, such as educational programmes and workshops. Women Win seek to empower women and girls across the globe through the use of play and sport – and that also means e-sports. Gaming is essential because Women Win have to ‘meet people where they are’ and that increasingly means online.

No Kid Hungry aims to end childhood hunger in the US. They have already had some high-profile campaigns in the gaming arena – some successful, others less successful. No Kid Hungry created the Play to Save Summer campaign, for example, which called on streamers and gamers to livestream their video games through Twitch and raise funds for children.

This episode’s discussion kicks off with the NRC exploring how they got their ‘Gaming for Good’ project off the ground. The guests explore the role that showcasing results plays in securing organisational buy-in. They suggest starting small and scaling up.

“To be able to do new things we need to show results. And to get the best results to be able to learn from, we have to think ‘low complexity’ when we do something for the first time.”

The podcast also explores how Women Win rolled out its ‘Gaming for Good’ programme to support their existing service delivery. During COVID-19, ‘boots on the ground’ service delivery had to go digital.

As an organisation working with young people, the team at Women Win recognised an opportunity to connect with this demographic.

"We’ve been watching the trends of gaming and esports in general across different parts of the world. As access to internet expands and technology becomes less expensive, we’ve definitely seen places where our partners are working - which are often not in big urban centres."

This demonstrates another way in which charities can secure stakeholder buy-in: by illustrating the advantages of new communications methods.

Find out more about how these three charities explored ‘Gaming for Good’ by listening to the podcast.