Philanthropy
Net Impact vs. The Hub: Do Game Mechanics Work for Voluntarism?
Are you sad that the World Cup is over? Well, last Friday, July 22nd the SF professional chapter of Net Impact and the Bay Area chapter of the HUB “kicked” off a very different type of competition to see which one of these social entrepreneur networks does the most good. It’s the first competition of its sort in which members ‘check-in’ their good deeds online and get awarded points. At the end of a month... (continue reading this blog post)
Are you sad that the World Cup is over?
Well, last Friday, July 22nd the SF professional chapter of Net Impact and the Bay Area chapter of the HUB “kicked” off a very different type of competition to see which one of these social entrepreneur networks does the most good.
It’s the first competition of its sort in which members ‘check-in’ their good deeds online and get awarded points. At the end of a month, the membership with the most collective points will win the cup.
Of course, the competition is more friend than foe. The Net Impact and HUB leadership care less about winning the competition than giving their members (900 vs 550, respectively) an engaging way to get to know each other. Checking in good actions is the grease in the wheel of this online social “action” networking platform, powered by Blitz Bazaar (full disclosure: I am the founder of Blitz Bazaar). The members can mingle online and see all the uplifting things everyone else is doing.
The bigger question this competition brings up is the effectiveness of game mechanics to engage members in voluntarism. Can it improve the performance of volunteer-based programs and, if so, can your organization, business, church, university, or school make use of it? Lots of tools like Blitz Bazaar are emerging in every people-driven industry and the social sector is a laggard to adopt them.
Game mechanics is all-the-buzz these days here in Silicon Valley as every scrappy start-up is trying to incorporate peer-peer competition, points, badges and rewards into their games, websites and mobile apps, hoping to be the next Farmville (by Zynga). Having teams face-off against each other is one great way to incentivize people to do get involved, and there are many others.
In my experience, program officers in the social sector and corporate volunteer programs tend to fall into three camps:
- “This stuff is awesome; bring it on. I can use all the help I can get to motivate people to volunteer.”
- “No way. Volunteering is altruistic and shouldn’t be tainted by external motivations.”
- “Interesting. When I see everybody using it, I’ll have an easier time adopting it.”
Apparently the verdict is still out on game mechanics for voluntarism. I sometimes hear people commenting that it’s a fad that will pass or that it’s nice for video games and corporate loyalty programs but not for social work. My response is the opposite; game mechanics is not new at all, even in the social sector. The Boy Scouts have had badges for decades. Schools use a grading system partially to measure success but partly to motivate students, and teachers definitely often use a star system to reward good behavior and a strike system to punish bad behavior. These are all examples of game mechanics in action. What’s new is the medium. The social web is very new and so it’s now the Wild West for these new tools, but they will mature and volunteer programs will adopt them to enhance their programs.
Do you agree?
Lloyd Nimetz is the founder of Blitz Bazaar, an action networking platform that helps communities come together around good. It lets you share your good deeds and habits with your friends. He founded the online giving market HelpArgentina.org. He has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a BA from Williams College and was a Fulbright Scholar to Argentina.
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COMMENTS
BY Lisa
ON August 3, 2010 10:31 PM
I agree that game mechanics can motivate people to do many things and volunteerism is one of them. I also think it’s a great way to get more people involved and increase the impact. For example my company used game tactics to raise goods and money for a food drive, we broke into teams and the team with the most food in their barrel was the “winner”. In an office of fifteen people we were able to fill over three Food Bank barrels and raise over $500 in three weeks. The only prize was bragging rights but if it had not been a competition we probably would have only raised a third of our final donation. Competition can have a positive impact on social organizations. I think it’s a great tactic.