Gaming for Good: Philanthropy as a Business Strategy

[Music] welcome everyone to the gaming for good philanthropy as a business strategy session we appreciate you taking the time to join us today before we jump into the topic we thought it would be helpful for derek and i to introduce ourselves my name is dan whitner and i'm the vice president for the west region of the american cancer society and co-creator of our gamers versus cancer program i lead the execution of our enterprise-wide vision direction and strategy through major gifts corporate accounts distinguished events and innovative solutions where each of our departments have revenue targeted goals that we set and work to achieve to actually help support our mission efforts i'm very excited to be here to talk to you today about the work

that a team and i are doing in helping to lead the fight against cancer within the gaming industry because i myself have been an avid gamer from a very young age i've known i i've now been able to blend a lifelong passion with the ability to support a mission and a cause that is very personal to me given that my family has been significantly impacted by cancer and now i'll turn it over to derek thanks daniel hi i'm derek morton i'm ceo of flow play flow play is a group of 60 people in seattle we make casual mmo games the most successful games are vegas world casino world and our world these are virtual worlds where people from all the world get together they have an avatar they run around they have parties they go to restaurants they play games together we have about half a million monthly active users so during today's presentation we're

going to cover the following you're going to hear from derek on how flow play has approached working with charity partners in the past and the process that he took as a company in finding the right non-profit to work with i'm going to talk a little bit about the mission of acs and give you some insight on why and how we ended up creating the gamers versus cancer program derek is going to cover the creation of the partnership between flow play and the american cancer society talking about how it is that our teams collaborated on the project itself i'm going to then go into the impact that the gaming industry has had on social good and give some insight on why others might want to support non-profits across the world if you haven't already done so derek is then going to go into detail on the specifics of what the activation actually is and what the teams ended up creating together we will also

cover how you can get involved talking about some action items and some next steps that you can take to immediately drive social good through your line of work as this presentation is going on derek and i are going to be monitoring the chat answering any questions that you have we also dedicated some time at the end to allow us the ability to go through and answer any questions that we might have missed and with that we're going to go ahead and jump right in hi well i'll tell you about how flo place started getting into a charitable giving um it started with a couple world events where there was a uh earthquake and tsunami in japan there was an earthquake in nepal and so there was a interest in the company to sort of like do we could sort of send money to support those causes and to do that we reached out to our players we created elements in the game that they could uh that would help them contribute to that fundraiser and then we wrote a

check and and sent it off to the different relief organizations in japan and nepal um we got so much interest in that from our players and from our uh employees as well that we decided we would we would make this kind of uh more structured we started budgeting for it in our yearly planning setting aside what portion of our revenue and profits we would apply towards charitable giving throughout the year so we started setting aside this money and started looking for you know non-profit to fundraise for uh we found a great organization called girl start a group called home for our troops which builds houses for for wounded vets uh people that were working with human trafficking rescue uh we built makers labs for underprivileged schools all kinds of stuff but we were kind of it was kind of random we would hear about a charity and say oh yeah let's pick those guys and we would go uh write them a check and and you know maybe go volunteer some hours as well so

things were still a bit ad hoc but in 2018 we decided to take a much more structured approach not only did we set aside money in our budget but we thought that we would really hone in on what do our customers and what do our employees support what would they like to see a support how could we really get everyone involved and excited about being part of doing fundraisings for charities um so we started with some community surveys we started surveying our players asking them you know what's what's touched your life who do you contribute money to uh what what's what's the what's of interest to you when it comes to philanthropy uh and we did the same thing with our employees as a group uh and we met together and just talked about you know what would you love to be to get behind as a as a fundraising event and and for flow play to be part of um and we you know we really run into research like what would really have the greatest impact on our community

so after after you know talking to our community members talking to our employees we uh cancer kept coming up again and again again uh our players are primarily women and primarily women over 50 and for them uh either through friends family or them personally cancer had touched many of their lives and it was a recurring theme throughout some of the surveys and some of the conversations i had with the players so knowing that cancer was an important issue for our players we started doing research on you know who is making the biggest impact uh who is a really great organization to work with uh and has um you know the majority of their fundraising going towards actually helping people through all this research going to cherry navigator looking through uh what what can cancer charities were doing the mess work we came across american cancer society uh and it's been great for us we they're very well recognized both in the

research area and the amount of money that goes to the actual work of curing cancer and helping people that have cancer so we were very excited to find them and begin to form a partnership with them so to expand on what derek was just talking about so the american cancer society is a national non-profit with the sole mission of saving lives celebrating lives and leading the fight into a world without cancer i've provided a few key statistics on the slide that you can see to showcase the impact that cancer has had on so many individuals as you can see one in three people within the united states will be diagnosed within with cancer in their lifetime globally in 2018 there are more than 17 million cancer cases and 9.5 million cancer deaths worldwide by 2040 the global burden is expected to

grow to 27.5 million new cases and 16.3 million cancer deaths simply due to growth and aging of the general population in the past few months with the covid19 crisis our mission and services have become even more vital for cancer patients many of whom are already already have a compromised immune system and are more vulnerable more than ever to combat this we have had to shift our needs for cancer patients and communities facing the pandemic we've added video conferencing to our 24 7 cancer helpline and provided valuable information to and guidance on cancer.org in order to help keep patients safe and well informed we've also continued our efforts to fund critical research as derek had mentioned unfortunately covid19 has had a tremendous impact on the ability for

labs not only to remain open so that they can continue the research but also in the ability for organizations to actually be able to fund them like many non-profits we are doing everything that we can to continue our efforts to research to fund researchers during this challenging time and if we don't the long-term effects could be significant lastly we are working to promote health equity and ensure equal access to cancer research education screenings and treatment for all individuals the american cancer society and american cancer society cancer action network or as we call them acs can are committed to addressing the unequal burden of cancer by reaching individuals in underserved communities in collaboration with community partners through our advocacy work this the reason i'm bringing this up is because anytime that you work with a non-profit

their central core mission is going to be what it is that they are driving from a social good perspective whenever you communicate with them their mission is always going to be top priority it's the main reason that they create partnerships you know we're looking to expand not even from not only from a fundraising perspective but also drive awareness in anything that we do and so i wanted to give you some context in terms of why we are here why we are helping drive social good that is our mission is our core value and so all of these are reasons why opportunities like the engagement through our gamers versus cancer program are so vital in us allowing to support that critical mission last year myself and maya alsace were able to create the gamers versus cancer program we have been having success through partnerships within the gaming industry which is how the program actually got

started organizationally we strategize on how it is that we can maximize our partnerships through a more unified approach versus kind of a segmented one based off of just individual partnerships the ultimate goal of our program was to be able to help partners achieve their own goals and to support our mission not only as i mentioned before through fundraising but also in driving awareness within the gaming industry the program itself focuses in on engaging the industry within the five areas that you see on the slide the first is partnerships so looking at how it is that we can engage you know software hardware and esports corporations our partnership with flow play is actually a great example of how it is that we've partnered with a game developer to work on an activation to address both what i mentioned helping to raise funds and drive awareness

second is streaming we've had great success in live live stream fundraising with content creators to support our mission through charity streams that they host creators like little simsy and greg miller or aka you know game over greggy from kind of funny games have collectively helped us raise hundreds of thousands of dollars which leads to events we've hosted our own and partnered with other non-profits to host in-person and digital nowadays much more digital uh gaming events and have also been chosen as the charity of choice through esports tournaments like the recent pub g charity showdown event we've also engaged through digital platforms we have been featured as a beneficiary on multiple bundles through humble bundles platform in partnership with developers like ea and bandai namco these platforms alone have helped to

raise millions of dollars over the last five years to support our mission and lastly we've expanded opportunities through merchandise collaboration you know we looked at how it is that we could create specific merchandise with a partner maybe aligning it with a awareness cancer month or even in alignment through an event or a digital activation that we create we are by no means the only non-profit partner who has been working with in the gaming community to support their mission some of which have been doing it much longer than us while others i can tell you are just now starting to create strategies and are looking to see how it is that they can not only engage their existing constituents but even the community as a whole our focus through gamers versus cancer is to expand on what the community is is currently engaging with through game developers in addition to content streamers

establishing a presence at gaming events creating an ambassador program and securing hardware and software donations to expand our reach and give potential this multi-prong approach allows the gaming community to truly take ownership in the fight against cancer we are tapping into opportunities to incorporate cause marketing as a major strategy for free to play games and as i mentioned before our partnership with flow play is a great example of this which derek is going to cover in greater detail now so once you've found a charity that you really are passionate for and your community's passion for it'd be easy to you know start getting a fundraiser going in your game and just write a check to them what i really recommend is that you partner closely with the charity that you've chosen you'd be surprised how eager charities are to work with you and to work closely with you to create a really great event

they know where their money is going and what the issues are that and and can help you identify very targeted fundraisers it's my belief that uh you know just raising money for cancer or some other great charity is fine but if you can narrow it down to to help people understand exactly uh an issue that you're going to be dealing with and exactly where the money's going it's a much more successful campaign because people really get a better sense of the help that they're going to be creating through this program um our two pr teams work really closely together so we're creating social media events we're creating um pr releases both before and after the fundraiser so it's great for you to get visibility both from the the efforts of the charity you're working with and both from the uh the you know the pr that your own team is doing to announce what that what what the what that was and what the result of the event was uh so four things to become sure to do uh make sure you're

highlighting a very specific cause um and also get your creative team involved so that they can uh they can bring some of what you as the game company uh can do to really make this successful um you know we're the creative people most of the times the charity people are not super creative they have they have a mission they have things that they're working on but it's it's really up to you to come up with something super super fun and super creative to engage the community we also are encouraging a lot integrate a lot of this stuff into your live ops and your uh your game promotion calendar so that you're announcing what's going on and keeping people informed all along the way and allowing people in your game to actually spread the word themselves we keep these charity promotions live for about four weeks because we're on a two-week sprint and that seems to be about enough enough time to have a really successful promotion excuse me um the key is a successful fundraiser i believe or

as i said make it specific people want to know where is the money going to and and how is it going to help people our most recent campaign was to provide hotel rooms for frontline workers so that these front-line workers that are working in cobit wards don't have to go home to infect their their family or have a place to rest in between their shifts so this this really it was much better than just saying hey we're raising money for uh for frontline workers it's like we are raising money for frontline workers because they need a place to stay in between their ships so that that really brings it home uh make it easy in the game you know buy this thing and this money all the money you spend will go towards this charity uh also make it a benefit for the player if you buy this thing uh make something in the game happen that benefits them so that they get a little something back out of it as well it's also really good if it's socially engaging if there's a way for them to actually buy one for someone else to share that so that if you're spreading the word and allowing them to

you know share their um fill up phil and philanthropy with other players in the game and also make it uh it's really optimal if you make it easy either through chat or other mechanisms you have in terms of chat boards and things where people can announce hey i'm part of this fundraiser and i want to get everybody else involved in it as well excited so derek shared how to create a successful fundraiser so i want to dive deeper into the why we have an unparalleled opportunity to cultivate gaming as a platform for social good great games build communities that frequently connect and help with one another by combining game play emerging technologies inspired talent the commercial gaming industry can extend these communities to invoke monumental social change although not all non-profits are

the same we create partnerships by looking at how we can help solve problems and achieve goals for both the organization and the brand as the middle of the slide deck shows by partnering with non-profits you can create value that actually aligns with your own priorities research suggests that 85 percent of americans will switch to a product if the company supports a cause they believe in and that figure jumps to 90 percent for millennials the gaming industry's reach has the potential to address the world's most pressing issues for us partners allow us to help save more lives from cancer than ever before with the 26 drop in cancer death rates in the united states since 1991 this instead this steady decline makes us even more determined to accelerate this progress and it's important to note that while

all of the overall cancer mortality rates are dropping populations who are marginalized are bearing a disproportionate burden of preventable death and disease meaning there is still more work to be done meaning there is huge opportunity right for us to be driving social good within the gaming industry partnerships within our organization through the industry itself demonstrate just one way at which the gaming industry has had a tremendous impact on driving social good globally and now derek is going to dig into exactly how our partnership has been implemented thanks daniel i wanted to give you an example of what we did so it could sort of you know help you come up with some ideas for your own games and how you might integrate this kind of charity fundraising inside your products in our game this is our game called vegas world one of the major ways we

make money is we sell people good luck charms these charms if you purchase them increase the odds of winning in the game so if you're playing slots if you're playing blackjack any of our social casino games you will win more coins back if you're using these lucky charms so they're very popular they drive about 85 of our revenue so it's a major major thing in our products next slide um we also through our party system allow people to group together and have parties in their hotel room in the game uh and through this party board they're able to create these events around the charity so that everyone in the community knows these events are going on and can easily click a link and go to the party and be part of this charity fundraiser this is what it looks like to be in a party in vegas world you see the avatars of all the players

uh there's chat there's people buying these charms and you see that people are actually in this room buying charms as we go at a charity fundraiser party people would be buying the the in the case of um acs american cancer society charms that are distributed to everybody in the room they buy one for themselves but everybody else in the room gets one as well and later when they go play the the our gains our slots games and blackjack games that gives them a benefit in the game so it's super social uh and this is just an example of where uh the american cancer society charm was placed in our in our purchase merchandising um it was 25 gems you want to keep the price point fairly low so it's really easy for people to buy a lot of them and share them if you set the price point too high you know you won't have a lot of activity but what you want to create is like this sense of a lot of activity a lot of charms being purchased or a lot of whatever you're you're building in your own game

to make it feel like it's it's it's really exciting and really interesting for everybody so we just finished our most recent successful campaign uh as i mentioned we were working with the american cancer society has what's called the hope lodge and while the hope lodge is a place for cancer patients to stay while they're traveling to go for for therapy and treatments during coca-19 situations it was temporarily switched to be used to allow front-line hospital workers to rest you know remain uh separated from their families so they didn't spread the disease to their family so we did a specific fundraiser around this uh so the reason i believe this is successful is is super timely uh cuba 19 this is this is run during may so it was is you know obviously very timely during may uh the players got bonuses for being part of this for buying the charm for the hope lodge and they got benefits for their friends when they buy one for themselves they

get benefits for everybody else and it was easy to share because everybody could create these parties where everybody could come and and have a good time and supporting a great cause now the result of this was that we raised 55 000 just for this one campaign uh 32 of our mau went to one of these parties so about a third of all players were engaged somehow in this fundraising effort and literally 28 of our monthly active users actually made a monetary contribution toward buying these charms uh so this is one of the many that we've done for the american cancer society we've raised i believe i think it's over three hundred thousand dollars for acs so far uh so we're super excited about continuing to do this we're gonna do another one uh with a different um fundraising angle uh this october great thing sir again i think that it shows just how you're able to connect

uh an engagement activation for your own constituents and tying it directly to a mission effort right that's that's where i think there is huge synergy in terms of being able to partner with the non-profit and so now we want to showcase how you can get more involved and what are some you know next steps so first off you can reach out to non-profit partners you can connect with if you already know that there is a cause that organizationally you they hold dear near and dear reach out to a non-profit to see if there is the ability to create an activation if you don't have a non-profit you can reach out to us you could do a number of things right and then secondly what you could do is you can also connect with your community like what derek was saying and how they approached it finding out what is near and dear to your community and aligning that cause through an activation

for them secondly and derek mentioned this previously you know incorporate the creative and innovative way that that you have built out your own business and company and and bring that to the nonprofit if as derek has mentioned the nonprofit isn't necessarily going to have answers and how it is that they can engage the community especially nowadays with a lot of nonprofits in the early stage of just looking to see how they can incorporate the community into their mission and so a lot of times you're going to need to be that subject matter expert secondly you're going to want to discuss goals early on what are your priorities how does it align with the priorities of the non-profit that you're going to be connecting with i think it's important to also note that non-profits are also held by specific laws in terms of what they can and can't do within partnerships and understand that

you know if you can't equate it to how you might have worked with a vendor in the past or how you might have worked with another business partner it's it's slightly different though not as much as you might think but just want to preface that there might be differences in the two approaches when you initially start to have communication and then last but not least share the impact you have created an activation and you've engaged your constituents you've really been able to build out something but and and build it behind a cause right that's either important to you or important to your own constituents and share what that impact is after the activation has taken place derek is there anything that you might want to add to this i think the main thing i would add is that you know there's probably many people out there they're saying yeah that sounds like a great idea we'd love to give to charity and you know get something going with our community around it but you'll be you'll be shocked and you'll be surprised that uh what what the real impact later is

for you um it's one thing to uh to just carry out a fundraiser and donate money it's another when you start to see the feedback from your players the appreciation appreciation that they have for the fact that you you you're you're doing good and that you're helping the community and the same thing with your employees the feedback that you'll get from your employees is amazing as well that's great so we've provided additional time for us to go through and look to see if there are any questions in the chat that we haven't been able to address just yet i did have two questions for derrick to kind of build upon what it is that he's discussed earlier so derek you talked about how it is that you went out and you connected with your community and find out what cause was near and dear to their hearts you know what are some best practices that you've seen over the course of the last couple of years and doing an activation like this that others could possibly take well the the surveys and uh you know emails and having people respond

by electronic communication are great and but i was uniquely lucky in that we have a virtual world so i walk around in it most people know who i am i have a my name in the game is digmania so people say hi to me they know i'm the ceo of the company and so i'm i'm kind of a popular guy but my advantage there is that i get to actually talk to people in the game one-on-one uh and and talk to them about their stories you know if somebody sends me a message saying hey you know cancer is very important to me uh it's a charity that i support and would like to see you guys support i can actually go in the game and talk to them about that and and find out you know how has cancer touched your life and and and how can we you know create a campaign that that's meaningful for you great so my last question would be how has the impact of driving a social good campaign through your business impacted you at an individual level well probably

the biggest thing that's happened is uh i was asked a couple years ago to join a group called the ceos against cancer part of the washington group and later this year in february i actually became the chairman so today i'm the chairman of the washington uh ceos against cancer and it was an organization that takes you know leaders around the state uh to come together and uh and do big events and fundraisers to try and make a contribution toward this important research and uh supporting the community of people that are the patients and the people that are dealing with the cancer issue great all right so with that uh we have concluded our session we want to thank you so much for joining in the dialogue through the chat uh and just uh being a part of this session as a whole we would love to hear you know in future state if you ever do connect with a non-profit and end up creating

activation we'd love to hear from you you can reach out to myself and derek individually or you could reach out to us at gamers versus cancer cancer.org again thank you so much for being a part