How to make a gaming campaign work for your charity
5/17/2021
It's time to start Gaming for Good!
Want to create a gaming campaign but don't know where to start?
We've got you 🙌
We’ve talked before about how livestream fundraising has quickly become one of the most exciting trends in the charity space over the last few years, but a lot of charities struggle to launch their first campaign because they’re unsure how it could link to their charity or their audience.
So today we’re talking through our top tips on launching a campaign and how you can create a campaign that links to your cause.
Let's get started!
Step 1 - Find your 'hook'
Finding an event that ties in with your cause is essential for creating a successful gaming campaign; some charities have a campaign where they say “game whenever you want, however you want for as long as you want for our charity” and like any virtual event, there isn’t a strong enough ‘hook’ to convert participants.
Instead try something like this for example: “Game on 12th of August (Our 20th birthday) for 6.7hrs to represent the number or people that get diagnosed every hour”.
That way the event is time sensitive; creating urgency to sign up, and the event challenge has meaning because it is a direct link to your cause, emphasising the realities of what your charity does and why its so important for people to take action.
Here is a formula I use with charities that have no idea where to start with campaigns:
👉 Choose a date/month that has significance for your cause
👉 Choose a challenge that represents a part of your work (12hrs represents patients/number of diagnoses each hr, etc)
👉Create a sense of urgency around your campaign
Step 2 - Find your audience
A lot of charities don’t explore gaming campaigns because they feel they don’t have an audience in this space, but many charities that have taken a leap of faith have been surprised at how many secret gamers they actually have!
Many people often misunderstand the target audience for gamers; thinking that they are all 14-18 year old’s playing FIFA in their bedroom, when in reality, that's quite a small part of the gaming demographic.
Gaming demographics:
👉 The split between male and female gamers is 50/50.
👉 46% of people who play games on most days are aged over 40.
👉 The average gamer age in Europe is around 31
Top tips for connecting with gamers
Reach out to your current database
And see how many of your supporters are interested in gaming (it'll be more than you think!)
Start Googling
Google your ‘Charity name’ + ‘Gaming/streaming/livestream’ - it might turn out that people are already streaming for your charity
Connect with student groups
Great way to get younger streamers engaged from the off!
Influencer Gamers
Connect with ‘influencer agencies’ to see if any of their gamers would be willing to take part in your event
Step 3 - Nail your branding
Step 3 - Nail your branding
This one is debated between many people, some say branding isn’t everything, I completely disagree if I’m honest! Many charities are precious when it comes to creating sub-brands within their organisation but you simply cannot brand a gaming event up in the same way you would your challenge events because you are targeting an entirely different community and it needs to be treated differently.
My advice:
👉 Create a small sub-brand for your gamers
👉 Look at gaming companies, Twitch and gamer profiles to see what style of branding they use - the gaming space has a very distinguished look and feel that you want to lean into with your sub-brand
This doesn't need to be huge task for your organisation, but even just changing the language you use on your gaming campaign page, using a banner image that leans more into the gamer style to make your event more appealing to that audience will be a step in the right direction.
If your are fortunate enough to have gamers in your internal teams or in your audience, reach out to them and see what they would find appealing in a campaign and what the look and feel would need to be to encourage them to sign up.
