Should your NGO be developing a mobile gaming app?

Candy Crush Saga, an online puzzle game that challenges the user to match similar candies, has more than 75 million likes on Facebook and at least half a billion downloads on Google Play. Cross-platform availability, “freemium” pricing strategy, continuous levels, and the online game’s casual yet stimulating design is what has contributed to its worldwide appeal. Now, it appears charities looking to raise brand awareness or capture a wider audience are taking notes. After all, the world of mobile gaming has started to catch on in the humanitarian and development industries. Browse through the Apple Store and you’ll stumble upon a number of socially minded games made by or for nongovernmental organizations and foundations. There’s an app to save rhinos made by Swedish digital agency Hello There for the Perfect World Foundation, Sustainaville — which works much like Farmville — by Save the Children International, and Canadian-based startup Decode Global’s Get Water! in partnership with Charity:Water. But charities’ foray into the world of mobile gaming is not without its risks, and requires careful consideration, Devex learned from three nonprofits that have already delved in. 1. Nightmare: Malaria by Psyop for the Against Malaria Foundation. When Emmy-award winning commercial production company Psyop approached the Against Malaria Foundation to partner on a project, the latter didn’t immediately say yes. AMF only has two full-time staff members including Rob Mather, AMF’s founder and CEO, so one of the immediate concerns was about required staff time. But several calls later, they decided to push through with Nightmare: Malaria, a gaming application that animates the struggle undergone by young children infected with malaria. In the game, a young girl named Anna falls asleep and is bitten by a malaria-infected mosquito in her dreams. In order to survive, she needs to come out of her own bloodstream, saving her teddy bears along the way while avoiding killer mosquitoes through the use of nets. The game’s graphics are visually appealing, and the storyline feels like watching a stop motion film — Academy Award-winning actor Susan Sarandon did the voiceover for the game. Mather said they wanted the game to be engaging and fun so that users would be encouraged to recommend it to others, but also informative enough that it expands people’s understanding of malaria as prevented by the use of nets. Above all, it needed to be high quality, from the graphics to speed of loading, which meant the project be handled professionally, and “not just … some junior people doing this in the organization as a bit of a fun project,” he said. The charity had some vetoing power against any part of the project they didn’t approve of or weren’t comfortable to attach their name to, and together with Psyop agreed on a weekly or fortnightly meeting to discuss progress. How the game was presented was also important. Mather said they didn’t want the game to lecture or come across as heavy handed, grim or very depressing. “It’s a subject [that] in its very nature involves death, and that is a theme that needs to be sensitively handled with younger minds,” he explained. Marketing strategy was also a subject of consideration, analyzing what would drive or attract positive reviews, and which segment of the population should they initially open it up to — everyone, or only to those people who might find it entertaining? AMF left much of the creative process to Psyop, according to Mather. But they insisted there was to be no product placements or any profit making for any organization. The game, in fact, is free with no offers of in-app purchases, but only a donate button between levels that goes straight to the charity’s donation page. “We’re much more comfortable with people freely deciding to give money rather than them giving money because they were enticed into the game and got hooked on it,” he said. AMF was very particular about the language used in the app, not wanting to be overly simplistic or be misleading, saying something like “if you give $10, you’ll save a life.” “The cost of a bed net now is $2.50, one bed net does not equal one life saved. Statistically, if you put in place, depending on the malaria burden in an area, 50 or 500 nets, over the four-year life of those nets, one life will be saved,” Mather said. AMF expected the game to help raise awareness about malaria, reach new audience and further their connections with their donors, and in the process encourage some donations. Mather thinks the charity has achieved all of it, although awareness-raising is a gray area whose significance is hard to capture in numbers or measure. The app has been downloaded more than 1 million times in the Google Play store, and Mather said the charity has received a “material number” of donations. Although the donations from people who played the game are “relatively a small percentage,” the organization continues to receive some of them today, he said. But AMF wouldn’t do it again if it meant they had to allocate funds for it, Mather said. Psyop developed Nightmare: Malaria pro bono. “We as an organization are a bit different in the sense that we never spent any money on marketing, or promoting our organization, in any way, ever, in our history,” he said. “Because we choose a very different approach in how we go about our work. So it was never a consideration for us.” And Mather extends the idea to other NGOs that may be looking into developing a game of their own. His first recommendation: Go to an organization working in this area and ask if they’d be willing to help pro bono. Chances are, individuals or companies would be willing to help if they find your cause strong, he said. For those open to paying a fee, Mather suggested gathering information such as a game’s cost and benefits from charities that have already put together a similar app. “I’d gather the data, because frequently people try to reinvent the wheel when the wheel already exists,” he said. 2. The Hunger Crunch by Rice Bowls, Inc. U.S.-based charity Rice Bowls has been using the classic piggy bank, in the form of a rice bowl, to raise funds since 1980. But in recent years, the organization observed people are using fewer coins and dollar bills. Giving has gone digital. “So the harder we work with the plastic piggy banks, even if we continue our efforts, over time there’s less and less return on investment, and eventually they are going to die,” Dodd Caldwell, the organization’s president, told Devex. Caldwell decided to explore digital opportunities for fundraising in order to continue the organization’s mission of providing food for orphaned children in different parts of the world. The organization watched the mobile gaming boom, and decided to go ahead with a game meant for iOS. Hunger Crunch, which launched in late 2014, focuses on the character Beasty and its fight against hunger minions taking over the world’s food and water supply. Inspired by hit games like Angry Birds and Tiny Wings, Hunger Crunch is a one-tap game that Caldwell hoped would also reach audiences of a wider age range. “We were looking at it as getting both awareness for the organization and also a possible direct return on investment through in-app purchases,” he shared. “But for any of that to be successful, a game has to be fun. So that’s a high priority.” And unlike a number of games made by or for nonprofits, Rice Bowls didn’t package Hunger Crunch as “edutainment,” but rather an entertaining game with a fundraising aspect that hopefully would get people interested in learning more about the charity. Caldwell can already point to several successes. Rice Bowls engaged with new donors — private individuals and companies — through Hunger Crunch, partly due to the innovation and gaming conferences the organization was invited to. Hunger Crunch was also named Facebook’s Social Good App of 2015. But return on investment was sluggish. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed in the direct return of investment,” Caldwell said. “So far as the direct revenue from in-app purchases [is concerned], it was not what I want it to be,” he said. The charity’s CEO had hoped to at least make a few hundred thousand dollars, a figure that the game couldn’t possibly break with few thousand downloads. In Google Play, the number of people that have installed Hunger Crunch ranges between 5,000 and 10,000. Even if they had considered advertisements, Caldwell didn’t think it would make a lot of revenue. He said ads make sense if a game has millions of players. But in their case, there’s just “not enough eyeballs to make a return of revenue off ads,” he said. The CEO clarified however that money invested in developing Hunger Crunch didn’t come from the charity’s budget. A foundation became interested in the idea funded its creation. But it still was a huge investment, which Caldwell estimated to be “six figures or lower.” The game was developed in-house and by several external developers whom the charity contracted. Despite the game’s lukewarm revenue, however, the charity is trying its luck with a second one: Hunger Crunch Active, which will likely come out this quarter or early spring. The app will still feature Beasty, but it will be more of a fitness app that tracks users’ activity using the smartphone camera. When a user jumps, Beasty jumps too. “It’s basically the same — characters and game play — so we said OK, let’s take another shot at it and see if it works,” the CEO said. The idea follows the current app trend in the Apple store today, which Caldwell said is focusing on health and fitness. But unlike their first game, Hunger Crunch Active will be a paid application that Caldwell pegs at $3.99. Outside the Hunger Crunch theme however, Caldwell isn’t so eager in creating another game. Creating one, he said, takes time to build, is costly and more “difficult … than what you think.” “And the gaming space has become so competitive that you really have to be featured by Apple, I think, in the app store to make it work, to hit it big. And it’s very difficult to do that. I was reading stats, and you probably need 10 games to get one hit. And if you’re a nonprofit that’s not very sustainable to do,” he said. 3. #Giveashit by WaterAid. Poop isn’t exactly a great conversation starter, so organizations working in the area of water and sanitation always try to harness creativity when broaching the topic. In his ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, for example, actor and Water.org co-founder Matt Damon used toilet water to bring attention to the more than 2.3 billion people suffering from lack of access to a proper sanitation facility and clean water. So for World Toilet Day last Nov. 19, Juan Carlos Fernandez, director of marketing and engagement at WaterAid America, wanted to do something bold and honest. And after discussing a few ideas with creative publishing agency The Pub and digital production company Joystick Interactive, he agreed to push through with #GiveAShit, a mobile application that allows users to create their own poop emojis and use it in SMS or share it on social media. The emojis — designed by artist Julia Heffernan, who was also behind the promotional emojis for the American comedy series Key and Peele that ended in 2015 — can wear sunglasses, have coffee and even enjoy wine. Fernandez confessed he’s not very good at gaming, but he believed in the power of apps and games in reaching a lot of people and raising awareness about the huge problem of sanitation worldwide. He felt it was the “perfect vehicle” as well to reach younger audiences, although he was quick to say they didn’t really create the app for a particular age range. “When I said bold, they suggested working with a hashtag. And I said, ‘Oops, what am I getting myself into?’ But then I said yes. I’m going for bold, and I think it’s a good idea and I think it went really well,” he told Devex. The app was just one component of the campaign WaterAid prepared for the U.N.-designated day. There was also a sanitation-themed art gallery exhibit in New York, aptly named The Shit Show, and several celebrities, including from YouTube and Vine, went online to raise awareness about the sanitation issue among their network. But the app appeared to be the most popular in terms of its geographical reach and long-term impact. Fernandez said WaterAid only made the promotions in the United States and Canada, but they found the app being downloaded in 47 countries, including in New Zealand and India. And three months since its launch, the app is still getting donations today via the text option provided in the app, which is only available in the U.S., and via WaterAid’s website. How significant the donations the charity received, however, was another matter entirely. “What is a lot, I don’t know. But we got donations,” Fernandez said. Despite the app’s reach, Fernandez’ expectations were grounded in reality. “I don’t think that an emoji is going to solve the problem of [sanitation],” he said. “The value of this application is that we reached many, many people that we would not have otherwise.” And that includes the app creators. “Something I mentioned toward the end of the project is that if we were able to change the minds of the creators, that for us is a very, very big achievement. Because we work with very nice, very creative people, and at the end, they told us: ‘Now we are advocates. Now we know about this issue, and now we’re gonna help you.’ So that for me was very important because it means that the message that we’re trying to portray went through,” he said. Fernandez wouldn’t mind working on another application for the charity. But he wants to clarify first on what it is that the charity wants to do, achieve and who is going to participate. Like Mather and Caldwell, he saw how time consuming, complex and expensive working on an app is — although in WaterAid’s case, The Pub offered pro bono service while Joystick Interactive gave “a very significant discount,” according to Fernandez. But they started conceptualizing in July 2015, and without external help, it would have been impossible for the charity to push through with it given WaterAid’s small team in New York — 14 people at the time. “And if you really want to go to return on investment, you’re going to be going to a very, very gray area,” he said. Devex Professional Membership means access to the latest buzz, innovations, and lifestyle tips for development, health, sustainability and humanitarian professionals like you. Our mission is to do more good for more people. If you think the right information can make a difference, we invite you to join us by making a small investment in Professional Membership.