1 Million Reasons Gaming is good for you – FundRazr powers gamers to raise $1 Million for charity
Crowdfunding Advisors, FundRazr Team
Vancouver, BC: Picture this: China, Russia, Europe and USA are waging war but instead of casualties, the outcome will be thousands of starving children in East Africa receiving food. The war is intensely waged but virtual and the social good resulting is very real. Operation Sharecraft, a cool mashup of online gaming and Crowdfunding, is giving skeptics a million ($) reasons why video gaming is good for you.
Let me explain: A recent video game tourney pitting Team USA vs. China vs. Russia vs. Europe raised $2/second for the cause Save the Children. The event – part of Sharecraft – drew 100,000 viewers worldwide and was streamed in Russian, Chinese and English. After the battle, the winning teams even donated their cash prizes back. Leave it to the people power of social fundraising – gamer style – to create the international collaboration and massive social good that our “leaders” seldom seem to achieve.
‘For dem kidz, For dem gaimz’ – the unlikely rallying cry
Operation Sharecraft was a social experiment to use the Internet to raise $1 Million, within the gaming community, for Save the Children (East Africa). DC Comic’s “We can be Heroes“ campaign featuring the Justice League is matching* each dollar raised up to a $1 Million total. The experiment worked and a new breed of hero emerged – gamers.
Sharecraft, The Save the Children Challenge is headed up by pro gamer Athene, a gaming community (World of Warcraft) and YouTube celebrity (611,000 YouTube channel subscribers). Athene challenges gamers every night via his Gaming Livestream platform Athene Live, to compete and start their own sub fund-raisers – tapping into their gaming DNA (and social conscience) for a place on the leaderboard and chance at Razer gaming equipment prizes.
The $1 Million milestone was achieved (*with the match) earlier today in Day 84 of a 100-day campaign that ends on July 4th. View a video of the $1 Million milestone live from the Dreamhack 2012 main stage in Sweden earlier today.
Social good, gamer style – flying in the face of the usual image of the slacker gamer without a social conscience. To date over 21,770 donations have been collected and the leaderboard of sub-fundraisers raising funds is truly worldwide from a Norwegian venture capitalist to a United Arab Emirates sultan to a US Marine.
Perhaps the politicians should learn something from the video game generation instead of complaining about video games being harmful. Gaming can be good for you and gamers can truly be heroes. Now you’ve heard a million reasons why.
The campaign is powered by FundRazr. Social fundraising platform FundRazr is using the power of gaming-style challenges, personalized fundraisers and social sharing to help video gamers, and many others, be heroes too.
How it works:
FundRazr allows fundraisers to easily share a video or image and personal message on their cause and collect secure payments in many currencies on Facebook, their websites and other social networks.
FundRazr then uniquely allows causes to turn fans into fundraisers by making it easy to publish and share a personalized sub-fundraiser with their network and also provide prizes and/or perks as incentives for the leading fundraisers.
Quotes and Fact Sheet:
“Millions of people, most of them innocent children, are at risk in the Horn of Africa due to the worst hunger crisis in 60 years. The Internet has come to a point where when we simply collectively reach out for what we think is right, real change often follows. You can join Operation ShareCraft and add your own voice to the campaign. I can’t raise one million dollars on my own, but together we can.”
—Athene
Hey guys, its Dave from Save the Children. Can’t thank all of you enough for the tremendous effort you’ve put into making Operation Sharecraft successful. All of your hard work, generous donations and creative methods of spreading the word will ultimately help us reach children and families in the Horn of Africa who desperately needed support. For the past 80 days Ettore, Sam and I have been utterly astonished by your ability to rally the gaming community behind this silent tragedy.
I need to call out Athene, Reese, Maral, Vanessa and Tania for being the driving force behind this incredible effort. A huge thanks to FundRazr, PayPal and Razer for their support. And a huge thanks to DC Comics for matching all of these donations dollar for dollar. We may have reached our mark, but this is just the beginning of a new era of fundraising and using social media and digital technology to better the world. Thanks to each and every one of you.”
Dave Hartman, Save the Children 11 hours ago (Facebook post)
“We developed the Challenge features in support of the Sharecraft campaign and we are very pleased that this marriage of social gaming and social fundraising is proving so effective in helping causes – whether non-profit, group or personal – better connect, inject some fun and collect much higher donations.
We are proud that FundRazr was selected by the Tiger Woods Foundation, Sharecraft and by thousands of other causes for effective social fundraising.”
— Daryl Hatton, FundRazr CEO
About ShareCraft
ShareCraft is a project focused on finding creative ways to share media and ideas about charities and causes that have been thoroughly researched and proven to be efficient and effective.
For press and other inquiries, mail ShareCraft@AtheneLive.com
About Save the Children
Save the Children is the leading independent organization creating lasting change in the lives of children in need in the United States and around the world. Recognized for our commitment to accountability, innovation and collaboration, our work takes us into the heart of communities, where we help children and families help themselves. We work with other organizations, governments, non-profits and a variety of local partners while maintaining our own independence without political agenda or religious orientation.
About FundRazr
FundRazr is the Crowdfunding system anyone can use to raise money for their own project or cause. FundRazr has helped people all over the world raise millions of dollars by engaging their community on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social networks. No matter if you are an individual, a group, a non-profit or a political campaign, FundRazr can help.
Reach more people. Raise more money. Learn more at www.fundrazr.com
