Cheat Sheet: What You Need to Know About Gaming for Social Impact

The gaming industry is a powerful tool for social change, offering innovative solutions to pressing societal challenges like education, public health, and community engagement. By leveraging scalable, data-driven initiatives, games can revolutionize learning through simulations, drive behavioral change for wellness, and inspire meaningful action. For funders and partners, gaming presents a unique opportunity to support projects that entertain, educate, and create lasting, positive impact worldwide.

Why Funders Should Be Paying Attention

1. Gaming offers a powerful, data-driven avenue for funders seeking measurable social impact. It inherently tracks user interactions, providing both quantitative and qualitative insights. These metrics help funders measure outcomes effectively. 

Case Study: Lemonade Day

What It Is: A six-week program teaching entrepreneurship to kids through a mix of real-world tasks and app-based activities.  

Impact: Over 1 million children worldwide have participated, learning resilience, financial literacy, and business management. The app tracks progress and measures key skills. 

2. Gaming has unique potential, enabling behavior change by creating safe environments for experimentation, uniquely combining storytelling and user agency, and providing experiences that static media cannot. 

Case Study: Snowworld

What It Is: A therapeutic virtual reality game designed for burn victims. 

Impact: Showed significant reductions in pain perception, illustrating gaming’s potential in healthcare and pain management. 

3. Gaming provides low-cost, high-impact solutions for large-scale behavior change initiatives. 

Case Study: Invest Quest

What It Is: A game created for a major bank to promote financial literacy.

Impact: Users engaged for an average of 55 minutes per session, learning practical skills to manage their finances.

 Challenges and Opportunities 

• Breaking Stereotypes: Gaming is often dismissed as frivolous, but evidence shows it improves skills like critical thinking and problem-solving, and can combat cognitive decline. 

• Inclusivity: More work needs to be done to create games that expand into underrepresented demographics and reflect diverse cultures and perspectives.  

• Sustainability: Funders can ensure long-term viability through collaboration with developers, nonprofits, and other organizations. 

• Recurring Use: Unlike traditional media, games are engaging and provide a reason for users to return. 

• Measuring: To understand impact, evaluation needs to be incorporated to measure behavior change and program effectiveness. 

• Collaboration: Partnerships between funders, developers, and nonprofits enhance the effectiveness of game-based interventions.