Gamify This! – NFP Tweetup 18, 13 March 2013. I’ve picked 10 or so tweets to summarise the evening, and added in some of my own notes.

Gamification is making an activity more like a game.

The definition of ‘game’ used here encompasses rewards, external markers of success, and (often) competition; but it also incorporates play, fun and collaboration.

Gamification defined – taking something that isn’t usually a game, but applying game principles #nfptweetup
— NFPtweetup (@NFPtweetup) March 13, 2013

Don’t just ‘gamify’ – you need a goal and to tailor towards it. Reward the behaviours you want to encourage; don’t go half-baked #nfptweetup
— Lisa Clavering (@LisaClavering) March 13, 2013

#nfptweetup Why do gamification? For fun. To solve problems. To reward people & take advantage of competitive behaviour
— Sara Wilcox (@S_Wilcox) March 13, 2013

@david_whitney, on the panel, made the original recommendation:

Yes a damn fine book RT @aarora17: This is the book #nfptweetup > Gamestorming: Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers + Changemakers
— Daniel Melbye (@DanielMelbye) March 13, 2013

Some examples of gamification

Cancer Research UK’s Dryathalon:

Dryathalon – Not drinking for a month, to raise money for Cancer Research UK.

Based on 12 months of research and preparation.

“Men are willing to support a charity as long as it is low involvement, derives personal benefit, and facilitates banter with friends.”

41% more was raised by people who signed up for the gamification, as opposed to those who only signed up for JustGiving accounts. (Aside: how much of this difference would we expect to see through normal stewardship?)

They used the JustGiving API to grab data each day for the overall leader board.

@CR_UK very cool use of @JustGiving API for #dryathlon to update leaderboard #everyonelovesaleaderboard #nfptweetup
— yasmin (@yasnav_LDN) March 13, 2013

They also used data from the API to send each dryathlete an email when they hit certain fundraising targets. Participants were sent a badge signifying the milestone. Messages thanked them for their support, and told them about the cause they were contributing to. (We don’t yet know the extent to which the cause message appealed to people, or if they were just interested in the personal/competitive milestone.)