I Am Your Champion is a game that will challenge your existing ideas regarding charitable fundraising. I sincerely believe that if you complete all five rounds of this game, you will look at working with charities, and your ability to assist your favorite charities, in a whole new light.
Players take on the role of a Champion for the charitable cause of their choice. The game is played out over five rounds. Successful completion of each round requires the Champion to take on three Tasks – a Thinking Task, an Acting Task, and a Communication Task – with each round offering optional Drills that may also be completed.
In the first run of I Am Your Champion (Feb 7-11, 2011), the reward for completing all five rounds is a special pass that will be distributed to the players. This pass will confer certain benefits outside the game to the Champions. I had intended to fold in the concept of Levels and Medals to represent Round and Drill completion respectively, but opted to run the first game without these.
I took a survey before the game started, collecting 92 responses from Game Players and Game Consumers, asking them to indicate, in general terms, how much they annually contributed to Charities, and how much time they spent annually volunteering for Charities. My goal was to see these numbers rise after demonstrating how I Am Your Champion worked. However, given I felt I did not have a significant overlap between players and the persons surveyed, I changed tactics mid-game and decided to interview players, after the 5th round had been completed, asking them the a set of questions modeled after the PERMA Framework. I’ve included the results to date after each question:
Did playing I Am Your Champion increase the amount of time you are likely to spend working on behalf of charities this year? Yes : 83.3%, Maybe : 16.7%, No : 0%
Did playing I Am Your Champion raise the amount of money you are likely to donate to or raise for charity this year? Yes : 83.3%, Maybe : 16.7%, No : 0%
Did playing I Am Your Champion inspire you to take a more active role in supporting your favorite charities? Yes : 83.3%, Maybe : 0%, No : 16.7%
Did playing I Am Your Champion help you build or strengthen positive relationships with the people around you, virtually or otherwise? Yes : 66.7%, Maybe : 33.3%, No : 0%
Did playing I Am Your Champion make you feel connected to something bigger than yourself? Yes : 66.7%, Maybe : 33.3%, No : 0%
Do you feel a sense of accomplishment after playing I Am Your Champion? Yes : 66.7%, Maybe : 16.7%, No : 16.7%
Here are abbreviated Round, Task and Drill descriptions I used in this playthrough, as well as links to the original blog posts and Twitter conversation. I’ll be expanding on these and making them available. I’ll expand on the game philosophy after the rules.
Round One – http://aterribleidea.com/2011/02/07/i-am-your-champion/
The goal of this round is to collect players and get them interested in the concept of trying a new angle on helping their favorite charity.
Task One : Choose Your Cause – Decide what cause you’re going to rally around – whose Champion will you be?
Task Two : Decide To Play – Commit to playing the game in whatever form feels right to you.
Task Three : Announce Yourself – Tell someone you’re playing I Am Your Champion. Champions charge into the fray. They don’t hide at the back.
Drills
1 – Join the conversation on Twitter : http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23iayc
2 – Write a dedicated blog post announcing yourself as a Champion.
3 – Directly invite 5 people to become Champions.
Round Two – http://aterribleidea.com/2011/02/08/i-am-your-champion-round-2-iayc/
When looking at traditional charity fundraiser activities, they generally follow a very specific structure : the charity holds a large event to gather together a bunch of people in one place to perform a certain task. Frequently, these are physical challenges – walk-a-thons, biking events, jumping rope, climbing stairs, but there are exceptions certainly (bake sales, telethons, Desert Bus). But their one unifying feature is they say “Come do this activity and help us raise funds.”
I Am Your Champion turns this statement around. Instead, you will say “I will perform this activity, if you give my charity a donation.” By taking this approach to fundraising, Champions can put their best talents to work for their charities. Champions are not bound by the constraints put on them in large events, and nor are they bound by financial or time constraints. Champions can set their own boundaries and limits, and work toward them.
Task 1 : Set Your Goal – Think about how much money you would like help raise for your charity.
Task 2 : Design A Reward – Determine what you are going to offer the world in exchange for their donation to your cause. This is an opportunity for an act of creation. Take advantage of that.
Task 3 : Issue A Challenge – Issue your Challenge to the crowd. Make your cause, terms and reward clear, and dare people to take you up on it.
Drills
1 – Find other Champions who are having trouble designing a reward. Offer your creative assistance.
2 – Find a symbol to represent you as Champion.
3 – As other Champions issue their Challenges, help them spread the word.
Round Three – http://aterribleidea.com/2011/02/09/iayc-round-3/
We are Champions, not Competitors. We can more successfully serve our causes by remembering that simple fact. To that end, Round 3 focuses on Champions lending assistance to each other.
Task 1 : Determine Your Limits – Determine what resources (time or funds) you can reasonably spend assisting other Champions.
Task 2 : Meet A Challenge – There are two ways you can Meet A Challenge of another Champion.
* Throw Down – Make or commit to make a donation to their Cause, according to the terms of their Challenge.
* Thrown In – Offer your own reward in exchange for someone else accepting the a Challenge on your behalf.
Task 3 : Go On Record – By going on record to the world that you’ve met the Challenge of another Champion, you send some potent messages.
Drills
1 – Compile your own list of Champions and their Challenges. You can roll it up in a blog post, or just keep it handy for your own reference.
2 – Submit your own ideas for a Drill that would be useful to other Champions.
Round 4 – http://aterribleidea.com/2011/02/10/i-am-your-champion-round-4-iayc/
Round 4 focuses on drumming up support for all of our causes by looking for ways that our Challenges can play off of each other.
Task 1 : Identify Opportunities – Look through the various Challenges and find places that two Challenges (including your own) could compliment each other in interesting ways.
Task 2 : Create A Link – Propose At Least 1 Supreme Challenge that take two or more challenges and combines them to make something new.
Task 3 : Rally The Troops – Reach out to new audiences, people you might not normally have considered. Discuss your Supreme Challenge with 3 New People.
Drills
1 – Present 3 solid ideas that Champions can use for Rewards and Challenges, regardless of their situation.
2 – Print up a flier to promote your Challenges, and post it on a public bulletin board. Post a picture of it.
3 – Propose two more Supreme Challenges.
Round 5 – http://aterribleidea.com/2011/02/11/iayc-round-5/
The Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25 an hour. Without actual volunteers doing work on behalf of charities, that great $20 donation you just raised goes to pay someone for a couple hours of their time instead of going to do good works.
Task 1 : Commit Your Time – Commit to giving your charity some of your time in the next year.
Task 2 : Contact Your Charity – Tell them you want to volunteer some time, and ask them what opportunities they have that you can help with.
Task 3 : Tell Your Story – Wrap up the experience in a blog post, or shoot me a private email with your thoughts.
Drills
1 – Take a Survey to give me feedback about your experience
2 – Instead of committing to going in to volunteer for half a day later this year, commit to a regular volunteering gig.
3 – Keep Playing The Game. There’s no reason you have to stop.
My Own Notes
I want to keep this short, because this is already a lot to read. But ask questions in the comments below and I will be happy to answer them. Or message me privately.
Philosophy
I Am Your Champion has a a primary and secondary goal. The primary goal of the game is to challenge the following statement : “I cannot help a charity because…” A typical large charity fundraiser take the form of coordinated physical challenges in exchange for donations : AIDS Walk, Tour de Cure, Marathons, etc. If a person is not in possession of sufficient athletic capacity to participate, or sufficient available funds to sponsor, then personally engaging contributions are sometimes difficult to find. You can volunteer to help the event, but doing so lacks the kind of individual direct contribution donors or participants find rewarding – you become one of a crowd of volunteers, not a man on a bike with a mission. I want the game to demonstrate to people that they can be individual direct contributors to the charity of their choosing by using the skills and talents they already have in exciting new ways.
The secondary goal of I Am Your Champion is to use the context of charitable fundraising to spawn new acts of creation on behalf of the Champions. I wanted something that would encourage people to make new things in support of their favorite charity – something I see as a win-win situation. It gets even better when people offer to make things and release them Creative Commons.
What I Would Do Differently
On the next run, I would change several things. Here’s a short list:
1 – Create a rallying point online for the Champions to use for communication;
2 – Set better expectations for the game from the outset;
3 – Adjust the Rounds such that players could complete no more than one per day, rather than announcing a new round each day.
4 – Offer more diverse Task alternatives, so that Champions had multiple ways to proceed to the next round.
5 – Possibly offer Champion Roles, based on the tasks completed.
6 – Propose running the game for a previously defined social group.
Got questions? Ask me below, I’m happy to answer.
