Many of those attending had built games for nonprofits (including the World Bank!), and some represented organizations such as IBM that are interested in the idea.

The portion of the discussion that I felt I could contribute was this: what can games do for a non-profit? Nancy Goldstein phrased the issue this way: many remember having to teach organizations the difference between a blog and a press release. Many remember organizations that simply published press releases on blog, a colossal failure and a missed opportunity to engage people. So what can a game do that a press release cannot do?

What a game can do

A game can be immersive, but delivering immersion takes a big budget. Here is the fascinating introduction to Far Cry 2, a game I am replaying. It is a shooter game, so most of those reading this won’t want to play the game or to build a game that resembles it, but the first 5 minutes of the game are very educational and I recommend watching the YouTube video linked above (click on the appropriate control bar to view it in HD). Note that the comments are about whether malaria is a serious problem — not the comments you’d expect from a video about a first person shooter!

Designing immersive games is expensive, and it is becoming more expensive. In 2007, Wired Magazine explored one of the most expensive playtesting processes on the planet, the playtesting of Halo 3. The magazine’s description takes 6 pages.

A game does not need to be immersive to be compelling. One person brought up the famous Oregon Trail game, which is similar to games I have played but is not a game I know well. The game was influential. Here’s an article from 1985 and here’s one on BoingBoing.

One game that changed the way I view pollution is so old (c. 1994) and little known that I cannot find it. It may have run on HyperCard. You were in charge of government policy and could tax or fund any of a variety of energy inputs and pollutants. Everything had a benefit and also caused a problem. Nuclear energy caused nuclear waste, solar energy increased the annual deaths in falls from roofs (the designers struggled to find something negative about solar energy), fertilizers released heavy metals into rivers, and so on. The game was both sophisticated and very easy to play. It was educational without being realistic. I showed it to Kathleen, a friend. She promptly taxed both fertilizers and pesticides out of use and the world population starved to death (but the environment did well). On her second try, she allowed some fertilizers but not pesticides and obtained a small but stable world population. As I said, educational but not realistic.

The game that I have played the most over time is Civilization IV. The game is one of the best selling and is unusual among best sellers in having real historical content. However, the game designers were more interested in the process of technological advancement than in differentiating cultures and religions, and made those cultures and religions almost identical. A site carrying discussions about the Civilization game franchise, Civfanatics.com, is one of the most popular web sites in the US, according to Alexa rankings.

One of the many things that makes Civlization IV excellent is that game players can mod (modify) it. The Fall From Heaven II mod turns a game about the advance of civilization into a game about magic, sorcery, and a very complex world ruled by angels who have lost contact with the Creator. The mod has its own message board that I check into often.

Games that you can modify can take advantage of the power of the crowd and open source development, but projects tend to need a leader. The Fall From Heaven team evolved from an old D&D game and is led by the campaign’s Dungeon Master. A structure with a leader was in place.

An old but good modifiable game is NetHack. It is an unforgiving game that delivered endless variety because over time, content had been added by numerous players. It’s the only hack and slash adventure game my mother ever played.

Another game I learned from is President Elect, released in 1988. In order to play it, I memorized the electoral votes of the various states and their post office abbreviations. I learned a lot about the positions of politicians. When Clinton’s advisors spoke about their strategy in winning the election, they talked about spending points on local instead of national advertising, one of the choices you are given in this game, and I realized that it was much more realistic than I had thought when I was playing it. I remember designing a religious right candidate to run in 1988 specifically in order to win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote, obtaining over 75 percent of the vote in Southern states.

My point is that games can do a great deal more than they are doing today. There is a wealth of game knowledge on the web. If I had to recommend one site, I’d recommend Board Game Geek, where you can find a wider variety of games and game types than you’ll find at a game store. At the brainstorm session, one participant recommended free game site Kongregate for the same purpose.

Consider cartoons and graphics instead of a game

A game is good at conveying complex information and for changing someone’s point of view. But it will not necessarily educate someone who plays it. In this interesting publication (.pdf) the interviewer talks to a child playing SimLife, and learns that the child is playing it as a video game “to win” — without learning the concepts the game is designed to teach. This will happen.

If you want to tell a specific narrative and don’t want the player to deviate from it, comics may be helpful. The cartoon Zahra’s Paradise is gaining fame (I just read about it in The Economist). It tells the story of the aftermath of the Iranian elections. It is compelling.

In 2004, the New America Foundation published (.pdf) the Cartoon Guide to Spectrum Policy. In contrast, the (.pdf) position paper that went with it (The Radio Revolution) is harder to read, longer, and was less widely read — although its author did help pick Obama’s FCC Commissioner.

Don’t underestimate the power of an infographic. My friend Bruce Kushnick has been fighting phone bills for about 15 years. He wrote a 400 page indictment of the phone companies. On the other hand, this simple graphic may be the best work he’s done, in terms of informing people, during his entire time as an activist.

Traditional multimedia and cross platform campaigns can be effective two. Here’s a story about a recent one in NYC, advocating against gun violence.

Act now

The large corporations are very interested in games too. BP had a pernicious role in the design of a recent Sim City game.

The book is the story of the events that led her to found The Acumen Fund, a philanthropic venture that invests in change instead of making grants and donations. The idea is to require results.

What makes this book stand out is that it was really written by its author. Many such books are written in a generic voice that show the influence of an editor or ghost writer, but The Blue Sweater is written in the voice of Jacqueline Novogratz. It is not the voice of a professional writer (though she is an excellent speaker) but it conveys honesty and emotion.

Another element that makes this book stand out is its honest description of failure. Novogratz had to make several mistakes before she founded the Acumen Fund, and these are described in detail.

Finally, there is the Rwandan genocide. Unlike most accounts that focus on the victims or focus on the policies, Novogratz knew people on both sides — a few of them — and describes the situation with empathy and without easy answers. She even knew one woman who was a vital key to ensuring that the genocide happened and has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

The Acumen Fund

She describes what she would like to change in the world of charitable giving with The Acumen Fund. It’s about holding grantees to high standards. “Investors in the Acumen Fund don’t get money back, they get change,” she likes to say.

Acumen Fund programs are designed to become self-sufficient and to no longer need the Fund.

The Fund got its start with the help of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Cisco Foundation, and from Novgratz’s brother Michael, who co-founded the Fortress Investment Group, a hedge fund that had an IPO in 2007, when he made Forbes’ billionaires list.

Projects vary widely: manufacturing mosquito nets in Africa, an ambulance service in Mumbai, drip irrigation for India.

The common thread is relying on local entrepreneurs to manage and grow a morally valuable business that can become profitable, self-sustaining, and provide a model for other countries that face the same problem.

Conclusion

This is a thought-provoking book. At the very least, listen to her speech.

Pip Coburn of Coburn Ventures recommended this book to me. Thanks, Pip!