principles to gamify the online philanthropic crowdfunding
DESCRIPTION
A Gamification Framework Applied to Kiva.org. This thesis treats the exploitation of gamification to engage and coordinate users on philanthropic crowdfunding platforms. Crowdfunding platforms strive to gain new users and to maximise their impact through the design of engagement mechanisms. Social networks integration and mobile user experience are only few of the several techniques to engage users and foster their activity. “All-or-nothing” constraint, which enables the capital delivery only in case of campaign-goal achievement, aims at increasing crowd efficiency, encouraging coordination among platform users. Although the last six years were marked by the boom of crowdfunding industry, many users are still “peripheral”: they rarely or never take action. Kiva.org, the philanthropic platform I focused my thesis on, counts about one third of users that have never made a loan and 16% of lenders that have made one loan only. I approached the problem of users engagement and coordination suggesting the application of gamification to philanthropic crowdfunding platforms. In particular, I designing the Gamification Wheel, a gamification framework addressed to crowdfunding organizations. Through the framework, I aimed at facilitate organizations in designing an effective gamification system, via both a user-centric method and a business oriented approach. Through my research I found out that gamification can be exploited to foster several user actions, not only donation or lending but also contents sharing and team building. Moreover, I experienced gamification design as a process instead of a set of game elements. In this regard, after interviewed three field experts to validate the framework, I designed Impact to show that game elements are just a mean to the design of an effective gamification system.TRANSCRIPT
Principles to Gamify the Online Philanthropic Crowdfunding
A Gamification Framework Applied to kiva.org
Presented by Nicola Terrenghi Supervised by Paulo Gonçalves Co-supervised by Benjamin Cole
University of Lugano Faculty of Informatics MSc in Management and Informatics September 8th 2014
©2014 by Nicola Terrenghi. All rights reserved.
No part of this document may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied. The gamification framewrok named “Gamification Wheel” and the game named “Impact”, conceived and designed by the author, are copyrighted contents.
1. State of the art2. Gamify to engage3. Gamification Wheel4. The voice of the experts5. Playing at Kiva6. Conclusions
What is crowdfunding?
5
Crowd Campaign Owner
Donation
6
Crowd Campaign Owner
Lending
7
Crowd Campaign Owner
Reward
8
Crowd Campaign Owner
Equity
cf substitutes Business angels?
9Source
Online Crowdfunding emerged in an organised way in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Source: World Bank infoDev. Crowdfunding’s potential for the developing world. 2013. URL www.infoDev.org.
10
$2.7Bn
2012
Source: Massolution. 2013cf - the crowdfunding industry report. 2013.
11
+81%
2012
Source: Massolution. 2013cf - the crowdfunding industry report. 2013.
12
1.1M Campaigns
2012
Source: Massolution. 2013cf - the crowdfunding industry report. 2013.
13Source: Massolution. 2013cf - the crowdfunding industry report. 2013.
14Source: World Bank infoDev. Crowdfunding’s potential for the developing world. 2013. URL www.infoDev.org.
15Source
$13M in 52 days
Source: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryangrepper/coolest-cooler-21st-century-cooler-thats-actually?ref=nav_search
17Source: Massolution. 2013cf - the crowdfunding industry report. 2013.
What is philanthropic crowdfunding?
19Source
foodeducation housing
healthtransportation retail
20
Project example
but…
22
23Source: Yang Liu, Roy Chen, Yan Chen, Qiaozhu Mei, and Suzy Salib. "i loan because...": Understanding motivations for pro-social lending. In Proceedings of the Fifth ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining, WSDM ’12.
On Kiva…
1/3 of users never lent
24Source: Yang Liu, Roy Chen, Yan Chen, Qiaozhu Mei, and Suzy Salib. "i loan because...": Understanding motivations for pro-social lending. In Proceedings of the Fifth ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining, WSDM ’12.
On Kiva…
16% of lenders lent
only once
Why crowdfunding?
“I like to buy things that I can play with.”
26Source: Elizabeth M. Gerber and Julie Hui. Crowdfunding: Motivations and deterrents for participation.
“I like supporting people that I feel have authentically good ideas and maybe wouldn’t get mainstream support from the public.”
27Source: Elizabeth M. Gerber and Julie Hui. Crowdfunding: Motivations and deterrents for participation.
“There’s definitely a sense of community . . . some sort of responsibility [to support].”
28Source: Elizabeth M. Gerber and Julie Hui. Crowdfunding: Motivations and deterrents for participation.
Why NOT crowdfunding?
“they often underestimate the amount of time it takes to get something out.”
30Source: Elizabeth M. Gerber and Julie Hui. Crowdfunding: Motivations and deterrents for participation.
How are platforms engaging their users?
The strength of weak ties
33Source: Ethan Mollick. The dynamics of crowdfunding: An exploratory study. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(1):1 – 16, 2014.
20%100 =
40%1000 =
Facebook Friends
Success Probability
Mobile is social, social is mobile
35Source: Jonathan Waddingham. The future of facebook fundraising. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 18(3):187–191, 2013.
Mobile experience led to 33% conversion rate.
36Source: Jonathan Waddingham. The future of facebook fundraising. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 18(3):187–191, 2013.
Mobile users shared twice compared to desktop devices.
United we stand, divided we fall
38
Source: Yang Liu, Roy Chen, Yan Chen, Qiaozhu Mei, and Suzy Salib. "i loan because...": Understanding motivations for pro-social lending. In Proceedings of the Fifth ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining, WSDM ’12.
+ $31 /month
+ $16 /month
Telling stories to expand the impact
40
Source: Jolynna Sinanan. Lenders, borrowers and fellows: Personal narrative and social entrepreneurship in online microfinance. In Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group: Design: Open 24/7, OZCHI ’09.
Volunteers share their experience on Kiva.
41
Some key engaging elements.
What else could be engaging?
Games!
“A game is an opportunity to focus our energy, with relentless optimism, at something we’re good at (or getting better at) and enjoy. In other words, gameplay is the direct emotional opposite of depression.”
44Jane McGonigal, “Reality is Broken”, http://janemcgonigal.com/my-book/
45Jane McGonigal, “Reality is Broken”, http://janemcgonigal.com/my-book/
The planet is spending more than 3Bn hours a week gaming.
46
48% of players are women.
The Entertainment Software Association, http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/esa_ef_2014.pdf
47The Entertainment Software Association, http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/esa_ef_2014.pdf
44% of gamers play on their smartphone.
48Source: Leonard Reinecke. Games at work: The recreational use of computer games during working hours. Cyberpsy., Behavior, and Soc. Networking, 12(4):461–465, 2009.
61% of surveyed
CEOs, CFOs and other
senior executives
say they take
daily game breaks at
work.
“I want gaming to be something that everybody does, because they understand that games can be a real solution to problems and a real source of happiness.”
49Jane McGonigal, “Reality is Broken”, http://janemcgonigal.com/my-book/
Also known as “gamification”
51
Source: Sebastian Deterding, Dan Dixon, Rilla Khaled, and Lennart Nacke. From game design elements to gamefulness: Defining "gamification". In Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, MindTrek ’11.
“The use of game design elements in non-game contexts.”
52
“The process of making activities more game-like.”
Source: Kevin Werbach. (re)defining gamification: A process approach. In Anna Spagnolli, Luca Chittaro, and Luciano Gamberini, editors, Persuasive Technology, volume 8462 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 266–272. Springer International Publishing, 2014.
53http://www.thefuntheory.com/speed-camera-lottery-0
54
55
Average speed before the experiment: 32 km/h
56
Average speed during the experiment: 25 km/h
57
Reduction in speed of 22%!
58
Gamers are philanthropists
Incorrectly folded proteins cause diseases like Alzheimer, Mad Cow disease and many cancers…
60Source: Joachim Pietzsch. The importance of protein folding. 2003.
…Scientists need to study how proteins fold in order to figure out how to stop proteins from misfolding but…
61Source: Joachim Pietzsch. The importance of protein folding. 2003.
…it would take thirty years to test all the different combinations.
62Source: Joachim Pietzsch. The importance of protein folding. 2003.
63
In 3 weeks they achieved a goal that scientists pursued for 15 years.
64Source: Dean Praetorius. Gamers decode aids protein that stumped researchers for 15 years in just 3 weeks. 2011.
How could we gamify crowdfunding platforms?
68
69
What is the organization today? What is its mission?
What is the business objective
to pursue?
70
Which users can be turned into gamers?
Which activities add more value to the
organizational platform?
71
What is the gamer experience?
What are the required resources to implement the
designed gamification system?
The Voice of the Experts
73
Rachel Cook, Seeds founder
and CEO
74
Benjamin Cole, Product Lead at Google
75
Pablo Suarez, Associate Director at Red Cross/ Red Crescent Climate Centre
About my research…
76
“building a community around a social issue”
77
#1
“a sense of urgency is needed to foster action”
78
#2
“users want immediate feedback”
79
#3
“unpredictability can pleasantly surprise users”
80
#4
About my framework…
81
“we would focus on action more than specific KPIs”
82
#1
“organizations could ‘enter’ the framework from different slices,
depending on their stage”
83
#2
“within an organization, the product manager is the main responsible of the gamification
framework”
84
#3
Let’s play at the Gamification Wheel!
What is Kiva today? What is its mission?
87
“connect people through lending to alleviate poverty”
88Source: Premal Shah, President of Kiva. http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/13/kiva-ceo-on-the-next-5-years-and-why-zynga-is-their-biggest-rival-tctv/
“Unlocking mobile, social and gaming (which the site has not really leveraged) could easily propel Kiva to the $1 billion mark by 2015”
What is the business objective to pursue?
90
0.014 average loans
per month
2014 2016
0.025 average loans
per month
Which users can be turned into gamers?
92Source: 2https://cms.kiva.org.s3.amazonaws.com/kiva_lenders_faq_20130131_en.pdf
Woman35 years oldLiving in US
Owns a college degree
Profile
Motivations
Behavior
Help others
Different cultures
Share personal fortune
Something in common
Borrower details PicturesLoan termsAccountability
Which activities add more value to Kiva?
94
+ Coordination
+ Word of mouth
What is the gamer experience?
96
What are the required resources to implement the
designed gamification system?
104
?
What I figured out…
106
107
Elements are just a mean to…
108
…the process of making activities more game-like.
109
Crowdfunding (4 weeks)
Game (1 week)
110
Gamification needs for continuous novelty
111
The Gamification Wheel for other crowdfunding
platforms?
“If building a real farm on Kiva can be as compelling as building a virtual farm on Facebook, then I think we have done our jobs really well. . .”
Premal Shah, President of kiva.org & Member of PayPal Mafia
Stopwatch by Scott Lewis from The Noun Project. Smartphone by George Agpoon from The Noun Project. Basket by mathies janssen from The Noun Project. Trophy by Matthew Ryan Miller from The Noun Project. Truck by Simon Child from The Noun Project. Share by Arun Ganesh from The Noun Project. First Aid by Katie M Westbrook from The Noun Project. Community by Roger Cline from The Noun Project. Dashboard by Dmitry Baranovskiy from The Noun Project. Dice by Alex Fuller from The Noun Project. oman by Kristin Poncek from The Noun Project. Mountain Climbing by Juan Pablo Bravo from The Noun Project. Holding Sign by Takao Umehara from The Noun Project. Money Bag by Roman Trilo-Denysyuk from The Noun Project. Network by Brennan Novak from The Noun Project. Crowd by Shane Holley from The Noun Project. User by Wilson Joseph from The Noun Project. Graph by Filip Malinowski from The Noun Project. Shapes by Nick Abrams from The Noun Project. Percent by hunotika from The Noun Project. Meeting by Dan Hetteix from The Noun Project. People by Wilson Joseph from The Noun Project. Icon by Joseph Pearce from The Noun Project. Coins by im icons from The Noun Project.