As we have limited capacity, we focus the majority of our resources on educating participants about the potential of high impact philanthropy in the alleviation of poverty. We are open in limited cases to featuring organizations that work in different focus areas when this would fulfill clear learning objectives.

When selecting our featured charities, our main consideration is picking options that encourage participants to apply our core concepts. We additionally consult with Giving Game hosts and facilitators to design tailored exercises that will resonate with particular audiences. For example, if we were running a Giving Game at a business school, we might feature non-profits primarily focused on economic empowerment and livelihood building.

To highlight the differences between non-profit interventions, we typically feature organizations which are taking different approaches to poverty alleviation and global development. For instance, one of our standard Giving Game charity selections is GiveDirectly, a non-profit that provides beneficiaries with unconditional cash transfers, and the Against Malaria Foundation, which distributes insecticide-treated bednets to protect against mosquito-borne illnesses. This raises interesting questions about the role of international development and encourages participants to think critically about the merits and challenges of two very different but highly effective initiatives.

In most sponsored Giving Games, participants are presented with two of The Life You Can Save’s recommended charities and an outside initiative that appears at first glance to be a good one, but has been proven to be ineffective; this demonstrates to participants the merits of taking an impact- and evidence-based approach.

Some Giving Games use a winner-take-all voting system, while others distribute the money proportional to the votes. We’ve had success using both models. Similarly, voting can be public or anonymous, depending on the particular setting. In 2019, we will be introducing an online Guided Track platform which will handle the voting process.

While the voting structure is flexible, it should require the participants to choose their preferred charity. Some people will invariably find it hard to choose and will prefer to split the money evenly. Since a key goal is for participants to reflect deeply on their priorities and on trade-offs, we recommend against offering such an option.

As a general rule of thumb, the sponsor’s donation in a Giving Game amounts to $10 to $20 per participant. In a Speed Giving Game, the amount is typically $1 per participant.

Giving Games are low-cost simulations of real giving choices. They have greater potential for scale and use scarce resources in an efficient manner. We believe that the lack of growth in traditional experiential philanthropy is connected to its high-cost structure. Results from the field suggest a different and smaller-scale approach to student philanthropy is the way forward. A detailed explanation can be found here.

Our facilitators are absolutely critical to Giving Games’ success and have employed Giving Games in a number of environments. Facilitators are arguably the most important variable in the level of effectiveness of a Giving Game. They are essential in developing the culture of effective giving, through exposing potential donors to specific effective charities and our core themes. If you want to learn more about effective giving, apply your experiences to facilitating a Giving Game, and are passionate about bringing high impact philanthropy to others, we definitely want to hear from you.

Potentially, yes! Giving Games prioritize sponsoring events that have a clear vision of how a Giving Game can generate value.

Frequently, but not exclusively, this is through the introductory-level promotion of high impact philanthropy and effective nonprofits. We believe a key strength of a Giving Games is to make a compelling case for the transformative potential of effective giving. One way we monitor our impact is through mapping how attitudes and plans about charitable giving change from before to after a Giving Game, so it is essential that we reach audiences who do not already agree with us!

We additionally typically require that Games include at least one of our recommended charities and that any other featured organizations can clearly evidence value. Also, all eligible charities should be tax-deductible in the US. For us to sponsor a Game, it is essential that our surveys be distributed at the event in order to support our focus on evidence collection and use by applying it to our own program.

We are always happy to hear from people with ideas on how to utilize Giving Games, so please get in touch at GivingGames@thelifeyoucansave.org to discuss your ideas.

You can apply for sponsorship by completing this application. We will then let you know whether the application has been approved and schedule a short call to discuss any questions you may have. We will additionally direct you to any resources you may find helpful, including those available on our website.

Yes! We encourage people to run and fund Giving Games that they organize on their own and to share their experiences doing so. We consider the Giving Game model to be “open source,” and hope that people will find their own creative ways to spread awareness about effective giving.

Yes! Support from donors like you is critical for our philanthropy education efforts! You can make a donation to provide Giving Game sponsorship here. Sponsoring Giving Games offers an exciting opportunity to multiply your impact. All of your money will end up in the hands of outstanding charities, but by letting others donate your money and learn in the process, you help influence how they give in the future.

Giving Games are versatile tools with specific objectives. Broadly speaking, to evidence impact, we measure three core criteria:

• Changes in attitudes towards prioritizing factors associated with impactful, informed, intentional giving
• Changes in plans to donate resources effectively going forward
• Money moved towards effective organizations

We evaluate the first two criteria by administering pre- and post-Giving Game surveys through a specifically designed Guided Track platform. This is included in the core Giving Games content to improve survey administration rates. We offer incentives for completion of a survey emailed to participants one month later in the form of an additional donation to the winning organization of $2 per completed response. In the pre-Giving Game, post-Giving Game, and one-month-later surveys, we ask participants the same question: to order in importance a small selection of considerations they have when donating to charity.

For the third criterion, we monitor the amount of money and newsletter subscriptions generated to our 22 partner charities through Giving Games. In 2019, we will be experimenting with including a donation option at the end of the Giving Game.

We additionally submitted Giving Games to a randomized experiment which found that the key characteristics of the model appear to cause dramatic increases in measures of giving and other prosocial behavior. For more details on the evidence behind Giving Games, please see our Annual Report.

After running a Giving Game, the facilitator lets us know which charity won via a post-Giving Game report, and we arrange a donation from our donor-advised fund to that charity. We typically use a donor-advised fund for these payments to provide independent verification that the donations are made and to facilitate record-keeping. This structure also allows US donors to sponsor Giving Games by making a tax-deductible donation to the fund, where reserves will be held in money market securities until needed.

We make payments on a quarterly basis, so while we are able to send the host or facilitator a summary report, we cannot send individual donation confirmations. This is to conserve staff time as Giving Games scale.

If you have a group you think would derive value from attending a Giving Game, but do not personally wish to facilitate, please get in touch! Giving Games have now been run with over 13,000 participants in 25 countries, spanning all continents other than Antarctica, and with a variety of objectives ranging from serving as a teaching aid to informing the execution of businesses’ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) obligations. As we build a skilled network of facilitators, it is highly likely that we can help identify one for your event.

The Giving Games Newsletter is the best way to keep up with updates regarding our program. You can subscribe here. Kathryn Mecrow-Flynn is the primary point person for all inquiries regarding Giving Games. You can reach Kathryn at kathryn.mecrow@thelifeyoucansave.org.