Gamification & Rewards
Social gamification boosts morale and engagement, increasing collective happiness by 89%. Gallup research found that organizations with high engagement experienced 147% higher earnings per share on average than similar organizations.
Gamification is not badges, leaderboards, or games. Gamification is an intentional objective that completes a mutually beneficial and values-aligned loop. These objectives include 1) activation, awareness, and engagement; 2) retention, referral, and loyalty; or 3) compliance, sales, or completion of an action.
BJ Fogg runs the Stanford Persuasion Lab, where he developed a model for what he believes drives behavior change. It has three elements: Motivation, Ability, and Triggers.
So, gamification aims to intrinsically motivate people by stimulating positive emotions (joy, need, sense of purpose, connection) while recognizing contribution with an elevation in status. Gamified mechanisms like leaderboards can backfire, causing anxiety, depression, and social isolation. The best practice when designing a rewards system is to draw upon Reiss’s 16 basic desires and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: task accomplishment, sense of competency, and self-actualization, where intimate interest is part of a larger mission for collective achievement and social impact.
Use these worksheets to brainstorm your objectives. Use sponsored giving, stickers, allies, tasks, and community to connect your community by contribution.
Gamification and Rewards at Spotlight Tip: Consider the motto: “Every action counts.”
Create a set of meaningful call-to-actions for your advocates. These actions should range in level of difficulty and include all five T’s of modern giving (time, treasure, talent, network, ties, and testimony).
After you designate your call-to-actions consider how much value is behind these groups of actions as well as how much time it will take to complete that set of actions (value of a dollar to measurable impact, value of a person’s time in hourly (as of April 2024, their estimated national value of each volunteer hour is currently $33.49), value of a new connection/referral (consider LTV and CAC: see KPIs). Calculate total value of each action and for the total set of actions.
Create a tiered series or journey sets based on these actions as a multiple of the actions. The bottom tier should be easily attainable, the mid-tier should be achievable with a mild degree of effort, and the top tier should be a challenge like an expert level at 10,000 hours input or some other equivalent to being designated a “Super Advocate.”
Design a simple tracking system to manage inputs or use sort activity in Spotlight to track actions.
Create a rewards system. If using Stickers, design a custom sticker to represent each level of achievement. If integrating P2P microgrants, include the financial incentive in your gamification and rewards program.
