The NonProfit Times - July 15, 2008 - (Page 6)

BUILDING VS. BLOWING UP Continued from page 1 most importantly made impact on the children. According to Ford, researchers “found a difference in knowledge, self-efficacy -- when you are sick you get hopeless about it and it’s not hard to get there -- increased self responsibility and compliance reducing in symptoms,” in children that played the health games Starbright Starlight developed. The idea of using games to teach health and social change – instead of stealing cars or battling aliens – is a relatively new concept, and nonprofits are trying to figure out how much impact games can have on people. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., announced that $2 million in grants would support 12 research teams figuring out if different health game techniques can have proven results through its Health Games Research program at the University of California in Santa Barbara. The grants are awarded, up It might look like the old Pac-Man game, but this to $200,000, on a oneStarlight Starbright game highlights asthma problems. to two-year basis to further research the effectiveness games 16,000 people who played the game in may have in healthcare. the first month. “We thought that it was “Our vision is that in the coming years also an excellent way to educate people we’ll have a thriving marketplace of wellabout the challenges of delivering these designed, compelling, interactive games nets and where they go,” said Miller. that draw on this evidence base to beThe games might make social problems come highly engaging and effective tools more tangible to the player – children and for improving the health and healthcare of adults alike – but most nonprofits have to all Americans,” said Chinwe Onyekere, keep the budget and mission in mind. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation proSmall single-player games can reach gram officer for the Pioneer Portfolio, $100,000, with costs easily jumping from which promotes innovative projects in anywhere between $250,000 and $1 milthe future of healthcare. lion or more for increasingly sophisticated The projects chosen for the grants vary in demographic, technology medium, and health topic -- from a mobile phone game to promote healthy eating habits for young adolescents to implementing an action-adventure driving game to improve cognitive functions for adults older than 65. The grant work will help researchers “understand more deeply how Starlight Starbright's asthma arcade games blast allergens. people respond to interactive games and how we can design effecgames, depending on the developers, protive health games that can engage, ject time and design. motivate, empower and support players as “We never make a program when there they achieve better health habits and isn’t a need. We want to be careful about health outcomes,” said Dr. Debra Lieberhow we are spending donor dollars,” said man, communication researcher at the InJoan Ford, vice president of strategic initiastitute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic tives at the Starlight Starbright Children’s Research at the University of California. Foundation based in Los Angeles. Starlight “I think we need more proof that this Starbright has created several games that is possible and that the game can be fun help children understand sicknesses they and at the same time be useful in the might be battling, such as asthma, sickle world,” said Colleen Macklin, Parsons The cell anemia and diabetes. New School of Design chair of CommuniFord said that the organization used recation Design and Technology in New search and proven modular learning techYork City. niques to develop fun, creative games that “The emphasis behind the game was to give people something fun to do but also to educate them about the role of the U.N. and how hard and challenging it can be to get these nets, but at the end of the day what a big difference they make,” said Katherine Miller, director of communications at the U.N. Foundation. In Deliver the Nets, players must find people to give bed nets to before the sun goes down. The game was launched in conjunction with World Malaria Day on April 25 and a bed net was donated for each of the Parsons’ Communication Design and Technology department announced in December a joint initiative with Games for Change (G4C) to create PETLab, a game design research lab for prototyping social change games. G4C started in 2004 as part of the Serious Games Initiative aimed at providing information about social change through games, under the financial sponsorship of the nonprofit Digital Innovations Group, Inc. The G4C’s annual festival invites gaming professionals, nonprofits and academia to discuss how games have, and will, affect the social sphere. PETLab was made possible by a $425,000 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant and will create games using the Microsoft Xbox development platform.The organization already plans to work with MTV’s Think.MTV.com, a youth-driven activism community. Suzanne Seggerman, G4C co-founder and president, said that a majority of mainstream games fail, and that rate increases for social issue games. But, she said, PETLab will help build base information about game design and provide low-cost methods and small game prototypes. “I think that we’re really at the infancy, but we’re really beginning to see some of the change that’s possible,” said Seggerman. NPT Games — For Kids, By Kids Poverty in Haiti, fumbling rescue efforts during Hurricane Katrina, and medical racism against prisoners are topics that are barely thought about by teenagers But Brooklyn teens thought that these sensitive, complex issues needed exposure – and created games to do just that. e give them free reign to decide what topic they want to pick – and they inevitably pick the most difficult topics you could imagine,” said Barry Joseph, director of the online leadership program at Global Kids, a New York-based nonprofit that teaches urban youth how to develop and create online games that highlight social issues.The nonprofit’s Playing 4 Keeps after-school program has kids meeting twice a week to talk about global topics and develop a social game.“You have to figure out how to generalize [the issue], so it works in the game context, without trivializing it,” said Joseph. Students at South Shore High School developed Ayiti:The Cost of Life with Gamelab, a New York City-based game development company, during the 2005-2006 school year that has been played more than 1.5 million times since its launch. During the 2006-2007 school year the students at South Shore decided to create a game in Teen Second Life called CONSENT!, which breaks down six decades of medical racism geared toward African-American male prisoners into three sections. “It helps them view themselves as having an important role in society and helps them strategize what that role might look like, whether it’s something connected to international justice or human rights work,or just helping them to stay on the straight and narrow to go to college and get an education,” said Joseph, who pointed out that more than 90 percent of participating students graduate high school and go on to college. Students at Canarsie High School worked with game developers Digital Creations during the 2007–2008 school year to develop the Web-based game Hurricane Katrina:Tempest in Crescent City, which will be released later this year. Global Kids recently received a grant from the AMD Foundation, the newly created charitable arm of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif. “We have a tremendous opportunity to harness the passion that kids have for the gaming while teaching the skills they need to be successful in our 21st Century digital economy,” stated Dirk Meyer,AMD president and chief operating officer in a press release. The AMD Changing the Game initiative grants will benefit nonprofits teaching children how to create social issue games. Global Kids, Girlstart in Austin,Texas, Institute for Urban Game Design in Washington, D.C., and The Kenneth Lafferty Hess Family Charitable Foundation’s Science Buddies program based in Carmel, Calif., were the nonprofits chosen for Changing the Game’s first year. — MICHELE DONOHUE “W JULY 15, 2008 THE NONPROFIT TIMES www.nptimes.com http://Think.MTV.com http://www.nptimes.com

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The NonProfit Times - July 15, 2008

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