1. Designing Gamification Level 2 Final Project
For my final project I didn’t pick a specific organization, but instead picked a social
good cause that is worked on by many organizations
Problem: Animals in Shelters
What’s the problem here?
1. The animals need homes.
2. Shelters and rescues are almost always over-filled and under-funded, resulting in:
a. Lack of space for the animals.
b. Struggles to provide care and food.
c. Not enough volunteers/staff to give the animals more than the bare minimum of
human interaction to keep them happy and socialized and to work on any
behavior problems that may be a barrier to adoption.
What will fix the problems?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
More foster homes!
Spay/neuter initiatives!
Adoption initiatives!
More volunteers!
Donations!
What are the barriers to those solutions?
1. Not everyone who cares about animals in shelters has the ability to take one in as a
foster or to adopt.
2. Spaying/neutering is expensive.
3. There are a lot of myths out there around not spaying/neutering, waiting to
spay/neuter, or letting your pet have a litter or two before spaying.
4. Lack of awareness around pet over-population.
5. $$$$$$$$$$ (this applies in several ways)
How can gamification help??
1. Make it fun! People learn more when it’s fun. Barriers 3 and 4 above are connected to
lack of education, but are also pretty sensitive subjects. Talking about those things is
boring and scientific, and pet over-population is pretty depressing. While it’s all
important, it’s not something people really want to hear about. Campaigns that provide

2. education in an engaging way will be more “sticky” and also potentially viral, spreading
the word further.
 Did you know Katherine Heigl hates balls? This video has had over 401,000 views
in just over two years. It’s not the most viewed YouTube video ever, but it was
shared insane amounts of time, entertained people, and asked 400,000 people
to donate to an important cause.
 Scavenger hunts and Easter eggs could also be a great tool here. Where’s Waldostyle hunts for facts around why you should spay/neuter.
 Another option could be game show-style quizzes to dispel myths around
spay/neuter.
o These last two options could provide free/discounted rates on
spay/neuter procedures done by the organization or participating vet
clinics as the prizes. You’ve then given people education on why they
should spay/neuter, and incentive/ability to do so.
 This could also be done in conjunction with municipalities. Most municipalities
provide discounts on pet licensing for spayed/neutered pets. People getting their
pets fixed through these campaigns could unlock vouchers for a free pet license
for that year.
2. In one of the courses, Gabe talked about a game where the user was picking up fake
trash on a virtual beach. Every virtual piece translated into a real piece picked up on a
real beach. A similar game could be created for shelter pets. Like a Tamagotchi, players
would care for virtual pets. The game would be ad/sponsor supported, so every virtual
action taken by the user would generate cash donations to the shelter/rescue to fun
real versions of the actions for real pets. This could also be done in more subtle ways,
such as product placement. When you’re feeding your virtual dog, you could be visibly
feeding them Dog Chow brand food. For every virtual meal of Dog Chow fed in the
game, Purina (who owns the brand) could donate real meals for real shelter animals.
3. There could also be competitions and/or hours-matching around volunteering. For
example, the person who racked up the most volunteer hours could earn a seat at the
shelter’s black tie fundraising event, or have their pet featured on the cover of the
shelter’s calendar that they sell for fundraising. This could easily be made into a team or
referral campaign as well: for every friend of yours you get to volunteer, you earn extra
contest hours for all of their volunteer hours. For hours-matching, sponsoring
companies could send their employees to volunteer for hours matching those of the
general public volunteer hours, or employers could donate $x for every hour of
volunteer time their employees put in.
 I think this item is the most gamified. An online tracking system could be
created, incorporating badges and leaderboards for hours volunteered.

3. o Social media would easily incorporate here, making it easy to encourage
your friends to volunteer and put on a bit of “peer pressure” when you
can see that they’ve only logged an hour or two versus your twenty.