Hanna Partridge

The ROI of Play — Badges, coins, swag, and data: what happened when we gamified nonprofit fundraising.

Hanna Partridge

Most donation pages still work like a checkout: a form, an amount, a thank-you. It converts once, and then the process restarts. We tried something different. Fundraisers running their own campaign pages earn badges as they raise, collect coins in a virtual wallet, and spend them on real swag. The game never replaces the reason — they’re still raising for a cause they believe in, and they know they’re genuinely helping. The mechanics just make the asking feel less lonely and a lot more rewarding. Then we applied the same approach to the admin side. Instead of a spreadsheet nobody opens, the data became an interactive ask me anything — type a question, get an answer. 
What the audience takes away:

  • How to design engagement that doesn’t manipulate.
  • Patterns you can build on your own stack.
  • How to make data people actually open.
Hanna Partridge


Categories: