Gamers for Haiti
I’m a geek, that much is clear. The full extent of my geekery is hard to quantify, so it’s best to not think too hard about it or you are likely to develop a headache. So when Mike VanDervort challenged all of us to put our skills to good use by vetting the charities raising money for Haiti, I was compelled to make full use of my HR and Geek skill sets.
Last week a friend had sent me an email about how Drive Thru RPG , an online store that sells electronic versions of role playing games, was encouraging gamers to help donate to Haiti. if you aren’t a gaming geek like me and don’t know what role playing games are you can go here to learn more, but basically, they are games where you put yourself in the role of a character and try to accomplish a goal, hopefully without dying. It involves a lot of dice. Seriously, I have like a whole bag of different kinds of dice. But I digress.
In order to help in the Haiti relief efforts, Drive Thru RPG has promised to match individual donations of $5 or $10 and even put together a Charity Bundle of games for $20 that includes $1,000 worth of downloads. All money raised is being donated to Doctors without Borders and so far they have raised almost $130,000!! Now, not all the games in the bundle are mega hits and normally I would say it’s better to donate directly to a charity instead of through a company, but I like this fund raising effort for several reasons. Drive Thru RPG is doing more than just encouraging donations, they are putting their money where their mouth is by matching donations and giving away their products. They are also targeting a specific group that they know well and they are focusing on the power of a large number of small donations and how those can add up quickly. Most importantly, they did something because the need was there and they wanted to encourage others to make a difference, even if the appeal was targeted to such a small subset of the population.
So there you go, that’s my contribution to the special Carnival of HR for Haiti. There’s still time to get yours in to Mike before Wednesday so help do your part to raise awareness and put those skills of yours to good use! Send your link information to michael.vandervort@gmail.com.
