npMarketing Blog: Nonprofit Blog Exchange - Round 3

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Nonprofit Blog Exchange - Round 3 - Beth's Blog

I posted earlier about Have Fun Do Good for the Nonprofit Blog Exchange and now it's time for blog #2 - Beth's Blog.

To me, the mark of a good blog post is one that I either pass around to colleagues, or when I keep specific posts "marked as new" in bloglines. Right now, I have 11 different posts marked this way - and Beth's latest on Gaming is right up my alley.

I've spent the last few months thinking about gaming and how we can both raise money with games, and use games to educate patients and caregivers about our mission - and ultimately to affect patient outcomes.

Last year, we partnered with a player from Star Wars Galaxies who raised more than $11,000 by putting together an in-game auction of items built in-game and available for real world money by bids. They conducted an in-game live auction.

After that experience, I came across how American Cancer Society had done a virtual walk in Second Life and was really blown away.

A few months ago, I got involved myself on SecondLife and got set up with a donated piece of land and a house. If you are a SL'er, contact me in game (Cram Doctorow). I started meeting people in the game who wanted to help or were patients themselves. I continue to dabble, but I was really excited to see in Beth's post that there is an upcoming conference that I'll hopefully attend and that more and more people are thinking about how gaming can be applied within the NPO world.

Beth's blog is also a treasure trove of links to other great thinkers and doers in the NPO world - some of my favorite posts include: