Playing games for charity may sound too good to be true, but that’s exactly what Brandon Bozzi, Morgan Belford and their Seattle startup Game it Forward had in mind when they created Quingo, a game which benefits six organizations, including Seattle Children’s. Quingo, which combines charitable giving, bingo and trivia, supports Children’s by donating a portion of its revenue to fund hospital specific initiatives, like research.
As research is a primary focus at Children’s, a project was created with Quingo to help exclusively fund pediatric research that could one day lead to better treatments and new cures for childhood diseases.
“The goal of Quingo was to use the power of games to do good,” said Bozzi. “I’ve always wanted to make a game that gives back in some way – a game that’s both popular to large amounts of people, like Angry Birds, but also benefits charity.”
What is Quingo?
Quingo is a unique take on traditional trivia and bingo games, available free to download on both iPhones and iPads. The more “Hope,” or points, a player earns for their selected charity, the more money that charity receives. Essentially, Quingo converts play into charitable donations.
Throughout the game, players are asked to answer a variety of trivia questions. On the bingo style board, only five of the answers provided are correct. Within a certain amount of time, players have to select the correct answers. Correct answers convert to points and points convert to money for charity.
But the charity component is only one aspect of the game. Fun is the other.
Since Quingo’s iPad release in September, the game has been used at Children’s, not only to raise money for pediatric research, but also by patients and families potentially helping them forget for a moment that they are in a hospital.
Three simple words capture the mission of Children’s: Hope. Care. Cure. This makes it all the more fitting that the game’s metric for giving is Hope.
“Games are really good at compelling individuals to take action and can be a powerful tool for good,” said Bozzi.
Why research matters
Research funding is important and vital because research makes a difference, both locally and globally, in finding new cures and treatments for disease. However, federal funding for research continues to decline. Unfortunately, it’s a trend that many researcher organizations say is the “new normal.”
And with funding floundering, this slows the progress researchers could be making on advancements in healthcare. Philanthropic support is key in moving the needle in pediatric research.
Every dollar matters. The more individuals invest in research, the closer we come to better treatments and life-saving cures. With Quingo, those cures could be just points of Hope away, which makes Quingo a fun and unique way to give research a little more backing.
Resources:
- Research Champions
- About Quingo
- Seattle Children’s Research Institute
