A Gamification Framework Applied to Kiva.org. This thesis treats the exploitation of gamification to engage and coordinate users on philanthropic crowdfunding platforms. Crowdfunding platforms strive to gain new users and to maximise their impact through the design of engagement mechanisms. Social networks integration and mobile user experience are only few of the several techniques to engage users and foster their activity. “All-or-nothing” constraint, which enables the capital delivery only in case of campaign-goal achievement, aims at increasing crowd efficiency, encouraging coordination among platform users. Although the last six years were marked by the boom of crowdfunding industry, many users are still “peripheral”: they rarely or never take action. Kiva.org, the philanthropic platform I focused my thesis on, counts about one third of users that have never made a loan and 16% of lenders that have made one loan only. I approached the problem of users engagement and coordination suggesting the application of gamification to philanthropic crowdfunding platforms. In particular, I designing the Gamification Wheel, a gamification framework addressed to crowdfunding organizations. Through the framework, I aimed at facilitate organizations in designing an effective gamification system, via both a user-centric method and a business oriented approach. Through my research I found out that gamification can be exploited to foster several user actions, not only donation or lending but also contents sharing and team building. Moreover, I experienced gamification design as a process instead of a set of game elements. In this regard, after interviewed three field experts to validate the framework, I designed Impact to show that game elements are just a mean to the design of an effective gamification system.

1. Principles to Gamify the Online
Philanthropic Crowdfunding
A Gamification Framework Applied to kiva.org
Presented by Nicola Terrenghi
Supervised by Paulo Gonçalves
Co-supervised by Benjamin Cole
University of Lugano
Faculty of Informatics
MSc in Management and Informatics
September 8th 2014

2. ©2014 by Nicola Terrenghi. All rights reserved.
No part of this document may be reproduced in any written,
electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of
the author. The exception would be in the case of brief
quotations embodied. The gamification framewrok named
“Gamification Wheel” and the game named “Impact”, conceived
and designed by the author, are copyrighted contents.

3. 1. State of the art
2. Gamify to engage
3. Gamification Wheel
4. The voice of the experts
5. Playing at Kiva
6. Conclusions

4. What is crowdfunding?

5. 5
Crowd Campaign
Owner
Donation

6. 6
Crowd Campaign
Owner
Lending

7. 7
Crowd Campaign
Owner
Reward

8. 8
Crowd Campaign
Owner
Equity

9. Online Crowdfunding emerged in an
organised way in the wake of the 2008
financial crisis.
cf substitutes
Business angels?
Source Source: World Bank infoDev. Crowdfunding’s potential for the developing world. 2013. URL www.infoDev.org.
9

10. 10
$2.7Bn
2012
Source: Massolution. 2013cf - the crowdfunding industry report. 2013.

11. 11
+81%
2012
Source: Massolution. 2013cf - the crowdfunding industry report. 2013.

12. 12
1.1M Campaigns
2012
Source: Massolution. 2013cf - the crowdfunding industry report. 2013.

13. Source: Massolution. 2013cf - the crowdfunding industry report. 2013. 13

14. Source: World Bank infoDev. Crowdfunding’s potential for the developing world. 2013. URL www.infoDev.org. 14

15. $13M
in 52 days
Source: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryangrepper/coolest-cooler-21st-century-cooler-thats-actually?
ref=nav_search
Source 15

16. 16
$1.7M
in 40 days
Source: http://www.theoceancleanup.com/

17. Source: Massolution. 2013cf - the crowdfunding industry report. 2013. 17

18. What is philanthropic
crowdfunding?

19. food
education housing
transportation health retail
Source 19

20. 20
Project
example

21. but…

22. 22

23. On
Kiva…
1/3 of
users
never lent
Source: Yang Liu, Roy Chen, Yan Chen, Qiaozhu Mei, and Suzy Salib. "i loan because...": Understanding motivations for pro-social lending. In 23
Proceedings of the Fifth ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining, WSDM ’12.

24. On
Kiva…
16% of
lenders lent
only once
Source: Yang Liu, Roy Chen, Yan Chen, Qiaozhu Mei, and Suzy Salib. "i loan because...": Understanding motivations for pro-social lending. In 24
Proceedings of the Fifth ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining, WSDM ’12.

25. Why crowdfunding?

26. “I like to buy things
that I can play with.”
Source: Elizabeth M. Gerber and Julie Hui. Crowdfunding: Motivations and deterrents for participation. 26

27. “I like supporting people that I
feel have authentically good ideas
and maybe wouldn’t get
mainstream support from the
public.”
Source: Elizabeth M. Gerber and Julie Hui. Crowdfunding: Motivations and deterrents for participation. 27

28. “There’s definitely a sense
of community . . . some
sort of responsibility
[to support].”
Source: Elizabeth M. Gerber and Julie Hui. Crowdfunding: Motivations and deterrents for participation. 28

29. Why NOT crowdfunding?

30. “they often underestimate
the amount of time
it takes to get something
out.”
Source: Elizabeth M. Gerber and Julie Hui. Crowdfunding: Motivations and deterrents for participation. 30

31. How are platforms
engaging their users?

32. The strength of weak ties

33. 33
Facebook
Friends
Success
Probability
100 = 20%
1000 = 40%
Source: Ethan Mollick. The dynamics of crowdfunding: An exploratory study. Journal of Business
Venturing, 29(1):1 – 16, 2014.

34. Mobile is social, social is mobile

35. 35
Mobile experience
led to 33%
conversion rate.
Source: Jonathan Waddingham. The future of facebook fundraising. International Journal of Nonprofit
and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 18(3):187–191, 2013.

36. 36
Mobile users
shared twice
compared to
desktop devices.
Source: Jonathan Waddingham. The future of facebook fundraising. International Journal of Nonprofit
and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 18(3):187–191, 2013.

37. United we stand, divided we fall

38. 38
+ $31 /month
+ $16 /month
Source: Yang Liu, Roy Chen, Yan Chen, Qiaozhu Mei, and Suzy Salib. "i loan because...": Understanding
motivations for pro-social lending. In Proceedings of the Fifth ACM International Conference
on Web Search and Data Mining, WSDM ’12.

39. Telling stories to expand the impact

40. 40
Volunteers share their
experience on Kiva.
Source: Jolynna Sinanan. Lenders, borrowers and fellows: Personal narrative and social
entrepreneurship in online microfinance. In Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Australian
Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group: Design: Open 24/7, OZCHI ’09.

41. 41
Some key
engaging
elements.

42. What else could be engaging?

43. Games!

44. “A game is an opportunity to focus our
energy, with relentless optimism, at
something we’re good at (or getting better at)
and enjoy. In other words, gameplay is the
direct emotional opposite of depression.”
Jane McGonigal, “Reality is Broken”, http://janemcgonigal.com/my-book/ 44

45. The planet is
spending more
than 3Bn hours
a week gaming.
Jane McGonigal, “Reality is Broken”, http://janemcgonigal.com/my-book/ 45

46. 46
48% of players are women.
The Entertainment Software Association, http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/esa_ef_2014.pdf

47. 44% of gamers
play on their
smartphone.
The Entertainment Software Association, http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/esa_ef_2014.pdf 47

48. 48
Source: Leonard Reinecke. Games at work: The recreational use of computer games
during working hours. Cyberpsy., Behavior, and Soc. Networking, 12(4):461–465, 2009.
61% of
surveyed
CEOs, CFOs
and other
senior
executives
say
they take
daily game
breaks at
work.

49. “I want gaming to be something that
everybody does, because they
understand that games can be a real
solution to problems and a real source
of happiness.”
Jane McGonigal, “Reality is Broken”, http://janemcgonigal.com/my-book/ 49

50. Also known as “gamification”

51. 51
“The use of game design
elements in non-game
contexts.”
Source: Sebastian Deterding, Dan Dixon, Rilla Khaled, and Lennart Nacke. From game design elements
to gamefulness: Defining "gamification". In Proceedings of the 15th International Academic
MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, MindTrek ’11.

52. 52
“The process of making
activities more game-like.”
Source: Kevin Werbach. (re)defining gamification: A process approach. In Anna Spagnolli, Luca Chittaro,
and Luciano Gamberini, editors, Persuasive Technology, volume 8462 of Lecture Notes
in Computer Science, pages 266–272. Springer International Publishing, 2014.

53. http://www.thefuntheory.com/speed-camera-lottery-0 53

54. 54

55. 55

56. Average speed before the
experiment: 32 km/h
56

57. Average speed during the
experiment: 25 km/h
57

58. Reduction in speed of 22%!
58

59. Gamers are philanthropists

60. Incorrectly folded proteins
cause diseases like Alzheimer,
Mad Cow disease and many
cancers…
Source: Joachim Pietzsch. The importance of protein folding. 2003. 60

61. …Scientists need to study
how proteins fold in order to
figure out how to stop proteins
from misfolding but…
Source: Joachim Pietzsch. The importance of protein folding. 2003. 61

62. …it would take thirty years
to test all the different
combinations.
Source: Joachim Pietzsch. The importance of protein folding. 2003. 62

63. 63

64. In 3 weeks they achieved a
goal that scientists pursued
for 15 years.
64
Source: Dean Praetorius. Gamers decode aids protein that stumped researchers for 15 years in just 3
weeks. 2011.

65. www.playseeds.com 65

66. www.playseeds.com 66

67. How could we gamify
crowdfunding platforms?

68. 68

69. 69
What is the
organization today?
What is its mission?
What is the
business objective
to pursue?

70. 70
Which users can be
turned into gamers?
Which activities
add more value to the
organizational platform?

71. 71
What is the gamer
experience?
What are the required
resources to implement the
designed gamification system?

72. The Voice of the Experts

73. Rachel Cook,
Seeds founder
and CEO
73

74. 74
Benjamin Cole,
Product Lead
at Google

75. 75
Pablo Suarez,
Associate Director at Red Cross/
Red Crescent Climate Centre

76. About my research…
76

77. “building a community
around a social issue”
77
#1

78. “a sense of urgency is
needed to foster action”
78
#2

79. “users want immediate
feedback”
79
#3

80. “unpredictability can
pleasantly surprise users”
80
#4

81. About my framework…
81

82. “we would focus on action
more than specific KPIs”
82
#1

83. “organizations could ‘enter’ the
framework from different slices,
depending on their stage”
83
#2

84. “within an organization, the
product manager is the main
responsible of the gamification
framework”
84
#3

85. Let’s play at the
Gamification Wheel!

86. What is Kiva today?
What is its mission?

87. 87
“connect people through
lending to alleviate poverty”

88. 88
“Unlocking mobile, social and
gaming (which the site has not
really leveraged) could easily propel
Kiva to the $1 billion mark by 2015”
Source: Premal Shah, President of Kiva. http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/13/kiva-ceo-on-the-next-5-
years-and-why-zynga-is-their-biggest-rival-tctv/

89. What is the business objective
to pursue?

90. 90
0.014
0.025
average loans
per month
2014 2016
average loans
per month

91. Which users can be turned into
gamers?

92. Living in US
35 years old Woman
Profile
Owns a college
degree
Help others
Motivations
Something in
common
Different cultures
Share personal
fortune
Borrower details Behavior
Pictures
Accountability Loan terms
Source: 92 2https://cms.kiva.org.s3.amazonaws.com/kiva_lenders_faq_20130131_en.pdf

93. Which activities add more value
to Kiva?

94. 94
+ Coordination
+ Word of mouth

95. What is the gamer experience?

96. 96

103. What are the required
resources to implement the
designed gamification system?

104. 104
?

105. What I figured out…

106. 106

107. 107
Elements are just a mean to…

108. 108
…the process of making
activities more game-like.

109. 109
Crowdfunding
(4 weeks)
Game
(1 week)

110. 110
Gamification needs
for continuous
novelty

111. 111
The Gamification Wheel
for other crowdfunding
platforms?

112. “If building a real farm on Kiva can be as
compelling as building a virtual farm on
Facebook, then I think we have done our jobs
really well. . .”
Premal Shah, President of kiva.org
& Member of PayPal Mafia

113. Stopwatch by Scott Lewis from The Noun Project.
Smartphone by George Agpoon from The Noun Project.
Basket by mathies janssen from The Noun Project.
Trophy by Matthew Ryan Miller from The Noun Project.
Truck by Simon Child from The Noun Project.
Share by Arun Ganesh from The Noun Project.
First Aid by Katie M Westbrook from The Noun Project.
Community by Roger Cline from The Noun Project.
Dashboard by Dmitry Baranovskiy from The Noun Project.
Dice by Alex Fuller from The Noun Project.
oman by Kristin Poncek from The Noun Project.
Mountain Climbing by Juan Pablo Bravo from The Noun Project.
Holding Sign by Takao Umehara from The Noun Project.
Money Bag by Roman Trilo-Denysyuk from The Noun Project.
Network by Brennan Novak from The Noun Project.
Crowd by Shane Holley from The Noun Project.
User by Wilson Joseph from The Noun Project.
Graph by Filip Malinowski from The Noun Project.
Shapes by Nick Abrams from The Noun Project.
Percent by hunotika from The Noun Project.
Meeting by Dan Hetteix from The Noun Project.
People by Wilson Joseph from The Noun Project.
Icon by Joseph Pearce from The Noun Project.
Coins by im icons from The Noun Project.