Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Virtual reality fundraising is quite real
This past weekend, the American Cancer Society held its third annual Relay For Life® in the Second Life virtual world. For those of you who don't know, Second Life® is a multiplayer 3D community on the Internet. Users create their own characters -- called avatars -- who build a virtual world, bustling with commerce, social interactions, and civic activities.
The Relay for Life event coincided with the Cancer Society's celebration of the recent opening of its virtual headquarters in Second Life. The new virtual building, which opened on June 1, is designed to provide the same cancer information and services to people in the virtual world as the organization provides in the non-virtual world.
Already we have existing peer-to-peer Second Life cancer support groups coming to us to use the facility and our resources. We are certain that going forward the community will find untold uses for our office space in terms of education, advocacy, fundraising and community support.
This quote is from the Society's manager of futuring and innovation-based strategies, Randal Moss. What I find fascinating about this story is that the Society even has a "manager of futuring and innovation-based strategies." I think it reflects the Society's understanding of the importance of engaging new media technologies in order to reach new audiences for its fund-raising and outreach efforts.
At our Spring Conference, we heard from Erin Edgerton--Content Lead for Interactive Media at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)--about the CDC's space in Second Life. It turns out the Cancer Society is the lead innovator in terms of health organizations establishing a presence in Second Life. John Anderton from the CDC credits a meeting with Moss as being "transformative."
I came to see [Second Life] as neither a fad nor a game, but as a social movement and a glimpse into the future of social interaction, learning, and even being. The blended reality aspect of real and virtual worlds is fascinating to me. I wanted to build a space that could both educate and foster/enable dialogue.
Anderton talks more about the CDC in Second Life here.