How Riot Games Partnered With Video Gamers Worldwide To Create $50 Million Of Impact For Good

Riot Games Social Impact Fund | Riot Games

As Riot Games celebrates the 15th anniversary of League of Legends, the company is launching "LoL Player Days" starting on October 9, 2024. This initiative is not just a celebration of players' journeys, but also a significant moment for the gaming giant to double down on its commitment to social good. The highlight of the event is Riot’s largest in-game fundraiser to date, offering a first-ever 3x match opportunity. From October 9 to October 28, for every purchase of the three exclusive Player Days Skins, Riot Games will contribute 100% of the proceeds, along with a triple match, to the Riot Games Social Impact Fund.

Jeffrey Burrell, Head of Social Impact & Sustainability at Riot Games | Riot Games

This monumental campaign comes at a time when the Social Impact Fund has already achieved an extraordinary milestone—raising over $50 million to date, all thanks to the generosity of Riot’s global player community. “The honor truly belongs to our players for pushing us to find new ways to engage them,” shared Jeffrey Burrell, Head of Social Impact & Sustainability at Riot Games, with whom I sat down to talk about gaming for good and how the Riot Games Social Impact Fund has grown over the years since we last talked. 

Since its inception in 2019, the Riot Games Social Impact Fund has become an essential part of Riot’s mission to empower its player community while making a tangible difference in the world. Burrell noted that the fund has evolved alongside Riot’s growing portfolio, expanding its impact efforts as the company reached new regions and brought millions of new players into its ecosystem and games.

“We’ve been able to create a successful model for our efforts running in-game fundraisers across all games on an annual basis and then pooling the money raised at the end of the year and donating it to hyper-local nonprofits operating in regions where our players live and supporting causes they’ve told us through survey data that they care most about,” Burrell explained. Players have now raised over $50 million for the fund, supporting more than 450 nonprofits across 28 regions worldwide. “That’s just mind-boggling to me from where we started a few years ago,” he added.

One of Riot’s challenges has been to adapt the Social Impact Fund’s initiatives across its diverse game portfolio. Each game, with its unique mechanics and community, requires tailored approaches to authentically create within that. 

VALORANT Give Back Bundle | Riot Games

Burrell highlighted how VALORANT, a tactical first-person shooter, didn’t have the same cosmetics model and player base as League of Legends, prompting the team to innovate to provide these players with a similar experience but through different mechanisms.

They introduced the “Give Back Bundle,” which allows players to vote on previous cosmetics that they want to see come back to the rotational shop, then the winning items are bundled together and 50% of those proceeds for a certain period of time benefit the Social Impact Fund. “We found that giving players a voice in what cosmetics were a part of the bundle increases their likelihood of wanting to purchase them therefore increasing the amount of money we can raise,” said Burrell. This strategy has proven to be a win-win: players get something they love while supporting causes that matter to them.

One of the most impactful ways Riot has engaged its player base is through charity voting campaigns that proved to be a successful model for hyper-local impact. The first such campaign, featuring Dawnbringer Karma, allowed players to vote on which nonprofits would receive the funds raised. It was a resounding success, with millions of players casting votes for local nonprofits in their regions. Since then, that campaign has grown as the Social Impact Fund has been able to add more nonprofits in more regions for players to vote to support.

“In our first charity voting campaign, more than 7 million players across the world voted for 46 local nonprofits across 15 regions, and in our 2023 voting campaign players across 28 regions each had the opportunity to vote for 1 of 3 nonprofits in their region that they wanted to receive 50% of that region’s pool and the other two organizations each received 25% but regardless of number of votes every single organization on the list was guaranteed to receive at least $10,000,” Burrell said. He emphasized that the power of these campaigns lies in how they spotlight hyper-local organizations, sometimes overlooked, in regions all around the world that are doing incredible work in their communities. This, in turn, drives website traffic to the nonprofits along with additional donations and even increases the number of volunteers they are seeing by highlighting them as a part of the campaign. It’s pretty incredible to see how players are going above and beyond to support these organizations outside of the game which is the real power of this type of work.

Riot Games is also finding innovative ways to integrate the Social Impact Fund into its esports events.  As the Fund continues to grow and evolve, it brings in partners to find creative ways to incorporate social impact into some of Riot’s biggest moments like the League of Legends World Championship. 

During last year’s tournament, Riot partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help bring awareness to the importance of expanding access to clean drinking water, and sanitation to people around the globe through a campaign called “Take the Drake for Water’s Sake”. The initiative, which supported Water.org, triggered donations every time an Ocean Drake was secured during a match. By the end of the tournament, $350,000 had been raised, providing clean water and sanitation access to 70,000 people worldwide.

Burrell reflected on the campaign’s success, “This was a great moment of synergy because we were able to support a cause area, clean water and sanitation, that our research shows our players care deeply about and incorporate it into an event that had 6.4 million peak concurrent viewers with the help of one of our partners.”

Riot Games Social Impact Fund Reaches $50M | Riot Games

Internally, the success of the Social Impact Fund is a source of immense pride for Riot Games’ employees. “Everything we do at Riot is for players and for the player experience. So when our players do amazing things like help us surpass the milestone of raising $50 million, it was a moment of collective pride,” said Burrell.

To celebrate this milestone, Riot gave each employee a $50 credit to donate to a nonprofit of their choice through the company’s donation matching platform. This gesture saw over 1,500 employees (Rioters) log in to donate, further emphasizing the company-wide commitment to social good.

As Riot Games embarks on its next chapter, with LoL Player Days marking a pivotal moment in both its anniversary celebration and its fundraising efforts, it’s clear that the company’s commitment to empowering players goes beyond the digital realm. The Social Impact Fund has become a testament to how gaming can be a force for good, channeling the power of the community to create real-world change.