Hidden Pursuits: Gaming for Good
Many recognize us for our emergency health interventions and our work against gender-based violence and malnutrition, but there's much more to the IRC! Our Hidden Pursuits series takes you behind the scenes to meet colleagues who are engaged in new, innovative, and unexpected work.
Today, we're excited to introduce Jason Gonzalez and Senka Filipovic from IRC's newly established Gaming Team. They discuss the transformative potential of gaming in humanitarian work, highlighting its capacity to engage and raise awareness for the IRC's mission. Discover how they collaborate with game developers to creatively fundraise for humanitarian causes, aiming to reach new global audiences through innovative strategies.
Jason and Senka at Gamescom 2023 in Germany to raise IRC’s brand awareness within the gaming industry and forge new partnerships.
Senka: I’m a former IRC client and refugee from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I have worked at the IRC for over nine years professionally. As part of the Global Corporate Partnerships team, I've developed and managed fun and impactful partnerships with companies such as Nike, Tripadvisor, Marriott and others, but now I get to explore the exciting world of the video game industry and its communities to support the IRC’s mission. I’m particularly excited at gaming industry’s perfect mix of leveraging fun, passion, and creativity to create positive social impact, inspire action, and build welcoming and inclusive communities through the power of games.
My favorite way to decompress after work is playing Super Smash Brothers.
Jason: I joined the IRC in January 2023 to fulfill the IRC’s first-ever Gaming Officer position under Senka’s leadership. I come from a long history working on corporate partnerships across the humanitarian sector as a fundraising professional. Before taking on my current role at the IRC, I led the production of high-level events and campaigns for UNICEF's innovative tech and health portfolio and helped initiate a global gaming strategy for Doctors Without Borders. My first experience at the IRC was being a student intern for our International Programs team and over the years I’ve also worked for the IRC’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Unit.
Favorite Games Growing Up?
Senka: My favorite game has long been Call of Duty. In addition to being a cool, engaging game, it also showed me the power of gaming two decades ago. I remember playing with my college roommates, who watched me play as if they were watching a movie. It highlighted how immersive gaming can be just by watching, and this was way before we had livestreams on platforms like Twitch and YouTube.
Jason: One of my fondest memories were of me playing Super Mario Brothers 3 on Super Nintendo with my family. These days, I love playing Pokémon Go – not only because it’s a partnership that I manage on behalf of the IRC, but because it’s a way to share with IRC colleagues, friends, and acquaintances the cool places that I visit. Sharing virtual postcards via the game is a unique way to feel more connected to people.
Gaming and Humanitarian work – how does it fit?
Senka: Many people might be confused about what video games have to do with humanitarian work because a lot of stereotypes continue to exist around gaming. However, the gaming industry and community are perfectly aligned with an organization like the IRC – they are global, diverse, dynamic, engaged, and extremely thoughtful about the state of the world. They are eager to use the full power of gaming – as an entertainment and social connections tool – to organize their communities and support charitable causes. They tend to be among the fastest partners to mobilize in response to global crises and that’s critical to an organization such as the IRC
Moreover, let’s remember that almost everyone out there is a gamer. It’s as simple as having a fun puzzle or word game on your phone. We are very focused on partnering with mobile game companies because they have an incredible reach and ability to inspire casual mobile gamers to give to charity and learn about causes through a single click on their phone. It’s really impressive and offers a lot of potential for the IRC to inspire new supporters around the world.
Jason: An interesting fact is that the inventor of the first-ever video game used on a television was Ralph Baer, who was a refugee from Nazi Germany. Baer and his family fled to the United States in 1938 to escape persecution. He is widely recognized as the "Father of Video Games" for his pioneering work in creating the first video game console for television sets.
Tell us how this effort got started and ways we’ve partnered with gaming companies to raise funds for humanitarian causes?
Senka: Gaming is a relatively new space for the IRC. This initiative started informally about two years ago when I was given the most amazing opportunity by our former Vice President to start exploring gaming and how we can engage in this space to support the IRC. We saw incredible interest from the gaming world, from companies and individual gamers, to support humanitarian initiatives. Gaming far transcends traditional philanthropy and offers so many incredible, cool opportunities to do good, but it’s important for us to continue to establish the IRC in the space and build long-term trust with gaming audiences.
Some cool examples include partnering with Bungie – studio behind the popular Destiny 2 game – and participating in some of their biggest community events and competitions like Game2Give and Guardian Games which raise funds for charities like the IRC. Recently we worked with Eneba, which created an entire IRC Charity Collection of gaming-related items that was sold to support the IRC, and they used their entire marketing mechanisms to give us exposure to tens of millions of people who use their platform to purchase their favorite games and game-related products.