Alternate reality games as a tool for the 'street-wise' philanthropreneur

The core objective of philanthropreneurship is to increase the philanthropic impact of non-profit organizations. Traditionally non-profit organization solely depended on donations, grants, or other forms of charitable-giving. However this new generation of entrepreneurs prefers to invest rather than donate. Philanthropreneurs are active donors whose role surpasses that of check writers, rather they leverage their resources to achieve social change that is both scalable and sustainable.[4]

Effective altruism is going to produce better consequences than ineffective altruism. Philanthropreneurship is about producing lasting consequences, lasting benefits, by designing the organizational structure to be both sustainable and scalable. In other words helping people is a business which must remain profitable to continue to operate because revenue must exceed operational expenses.

Operating income is an accounting figure that measures the amount of profit realized from a business's operations, after deducting operating expenses such as cost of goods sold (COGS), wages and depreciation. Operating income takes a company's gross income, which is equivalent to revenue minus COGS, and subtracts all operating expenses and depreciation. A business's operating expenses are costs incurred from operating activities and include items such as office supplies, heat and electricity.

In life, in any activity, there are costs and benefits. In an activity which must be sustained, whether it is an organism, a business, or an altruistic operation, it must reach a point of sustainability. Sustainability is the point where it's got enough profit to continue operating into the foreseeable future. If we are talking about a blockchain project then it is sustainable if the development of the project is paid for going far into the future. An example of a sustainable blockchain project would be Dash.

Dash has an appropriate mechanism design which facilitates it's long term sustainability. If we were to think of Dash as a game then it is a game which can run as long as players are interested in playing it. The interest in playing the game can be expressed by the use of the token and is indicated by the market cap which is designed to rise as greater levels of participation are generated. So an example of a well thought out mechanism design could be Dash. Let's all remember to pay close attention to mechanism design and gamification.

ARGs for a better world

Philanthropreneurs can think of the ARG as just an organizing principle. The Alternate reality game can be centralized at the core run by a traditional organization such as a company, cooperative, social institution, or the game can be decentralized. The difference between a game and a DAPP is that a game utilizes the methods of gamification with the primary motivation of keeping the game fun for the players. As a result game designers take on a very utilitarian ethics where the success of the game can be partially considered to be the sum of happiness it generates for the players. A serious ARG would in addition to measuring it's success in the happiness it generates for it's players also consider the benefit the activities of the players is generating for the world as a side effect.

References

Web:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philanthropreneur