Our Generous In-World Community

By Greywolf Mornington

One of the great pleasures of my job as a reporter for the Second Times Newspaper has been my involvement with the various volunteer and charity groups that dot the Second Life landscape including Relay for Life, Virtual Helping Hands, Veterans Groups, Rape Crisis Scotland and Boomer Esiason Foundation for Cerebral Palsy for example.

“Whether you are a Mentor, Translator, Wiki expert or a helper in one of Second Life’s many awesome help groups, volunteers all have something in common. Each and every volunteer helps improve the lives and experiences of Second Life Residents in very powerful ways.” Said SL Liaison and Volunteer Specialist Lexie Linden.

American Cancer Society

“We all have our stories of our first day in Second Life. They are often memorable, maybe a bit funny and usually are touched by some kind of volunteer effort even if we didn’t realize it at the time. Some of these efforts are more visible, such as those volunteers who welcome new Residents in-world at the Help Islands and Welcome areas, everyone sharing their knowledge via Second Life Answers and those who flex their writing and editing chops in the Second Life Wiki. But, volunteers also do good deeds that are not immediately seen. These contributions have high impact as well.”

Plush Non-Profit Commons Center

We have an amazing power to harness as individuals in the Second Life community.  In 2008, Relay for Life received contributions totally about $250,000US for their fight against cancer. A contribution of merely 250L per month by an average of 70,000 residents, would generate over 210,000,000L (over $840,000US). The emergence of philanthropic interest in this brave new world is also a sign, experts say, of its growing popularity with older professionals—and their growing interest in conceiving ways to use this virtual space to attract younger consumers and ideas to their causes.

“This isn’t just some fad or something new and interesting that we’ve grabbed onto,” says Jonathan Fanton, president of the MacArthur Foundation, which has given the Center on Public Diplomacy of the University of Southern California $550,000 to stage events in Second Life, including discussions of how foundations can address issues like education. “Serious conversations take place in Second Life,” Fanton recently told The New York Times. “People are deeply engaged and that led us to think that maybe a major foundation ought to have a presence in the virtual world, as well.”

So should more charities, says Randall Moss, a technology strategist for the American Cancer Society, one of the first traditional nonprofits to raise money for a cause in Second Life. Moss established an avatar in Second Life in 2004—R.C. Mars (“it looks pretty much like me, maybe a little bit more muscular,” he says) and once there, in Second Life, he met another charity-active avatar named Jade Lily, and persuaded her to organize a virtual Relay for Life, as the cancer society’s annual walkathons are known. A couple hundred avatars did that walk in 2005, raising $5,100. About 1,000 avatars showed up in 2006 and raised $40,000. This year’s walk in July raised $115,000 from 1,700 participating avatars. “

Other regions exist for nonprofits to create a virtual toehold, most notably the forested Camp David-like SIM known as Commonwealth Island, which hosts small displays for a couple dozen environmental and political activism groups. Another region known as Better World Island is home to a gathering of international aid and awareness groups. Individual efforts within Second Life have included a virtual Camp Darfur, which lets residents experience what it is like to be a refugee; Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, a walk-through tour of a malfunctioning human heart created by the American Heart Association; a profitable “fly-a-thon” to support multiple sclerosis research, and the Common Grounds Non-Profit Center.