Great campaign for a great cause

Several months ago, I was having a great conversation with a friend about their aspirations with design. They had been researching a little about war propaganda and was seeing the impact that design had on these cultures for a specific, driven cause. Noticing how the industry can get so caught up in money, sales, and advertising meaningless products, she was trying to find a more fulfilling option. She believes that design can impact people for better and can be used to accomplish great things, socially, for the good of all. This kind of design, dedicated to the improvement of society is truly beautiful and rewarding. It's a very passionate, inspiring idea, which is why I love finding things like this:

Mashable has a great article about Urban Ministries of Durham (UMD), a nonprofit organization, is teaming up with McKinney, a local design agency in Durham, NC. The objective is to cause awareness about the homeless population in the area through social media campaigns such as Foursquare and this interactive online game, Spent.

The game is well designed, with nice typography and simple usage. It walks the player through a series of decisions that one would encounter if they lived on limited means, beginning with no job, no house, and $1000. How does it end? You decide. There are a few opportunities within the game to cause awareness on Facebook, and at the end, the player has the option to donate to UMD.

From the Mashable article:

The game, however, walks a fine line with tone. Non-profits constantly have to balance bumming out their audience with important facts and stats, and motivating that same audience to then donate or become engaged. SPENT seamlessly blends that information into the game. Your choices are met with great insights about how many people opt out of health insurance because of high premiums, how 44% of people living below the poverty line use public libraries to access the Internet or how in 2009, 50 million Americans lived in households that had a hard time getting food. These facts are made all the more powerful after you’ve had to weigh the options for yourself.

Jenny Nicholson, a copywriter at McKinney, is one of a handful of people that created the game and came from circumstances like the ones SPENT simulates. She says the game isn’t about disparaging the user but creating empathy: “You have to make the best decisions you can. The people that are in these situations don’t do this because they’re stupid but because they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

Here's more of McKinney's work for Urban Ministries of Durham.