Relief Charity Raises Money Via an Online Game

Nonprofit groups are beginning to embrace Second Life, an online game in which users can create virtual lives for themselves, reports the Guardian.

Save the Children’s British affiliate will become the first charity to use Second Life to raise money and awareness.

When Second Life users “sell out” of yaks in a program designed to provide the animals for Tibetan families, they will be able to travel to the game’s “Yak Shack” and pay 1,000 Linden dollars (the game currency, named after the company that conceived it) for their own virtual beasts. The fake money will be transferred into a Save the Children account at the current exchange rate of $3.50 to 1,000 Linden dollars.

A spokeswoman for the charity said the game would help it connect with an audience that was increasingly hard to reach. A recent Second Life event held to raise money for a cancer charity raised $40,000.