The first major fundraiser after launching the Social Impact Fund centered around League’s 1000th skin, Dawnbringer Karma. After a decade of releasing skins, Dawnbringer Karma was a major milestone for League and for Riot as a company. It was fitting for the skin to be for Karma, the kind and compassionate champion who empowers and protects allies.
League players showed out in force and even created a noticeable bump in Karma’s overall play rate. Between the skin and the bundle, players raised just over $6M for charity which was quite a bit more than we had thought was possible.
This campaign was also our first time giving players the ability to vote for charities in their own regions. Our regional offices identified three charities in their community and players voted for which one would receive the most money from the pool with every charity receiving at least $10,000. This has now become an annual tradition known as the Charity Voting Campaign. The support that players have given these campaigns also caught the attention of the industry when Dawnbringer Karma also earned Riot its second Golden Halo Award thanks to players’ collective efforts.
VALORANT’s First Give Back Bundle
The Riot Games Social Impact Fund was launched as part of L10, the celebration of League’s 10th anniversary. That was also when a slew of other games and projects were announced, including one particularly hyped tactical shooter codenamed Project A.
When Project A became VALORANT and released in 2020, the team began thinking about how they could give players their own unique way to contribute to the Social Impact Fund. The result was the VALORANT Give Back Bundle. For the first year, players voted to bring back some of their favorite skins with 50% of the proceeds from skins and 100% from accessories going to the fund. In their first major fundraising event, VALORANT nearly matched the 2021 campaign across the Runeterra-based titles by raising $5.5M for the fund in year one.
The Give Back Bundle has become an annual tradition and has raised nearly $15M over the last three years.
Arcane’s Community Grants
2021 saw the release of Arcane, our first foray into the world of television as Vi, Jinx, Jayce, and the world of Runeterra came to Netflix. Released in three weekly chapters, the campaign evolved with the show as we celebrated Progress Days alongside Piltover.
In honor of the Piltoverian holiday, players nominated charities around the world for a chance for their nonprofit of choice to receive a community grant through the Social Impact Fund. We received a staggering 19,000 charity submissions and our social impact and player support teams worked with our partners at ImpactAssets and GlobalGiving to identify 30 organizations to each receive a $10,000 grant.
We even had a little help from the voices of Caitlyn and Jayce in Arcane to announce the winning charities: