Five years ago, Dodd Caldwell saw the writing on the wall and shifted strategies. This year, the move paid off when social media giant Facebook recognized his idea – a mobile gaming app called Hunger Crunch that feeds hungry orphans – with its inaugural Social Good App of the Year award.
“It kind of came to me in the early days when there was a lot of arcade-style games,” said Caldwell, the 12-year volunteer president of Spartanburg-based orphan care nonprofit Rice Bowls. The nonprofit got its start in the 1980s by manufacturing, distributing and recollecting plastic coin and paper currency banks used as fundraising tools in the area.
“Obviously we knew going into the future that’s going to be less and less of the economy, so we wanted to have a way we could engage with kids and do the fundraising with them,” he said. “We looked at where kids were going to be more and more into the future, and for better or for worse, that’s in front of screens.”
So Caldwell set to work, enlisting the help of four people during the last two years to build Hunger Crunch, an iOS and now Android gaming mobile application that puts 100 percent of its profits from in-app purchases towards feeding orphaned children in eight countries around the world. The app allows the gamer to ride the virtual world of hunger, collecting candy coins at the end of each of the 12 levels. The app generates revenue by allowing players to use real money to buy candy coins in bulk, the profits of which go to orphanages.
“We thought, ‘Let’s do something that inspires and just introduces kids to this concept of the world being round and that there are people out there on the other side of it in need, and make kids feel empowered to do something about it,’” said developer Bryan Martin, who used his experience with advertising agencies and as a concept artist to help develop the game. “We know our game is not going to educate kids fully, but … we want to be the American Greetings card that introduces kids to the idea that there’s something they can do.”
The app – currently with between more than 10,000 downloads as of the end of March – was funded completely by a grant, meaning not a penny of the Rice Bowls budget went towards the mobile app, said Caldwell, who grew up in Spartanburg and also works full time with his software business. Building the app cost in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last three years, he said.
While kids are likely using their parents’ funds to make in-app purchases, Caldwell said the fact that the purchases go to charity has contributed to its success.
“That’s definitely part of the hook. It’s one thing to say I can buy this in-app purchase in a game that I’m playing, and another thing to say all the money I’m using is going towards feeding orphaned kids,” he said.
Going forward, Caldwell and his team will focus on something called tournament mode, which uses the competitive nature of Hunger Crunch to organize kids around larger-scale events.
“You can actually have an event, a Hunger Crunch competing event that puts middle school students versus high schoolers, or fourth grade versus fifth grade,” said Caldwell. Kids would need to purchase a tournament pass to enter in the competition, then would be able to spend additional funds while in the competition that would help their chances of winning.
“I think the tech ecosystem in Greenville and Spartanburg is growing as far as app development and Web-based software, so it’s really great to get some recognition for our community, especially through a name brand like Facebook,” said Caldwell.
