quingo1

For a gamer, it’s pretty cool to rack up points on Candy Crush or Angry Birds. You can get your name on a global leaderboard, brag to your friends about the last level you beat and feel proud of your accomplishments.

But a new mobile title developed in Seattle provides a much different incentive to do well: charitable donations.

quingo12Quingo is a unique iPad game that allows people to play on their phones, accumulate points and then donate to one of six charities, five of which are Seattle-based. It was built by the folks at Game It Forward, a new development studio working on games that have a “positive impact on society.”

Here’s how it works: Quingo, a free-to-play combo of trivia and bingo, offers up six charities with different projects that you can donate to: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research CenterKivaPAWSSeattle Children’sSplash and The Martinez Foundation.

Game it Forward founders Morgan Belford and Brandon  Bozzi.
Game It Forward founders Morgan Belford and Brandon Bozzi.

Once you’ve selected the organization, you play Quingo. During this time, you’ll watch ads and make in-game purchases. The revenue generated from those ads and in-game items is split between Game It Forward and the charity partners. The more points you rack up, the more the charity makes.

The idea for Quingo was born at the company’s summit last year, which brought together game developers and non-profit execs to brainstorm ideas to use games for charitable causes.

Game It Forward was founded by Seattle game-developer Brandon Bozzi and Morgan Belford, who developed the popular Current Caller ID app for WhitePages and also built mobile social productivity tool Snikkr in 2008.

Editor’s note: You can also donate to the Seattle Children’s Research Institute when you buy your ticket to the Dec. 4 GeekWire Gala. More information here.

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